Ear Worthy: Podcasting Tips, Podcast Trends, Interview With Podcasters & Podcast Reviews Just Published On Amazon

 Ear Worthy: Podcasting Tips, Podcast Trends, Interview With Podcasters & Podcast Reviews has just been published on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.

 Podcast enthusiasts are unique for several reasons. First, podcast fans can enjoy listening to their favorite podcasts and then devise a plan to launch their own podcast with a reasonable chance of success. By contrast, “Netflix and chill” fans typically do not watch a show on the streaming service and say, “Yep, I can do that, too with a smartphone camera and few bucks.”

          Second, podcasts can be consumed by the busiest of people and can insinuate themselves into the tiniest crevices of time. During your commute in the car or on the train /subway? While on your daily walk? Cleaning the kids’ bathroom and bedrooms (ick!)? Even during the endless Monday morning status meeting at work? Or while you’re stuck in front of your laptop at home doing remote work?

           Third, podcasts enable us to indulge the simmering curiosity in our minds. Want to know more about sewing? There’s a podcast for that. How about women in history? Check out the History Chicks podcast. Want to experience the grandeur of nature amid another brutally overscheduled day? National Geographic’s Overheard podcast puts you in that canoe on the Amazon River while grocery shopping. Had enough of screaming, tribal news networks assaulting you with their worldview, listen instead to a civilized debate about politics and our world with Left Right & Center or Intelligence Squared.

          This book is not podcasting for dummies or a historical treatise of podcasting from mp3 files to the present day. Instead, the book strives to accomplish a few modest goals.

          First, it will assist aspirational podcasters with tips and tools on developing, starting, and maintaining your podcast. The objective of this first section is to help you think about your podcast – whether it’s already on a podcast feed or still in your mind. Full disclosure: It’s not comprehensive, but it’s not meant to be.

          I have a friend who’s been planning to start a podcast for about four years. He’s read widely about the process and has watched hundreds of YouTube videos on the creation process. He’s undoubtedly far more knowledgable than many people who’ve started a podcast and learned as they go along.

          That friend doesn’t understand that, at some point, you actually have to create something and put it out there and then patch, fix, revise, repair, and improve.

          Just get started with your podcast. Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! is one of the most successful podcasts for over two decades. When the podcast celebrated its 20^th anniversary, the producers played recordings of the first shows. Those first shows? Not good! However, the show has continuously remade itself over two decades.

          Therefore, section one is all about helping you either get started with your podcast or re-tool your existing one.

          By contrast, Part Two tickles podcast listeners and podcasters' ears by discussing trends and commenting on industry developments. For many podcast followers, questions abound.

Why Podcasts Prove that Timing Is Everything? Podcasts attract “ears” because they’ve dived headfirst into the morass of timely topics, from racial justice to the pandemic.

 How Have Podcasts Changed In The Last Decade? Podcasts are longer. They are obsessed with true crime and have outgrown the reformatted radio show template.

  When Do We Know There Are Too Many Podcasts? There are well over two million podcasts, most of which are not active. When is “peak podcast?”

What if...Podcasts were around throughout U.S. History? An absurdist “what-if” about podcasts from the American Revolution to the present day.

Why Are True Crime Podcasts So Popular? Why has podcasting become the birth factory for true-crime podcasts?

What were the Top 20 Podcasts For November 2020? A snapshot in time. What podcast listeners believe are their favorite podcasts.

Part Three eavesdrops on influential podcasters as they reveal their thoughts on their podcasts, podcasting, and the creative scaffolding they’ve constructed for their successful podcasts.

In this part, we’ll hear from Wendi Zuckerman from Science Vs, and her take on the assault on science by some politicians and news networks. Journalist Áine Cain and lawyer Kevin Greenlee will guide us through the horror of murders at a Burger King and other retail locations on their podcast The Murder Sheet.

Before the pandemic ended most live performances with an audience present, Faith Smith from Slate organized live podcast performances for several years and opened up a new monetization avenue for podcasters.

Then we’ll revisit our talk with songwriter Charlie Harding and hear his insights on how he and musicologist Nate Sloan build their highly successful music podcast – Switched On Pop – into a podcasting powerhouse.

Other interviews include Mike Carruthers of Something You Should Know. Carruthers reveals how he transitioned from radio to podcasting and the right way to conduct a podcast interview.

In the fourth part of the book, we’ve assembled a sampling of podcast reviews we’ve published for various podcast publications. To be clear here, we’ve chosen these reviews not because these are the absolutely best podcasts on the “feeds” right now, but because they all offer an attribute that makes them valuable to podcasting as a medium and to the listeners.

          Consider how long The Nutrition Diva with Monica Reinagel has been dispensing solid and sage advice about nutrition and health for more than 500 episodes. Compare Reinagel’s insight and data-driven mind to TV’s Dr. Oz, who Congress has reprimanded for reckless and unsafe health advice.

          How about Twenty Thousand Hertz with Dallas Taylor? A podcast about ---- sound? Yet Taylor massages our ears in every episode with sonic narratives, such as the Ta-Dum! Music intro on Netflix, the Wilhelm Scream, Mel Blanc – the man of a thousand voices – and even the Up and Down tale of the Whoopee Cushion.

          In Part Five, we look ahead and ponder the future of podcasting and obsess over dangers – real or imagined.

          Finally, in Part Six, we recommend valuable podcast resources.

 You can purchase a copy of Ear Worthy here.