Meet Your Hosts

Well, hey friends, welcome to the Writing at the Red House podcast, where we gather at the table to break bread and tell tales with some of our favorite writers and creators who share their wisdom to help us all share our story. And I am welcoming back Roger Lipp. Roger, welcome back. Okay. And we are talking about podcasting. Now we, we talked about what you need as a DIY podcaster.

Roger (00:27.466)

Hoo hoo, so good to be here.

Kathleen Lipp (00:37.636)

your hardware needs, your software needs. And today we’re gonna talk a little bit more about how to get that podcast into the world. You’ve recorded the podcast, you’ve done the recording, you’ve had your guests, it’s amazing content. Okay, and now we need to get it into the world. So the first thing we have to do is edit that puppy. Now you talked about we use, what do we use for editing? What? Audacity, there we go.

Roger (01:05.268)

Audacity.

Kathleen Lipp (01:07.544)

So now it is ready to go. You’ve added music to it. You’ve done what you need to do. How do we get that literally into the world? We need a distribution, correct?

Roger (01:19.128)

So then.

Right, right. So our next step is to upload that audio file that we’ve just edited to the web somewhere. We use a service called Libsyn, that’s L-I-B-S-Y-N, in order to host that audio file. Again, we have good, better, best. And Libsyn…

is designed for hosting lots and lots of podcasts, gives you metrics about how’s, you know, download rates and all kinds of interesting things. So I think that’s worth the investment. Again, not a very expensive investment. But if you wanted to save some pennies, you can host that file on your own website. If you’ve already got a WordPress site, you can just drop that into your WordPress blog.

Uh, you know, with just like you would a picture, you can attach an audio file. Don’t recommend that. Um, but you can do it. The problem is if you become successful and your podcast becomes popular, um, now you risk, uh, excuse me. Now you risk that your, uh, web host provider, uh, blue host, go daddy, whoever you’re using.

Um, may cut you off because they don’t, they don’t like that, you know, larger download quantity going through a WordPress site. So I would suggest even on a budget, if you intend to do this for a long period of time, go with a provider like Libsyn. I think they have tier tiered levels of service depending on how many hours and how many shows you, you upload, et cetera.

Kathleen Lipp (02:54.477)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roger (03:21.946)

So find a level there that is within your budget and meets your needs. Because I want you to bet on yourself, bet on your own success.

Kathleen Lipp (03:32.556)

Yeah, yeah. So I’ll tell you a couple other things that you don’t necessarily need, but we use in our podcast production. One thing is Canva. We use Canva when we’re creating graphics to share with the world on social media and in our newsletter, our blog, that kind of thing. And so think about,

you know, and by the way, there there’s a free version of Canva. And we also use Trello, which has a free version. And that’s more for organizing our podcasting process, which you could do really with a spreadsheet if you needed to. But can I tell people why Trello might be a better option for them when it comes to organizing your podcast process?

Roger (04:29.39)

Sure. So we use Trello because we have multiple people involved. We have editors. We have copy folks who actually create our WordPress blog, which is our show notes. We have folks that manage that entire process. So there’s probably three hands that touch, maybe four.

that touch different things along the way. And Trello very easily and beautifully coordinates their activities. We’ve been using Trello for all kinds of different projects. It’s a visual way of organizing tasks or projects. And it maps beautifully to a podcast production or any kind of a production flow that just kind of repeats itself. So it’s a natural fit for

podcast and really works very cleanly. If you’re doing it by yourself, now this is DIY and you don’t have two or three or four people helping. Trello is a little less helpful, but I would say it’s still not entirely unhelpful, right? Because you do need a place to keep notes for each podcast. And if you’re doing a weekly podcast like we do,

Kathleen Lipp (05:36.208)

Mm-hmm.

Kathleen Lipp (05:47.066)

Right.

Roger (05:57.526)

Those darn weeks happen every week. That’s another one. And you have overlap in terms of your planning and the execution, right? You’re making arrangements for guests four weeks out, and maybe you’re gathering up information and doing a little bit of research on your guest at three weeks out.

Kathleen Lipp (06:00.236)

It’s really frustrating every seven days.

Mm-hmm

Roger (06:23.262)

And at two weeks, maybe you’re starting to get a little artwork together or whatever, you know, whatever your own plan is going to be in order to make that weekly podcast work. And that means there’s a lot of things happening at the same time for different podcasts. And Trello keeps track of not only the state of each podcast, you know, what am I supposed to be doing for this podcast today, but also a place to put

Kathleen Lipp (06:39.183)

No.

Roger (06:50.854)

all of that information that you’re accumulating. Hey, this guest is scheduled for this time. Here is the artwork I’m using. Here is the questions I wanna ask the guest. It gives you a place to just keep all of that very cleanly and neatly associated with each podcast. So, you know, I think it’s most beneficial in a team context, but it’s also very helpful in a solo context too.

Kathleen Lipp (07:19.912)

Yeah, you know, and thinking about when you’re doing it yourself, trying to keep your processes as simple as possible. There are a million things you can do on each podcast to make it better, to make it, but you know, I don’t want to say you want to turn and burn, but here is what I will say. Either keep it really simple, get help, or publish less frequently.

You know, we talk about in engineering, one of our favorite things that you and I talk about because I do so much with engineering is better, cheaper, faster, right? So cheaper is doing it yourself. Better is improving the quality and faster is publishing every single week. Pick two out of three. You can’t do all three. You have to figure out where you’re gonna pull back.

in that process. So maybe you’re keeping it really simple. Maybe you have the same co-host every week because part of the complexity of doing a podcast is having new guests all the time. So I have about six guests on each of my podcasts. They’re kind of regulars and then I fit in new ones all the time. The other thing is I have people helping me with my podcast.

So, you know, not only do we have kind of a complex podcast, but we also publish very frequently. So if you’re gonna plan to do that, you’re gonna need some help. If you don’t have help, if you’re doing it all yourself, either keep it super simple or publish less frequently. And I think both of those are really, really important ideas.

Roger (09:17.058)

So, you know, I think about where we were when we started and the quality of the podcast that we first put out. And it was good. But it’s not the same as it is today. So you know, it is much better today. And it’s much more consistent today. I think it was decent in the past, but it wasn’t necessarily as consistent. So there were a lot more highs and lows.

Kathleen Lipp (09:22.826)

Mm-hmm.

Kathleen Lipp (09:27.596)

Right. Yeah.

No, no, it’s much better today

Yeah. Yes.

Kathleen Lipp (09:46.296)

Well, I think the people who were listening to the podcast in the early days were listening because they connected with me. And now, and so they were not listening to eight podcasts a week. And now people are listening to eight, 10, sometimes 20 podcasts a week. And you know, there are, I mean, you think about it, there are very famous people who are paying a lot of money

to huge producers to publish their podcast. We had to up our game to even compete. And we have upped our game, but we had to.

Roger (10:29.55)

But we had to grow into it too. You know, it would be very challenging to start at a very high level of quality. So I think it’s reasonable for our listeners to not have so high expectations with their delivered quality that they can’t get started. You know, it’s okay to start somewhere and then grow.

Kathleen Lipp (10:31.682)

Yes.

Kathleen Lipp (10:36.1)

at our level. Yes.

Kathleen Lipp (10:53.08)

Right, 100%.

Yes. And here’s another thing that I would recommend. If you are starting now, I would say record eight podcasts before you even publish one. Because you need a learning curve. You need to have that first podcast and you edit it. And let’s be honest, you may pitch that first podcast. By the time you get to number eight, you’re like, oh, I’m so much better than I was.

but give yourself some run-up because here’s what I know. Just because you start a podcast doesn’t mean life stops for the podcast. And so we try to record at least a month in advance. During the holidays, it’s two months in advance so that our team has time to edit and put things together and really come up with a schedule. And with so many hands touching it, you need that.

We are not paying people like the smart list podcast who they they, you know, they record on Tuesday, they’re publishing the next Tuesday. No, because this is nobody’s full time job. But if you have a podcast with millions of listeners, it can be your full time job. You know, Roger, we’re talking about this as DIY. Probably people are doing that to save money. But.

If you wanted to start with the real basics, you know, with riverside, with audacity, how much are we talking a month that you could get away with budget wise? Do you think somebody could do a podcast for under $50 a month if they had the equipment that they needed?

Roger (12:41.662)

Oh, 100%. I think you could, I’d have to pull out a spreadsheet, but I suspect you could get by with 20 bucks a month. Well, in fact, I know you can do a podcast for free. You don’t need to spend anything above what you are already spending for I’m assuming you have a website, etc. So that is 100% possible just to dip your feet into it.

Kathleen Lipp (12:43.127)

Okay.

Kathleen Lipp (12:50.808)

Okay.

Kathleen Lipp (12:56.286)

Right.

Kathleen Lipp (13:01.27)

Yeah.

Roger (13:11.158)

But I would recommend Libsyn as being kind of the minimum investment.

Kathleen Lipp (13:15.077)

Yeah.

Yeah, there’s a triangulation of money, time, and energy. And then actually, let’s say a quadrant of impact because you don’t want to do a podcast just for yourself and your mom. You want it to get to people. And so, you know, and also there’s another factor in their talent. How tech savvy are you? Because if you’re tech savvy and you really love doing that, then yes, you can do it for free, but.

uh, Libsyn is going to get you in front of more people and, uh, the, you know, it, it gets you so that you can be in Apple podcasts and in Spotify and things like that. I don’t know if you can do that if you’re posting it on your own website, right? Oh, you can. Okay. Well, that is for somebody smarter than I am. Uh, anything that you feel like we should have.

Roger (14:06.954)

Yes, you can.

Kathleen Lipp (14:16.956)

said here that we didn’t. I will say, I’ll give my tip and then yours. If you can find a co-host to record with at least half of the time when you’re starting, I think that’s going to make it a lot easier on you. Somebody who maybe doesn’t want to do all the behind the scenes but would be an engaging person to talk to. That’s going to…

because there’s a lot of people, you book them for an episode, something falls through, you have to come up with something else, da da. So if you can streamline your booking process by having a co-host part of the time, that’s gonna help a lot. What’s a tip from you, Raj?

Roger (15:01.57)

So I think in the DIY context where you’re really trying to just do everything as much as you can on your own, I think knowing the AI tools, knowing how to use them, and knowing what you’re comfortable with in terms of their use. So that could be very, very beneficial.

Kathleen Lipp (15:20.024)

Yeah.

Kathleen Lipp (15:25.196)

Yeah, we’re using Cast Magic. And again, that’s not free, but that has helped with some of our, you know, show descriptions, things like that. So something to really think about and consider, go play with Cast Magic and see if that’s something that would be helpful to you. It’s very helpful to us. Roger, thanks so much for hanging out. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Roger (15:45.778)

Even using, sorry, I was just going to say, even using chat GPT to help with some outlining, to prepare for your guests could be very beneficial and time saving.

Kathleen Lipp (15:52.997)

Yeah.

Kathleen Lipp (15:59.936)

I love it. Roger, thanks for hanging out with us today. And friends, thank you for hanging out with us. You’ve been listening to the Writing at the Red House podcast. I’m Kathy Lipp. Now, go share your only you story of God’s extravagant love in your life.

Roger (16:03.746)

Always a pleasure.