Today’s show is all about, yes, whether you can make money through podcasting.
Pilar has made a bit, but not proper money.
She mentions Entrepreneurs on Fire, as the first show she heard was turned into a business. Do you remember that?
Sponsorship is also a common way for shows to bring in some cash, as well as through membership sites like Patreon. You can hear past guest Matt Gilhooly talk about how he uses Patreon in episode 35.
Recommended podcasts for today:
The Creative Penn with Joanna Penn. It’s a must listen for indie authors, but also interesting for any podcaster to hear the rapport that Joanna has with her audience during her solo sections.
The Tim Ferriss Show, in particular this episode: https://tim.blog/2023/10/19/apollo-robbins/
If you’re thinking of starting your own podcasting adventure, I recommend Buzzsprout as host – click here for my affiliate link, which also gets you a little discount, and Riverside FM for recording, which you can access through this other affiliate link.
TRANSCRIPT
Hello podcasters. Welcome to my little podcasting corner from where I can join you in your podcasting adventures and from where I can share mine. This is Adventures in Podcasting.
I’m your host Pilar Orti and I’ve just decided to do this intro again because I really miss it. I have to say that I am podcasting at the moment daily and therefore I am not including an intro. What I need to look at is whether in my host Buzzsprout as well as having an outro, I can add the intro here.
So I will look at that and experiment. Talking of which, I always forget to say after that episode on Calls to Action that if you’re looking for a podcast host for your podcast, by which I mean not host as in like me, but for hosting the media, I recommend Busprout, that’s Buzzsprout and I have an affiliate link which I will put in the show notes. And if you are recording with someone else, Riverside FM is a great platform and I’ve got an affiliate code for them too.
They are not sponsors, but I have affiliate codes for them. So, episode 46 this is it. This is day eight of NaPodPoMo where I am podcasting daily.
Myself and other people decided to podcast daily in November. Because November is a weird month. today, I thought I would ask the question is there money in podcasting? I think the question maybe should be what kind of money is there in podcasting? Or where does the money come from in podcasting? Because the answer is broad. Is there money in podcasting? Yes.
Is there money in podcasting for absolutely everyone? No. Is the money in podcasting from the podcast itself? Very little. Unless you are very famous, have very high profile, or are an absolute workaholic, or have the time and energy to work solidly for I don’t know how many months, focusing solely on getting your show out.
I would love to hear other opinions about this, but I will tell you now why I think all of this. So I have been podcasting, I think now since 2011, doing different things and the only way I’ve brought some income in directly through the act of either being behind a microphone or being behind a microphone and producing the show or both.
Yes, that makes sense two ways. One has been through some sponsorship that I had on 21st Century Work Life for a little while. It wasn’t much, but it covered a little bit well, it covered the media host fees and a little bit more.
Then there was a kind of sponsorship, but I call it more of a collaboration contribution, which was with Shield Geo for our connection and disconnection in Remote Team series. I talked about that when I talked about putting things out there a couple of episodes ago and finally I am still earning a little bit of income as a co host in My Pocket Psych.
So I would love to do more of those co hosting gigs, because I just turn up and I talk, I listen, I talk and I play a part. I play a part in My Pocket Psych.
I play the part of the voice of the people. To Richard, who is the credible psychologist, and he leads the show. I don’t do every episode with him. Sometimes he brings guests on, like proper psychologists, not me, who just has opinions on stuff. But I think well, I hope I still add value. He still hasn’t fired me.
Although sometimes when you let go of someone, it doesn’t mean that they’re not valuable. It just means you go in a different direction. So at some point, Richard might say that and he’ll be okay.
We’ve also become friends, which is really nice, and we’ve worked on other stuff, so that’s how I make that. Of course, like many business owners who’ve used podcasts to put themselves out there and put their business out there, I’m sure that I have gained clients who have then given me work because they’ve either met me through the podcast or learned more about me through the podcast. So there you go.
It is part of content marketing, but going back to this thing about if you want to make money with the show, you’ve got to put in a lot of time and money. I’m going back to do you remember if you’ve been in the space long enough? Entrepreneurs on fire. What was his name? John Lee Dumas.
That was so hot, so big. And he built a whole business around that. But for one, he had money to invest.
It wasn’t just him at home doing all his stuff, he had money to invest. Like in any business, if you want to make money from podcasting and proper money, not bits and pieces like me, then you’ve got to treat it as a business. And starting a business often involves investing some kind of money.
Doesn’t mean you have to borrow it, but you need to invest. The other thing was that this person was working on this show 24/7. He was batch recording, I think at least when I listened at some point to how he was working on it, he’d batch record for one day, interview after interview after interview, releasing daily.
She says, going, I’m releasing daily now. Ten minutes on my own is a lot of work. He was doing that and then, of course, everything that goes around it.
He also started at a time when there weren’t 10,000 episodes sorry, podcasts you could listen to. So there was a big space for someone like him to come and inspire, to share stories from all kinds of entrepreneurs. I don’t know how he worked on the interviews, but I do know he had lots of stock questions.
And then he is, if you like his style, he’s good. I listened to one with Mike Russell, actually, and Izabella who I talked about in yesterday’s episode. Also listened to one where my friendly said guessed it.
It was such a big deal for her because she was such a fan of the show and podcasters. If you are already podcasting, and if you’ve been asked on other people’s shows, you know, it’s great to appear on other people’s shows, but if they’re also someone that you listen to, it’s amazing. I need to get myself onto some shows of my heroes.
We’ll see. Really interesting when I listen back. We’ll see if you can hear that motorbike that went through.
Now we’ll see. So you’ve got to work very, very hard, like with other business. Then, of course, if you have the audience, if you are Tim Ferriss, or if you are Carl Newport, I’ll talk about them.
Or if you are, I imagine, Michelle Obama. I don’t listen to her show, but I listen to Tim Ferriss and Carl Newport. They’ve got adverts.
And I don’t know, Carl Newport, in the middle of his show, just reads out all these adverts that are, I don’t know, for me, sometimes completely irrelevant to the show. But he’s got the audience, so he’s got adverts that are very general. And the same with Tim Ferriss.
I think he’s got his adverts at the beginning of the show. I can’t remember now. So, yeah, I mean, I had sponsorship once, and it was really easy to include the read, and I just made it part of the conversation with my co host.
And at some point I asked them if they could give us some tips about remote working, because they were also a remote company. So I think if you’re going to have some kind of sponsorship or advertising, make it as relevant as you can to your audience, please go, especially when you’re starting, go very niche and make something of it. Make something of it.
And yeah, I’ve had some offers for sponsorship for some products that are relevant to remote workers. And one, I tried to pursue it until I got to the point where they needed to get back to me, and I think I was asking for too much money and too much work from their end. In fact, this is the third one, the third time this has happened.
So I always do that because what you don’t want is for sponsorship to turn out into a whole chore. And then I also turned down another one because I don’t use their product. And I just didn’t feel it was going to really sound like I was endorsing it and I didn’t want to.
And then I had another, a couple more, actually. I’ve had a few offers, none from Trello, who I love and I use every day, but I did have another couple from just platforms or products or services that I don’t use. And I didn’t know.
So that’s not going in. I’ve tried to support people in different ways. If they need support.
Not that I have a huge audience anyway, but yeah, it’s good to be asked. It’s very nice to be asked. So that’s for sponsorship.
The other way in which many podcasters are making some money for their show is through Patreon. And this might feel like quite a I don’t know, maybe it’s just me feeling like it’s quite an old fashioned way, but I think it seems to be working. Look at that.
I’m going to go over ten I can’t believe I’m going to go over the ten minutes today talking about making money in podcasting. This is very ironic. So Patreon, if you haven’t heard of it, is a platform where usually artists, and that includes podcasters and writers, comic artists, et cetera, set up a platform where you can support them every month.
And there’s different tiers, so there’s different kinds of memberships and they do something in return. Basically, they’re coming in, you’re their fan base. It comes from patron, from when there used to be patrons who just gave money to artists.
But there is sometimes an explicit, sometimes an implicit arrangement that they give you something extra for supporting them with cash. And one person that does this incredibly well and who has raised her profile a lot is Joanna Penn from The Creative Penn. And I’ve been a patron of hers for ages.
The reason I’m a patron of hers is I’ve been listening to her for a very long time and she also does some question and answer Q A, so you can ask her questions, which she replies to in a monthly Q and A. And now she started to do videos about AI because she’s really into it. So she’s someone who’s really thought, I think she must have like 800 patrons, which is quite a lot, and she must have thought, this is working, let me give them more.
And of course, the more you give, the more you’re going to get back. And she seems to be putting a lot of effort into that sometimes. For example, Matt Gilhooly who was in episode 35 in this show, he creates new episodes for the patrons.
He talks in his podcast, The Life Shift. He talks about life events that have shifted people’s lives and they’re quite deep. I mean, it’s very intense show.
And then, if I remember correctly, he explained in the show, in Adventures in Podcasting, when he guested, I think he explained how he then brings the guests back sometime after and then records with them for the patrons about how it felt, how it was, how life has been since they came on the show. Because sometimes these people, they’ve never been on a podcast, they’ve definitely never shared a very intimate part of their lives with an audience in this way. So I imagine that must be very interesting and something that if you like the show as a patron for a couple of quid, probably, or a couple of whatever currency you’re using, it won’t feel very much and you’ll be getting a lot.
So I think that’s it. I will talk at some point of I have thought of teaching others how to podcast, but to be honest, I just want to podcast. I don’t want to teach.
Although if you want any coaching, I will give you a bit of coaching and I will charge because I think that it’s important to know where our value is and not be shy about charging for it. Yeah. At the same time, if you have a question for me, just send it through.
Right, two podcast recommendations for you today. I’ve mentioned both shows already, The Creative Penn, which is the show by Joanna Penn for mainly writers, independent indie writers. But have a listen whether you’re interested in writing or not, because something that she needs to come on this show.
But she won’t go to a show until we hit episode 50. So hopefully after the Napot pomo, she can come and talk to us here. She guessed it in 21st Century work Life some time ago, but what she does now so she’s been gone from podcast, weekly podcast every other week.
Do I want to stop podcasting? And finally she asked the audience. Most of us said we really like it when you talk to us on your own. We like the interviews, it’s great to have guests, but we are here for you, most of us.
So what she does now, she has 1 hour long episodes over 1 hour and the first 20 minutes or so, it’s updates from the industry where she gives her take on what’s going on, as well as informing us. See how I’m saying us? She’s building community really well just through the podcast. And also she also has her own personal updates, which are really interesting because we’re all either writers or aspiring writers.
We love to hear what she’s up to. It is absolutely wonderful. So if you’re not into writing, just give it a listen.
Have a listen to some of the different kinds of episodes she does and have a look at her patreon Page the other show I’ve already mentioned is the Tim Ferriss Show. I really like it and in particular I want to recommend one where he talked to a professional pick pocketer. I’m going to leave it like that.
It’s not as dodgy as it sounds, but it’s very interesting what this guy does. And it’s the episode from the 19 October 2023 with Apollo Robbins. So I’ll leave you with those two shows.