How To Create a Podcast People Actually Want to Hear

The Podcast Life is a newsletter by Deanna Chapman that helps you create a great podcast.

This week is a fun episode with Eric Silver to dive into podcast development. Check it out below on YouTube or on your audio platform of choice.

Eric’s Podcasting Pet Peeve

What you won’t hear in the episode though, is the question I asked Eric that wasn’t about podcast development. Just for newsletter readers, I asked Eric what his biggest pet peeve in podcasting is. Here’s what he had to say (edited and condensed for clarity):

“There's so many things that bother me about podcasting as someone who has loved this medium so much as a listener and as a creator, so much bothers me about it. Taking it seriously is a big one. Trying your best is kind of important if you wanna do well.

I'm very frustrated with how tech is trying to tell everyone podcasting is YouTubing and I don't know if you've ever had a conversation with a YouTuber, but they say YouTube fucking sucks. That's why everyone's retiring or making documentary length videos once a year and, and having their patrons support that as they make that thing for the year.

I'm looking at you Defunctland. I'm looking at you Hbomberguy. It's not a welcoming medium. It's really not. I think on one side, unless like you find your people who, who wanna do the same stuff as you. It's like you have Joe Rogan and manosphere people on that side who kind of smell the money in the water. The blood in the water in half for a long time. You know, Joe Rogan Alex Cooper, any of those people who got so much money.

And then on the other side of like the single, most pretentious people you've ever met in your entire life. And they want you to know that they're smarter and better than you because they got paid $200,000 to make four episodes of a limited series. So it's just hard. My pet peeve is I wish more people took podcasting seriously.

It's a split mind sort of thing. You're in this liminal space between people love hangout shows, people have a parasocial relationship with the hosts and it's “easier” to make a show like that than television or a beautiful limited series, but it's also the backbone of the industry.

You can just look at Patreon. You can just look at Grafton and see how goddamn good these shows are doing. On the other hand, you can still try really hard and do a good job at something that seems “easy.” You can. And that's the only way you're gonna break through when there's so much podcast detritus around.

I just want people to care about this medium and do a good job, even if it seems relatively easy. And also, let's keep something audio only. Let's make sure that we can edit an audio instead of just seeding all of this to YouTube.

That would be nice. We have to make a decision about whether or not we're allowed to edit audio anymore. If we're gonna release the video version, like we're kneecapping the thing that makes audio, audio.

The thing that makes podcasting, podcasting, is that it was an audio first medium and we're we're being convinced by YouTube that a podcast is any talk show where you can see the microphone in the frame, right? Yeah. Like I'm not a, I'm not a Luddite. I am here, I bought a 4K webcam off of Facebook marketplace. I met a guy in Queens at a 7-Eleven parking lot and he gave me that camera for $60. I'm not an idiot, but I also want to be able to edit my audio well, instead of just seeding it to a platform that no one has liked for 15 years.”

Coming Up

Next week, I’ll be back with my breakdown of Acquired.

If you enjoyed this newsletter and really want to level up your podcast, I interview the smartest people in the business. I’m always looking for the best ways to help you grow your podcast. So be sure to subscribe and share this with a friend! And if there’s something you’d like to see covered, reply to this email.