In today’s show, I follow up on some things I brought up in last week’s episode, specifically, I’ll talk a bit about show notes and I’m also going to talk about knowing the terms and conditions of the services you’re using. I’ll also talk about a small experiment I’m doing with Buzzsprout (affiliate link), the platform where I’m hosting this show.
My own adventures: editing episode from a live conversation that had all been recorded on one track. It took me about 3hr to create a 50mins from a 1hr event. It had myself and Richard MacKinnon, and also the host of the event who read some questions from the chat, as well as contributed with questions and comments when we closed a section.
Let’s pick up from last weeks show. I talked about my decision about what kind of show ‘notes to create for the episode.
Here’s the section in Plan Your Podcast that talks about show notes:
Show Notes
Show notes have two functions: letting potential listeners know what the episode contains, and providing listeners with a roadmap of the content. An effective way of creating show notes is to prepare them before recording, and use them as a guide.
If you have segments in your episode, or distinct topics, provide time codes for the start of each section. This will help listeners who want to listen back to a specific section, or who want to share with others a few minutes of an episode.
Show notes are also the place where you remind listeners of any books, etc., you’ve recommended and where you share the links to articles or other online resources you’ve mentioned.
The show notes included in your RSS feed (those that you enter in the episode description in your podcast media host) can be as long or as short as you want them to be. Having said that, making them too long will increase the size of the file, which might be an issue for listeners downloading episodes instead of streaming them. Some shows have only a couple of sentences describing what the episode is about and then point the listener to a web page to access the full show notes. For 21st Century Work Life, we have a short set of show notes for the podcast apps, with time codes and links, and refer listeners to our website for those who require more detail.
I’ve invested quite a bit of money in having good show notes for 21st Century Work Life, which read more like a blog post than episode show notes. I do this because some listeners have remarked that they are the most impressive part of the show, so it helps us stand out. (I don’t know how I feel about that, as I don’t write them myself!) I also know that they help with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) because I get plenty of spam referring to them. This means that bots looking for relevant keywords are finding them online.
You can also consider having a transcript of your episode. You can use online services for this, although you will need to do some cleaning up of the text at your end. This might be a way of making your show notes more popular with search engines, and they can also be useful for deaf or hard-of-hearing audience members. Although, don’t assume that a transcript is always preferable to good show notes. In episode 75 of Podcast Envy, host Andrea Klunder shares anecdotal preference for well-crafted show notes, rather than straight transcripts.
In the last episode, I said I was going to try using a transcript. I won’t be doing this. I found that it still needs a lot of work to be turned into something pleasant to read (and I firmly believe that reading should be pleasant). Instead, I’ve decided to write a script. To lay down what I’m going to say before I record, and use an edited version of that as show notes. I can go off script of course, but it keeps me focused.
For those of you interested in tech, I’m writing these notes in my Remarkable tablet, by hand, which then turns it into type. It’s time consuming, but the process helps me both before, during and after the recording.
One other thing I wanted to follow up on: the account you need with Apple I referred to is Podcasts Connect.
As I said previously, make sure you have your own account, don’t let the third party open it with their own credentials.
Talking of podcast apps, I can confirm that I’m now in Google Podcasts and Amazon Music. When I search for my name on Amazon, which I sometimes do to check on my books, all my podcasts appear early on in the search, including this one.
My last tech type item: I’m trying the post-roll feature on Buzzprout, where you can upload a short piece of audio to be added at the end of the episodes. I’m not sure It’s working right now, but if it does, it will come in handy to advertise timely things like my one-one advice sessions. (go to)
As my last item today, I wanted to bring to your attention the terms and conditions of your media host. Have you read them? Do you know what you’re signing up to?
What about the terms and conditions of the destinations, or the apps where your episodes are appearing?
I’ll give you an example, Ghana, and Indian platform, has in its terms and conditions that you need to name them specifically, if you are referring your listeners to any other specific podcast apps. eg If you say, “you can listen on Apple Podcasts”, you need to say “and Ghana”, but if you say “find us on your favourite podcast app,” you don’t.
Your media host might also have some conditions you’re signed up to that you didn’t know about. The last thing you want to do is break your contract without knowing it.
And just in case you’re wondering how I came to think about this: it was prompted by episode 257 from Podcast Insider, hosted by the Bluberry guys, and released on 20 Aug 2021. The article they referred to, which I recommend you read, as it doesn’t just talk about some media hosts, but also places you’re likely to be using, like Amazon Music and YouTube is “Some unusual terms and conditions from podcast companies” from Oct 29,2019, updated 16 Aug 2021 and written by James Cidland.
And that’s the end of today’s show!
If you want to know, this script has taken over an hour to prepare and then about 20 minutes to turn into a blog post!
In the next episode, I’ll be talking about your ethical responsibilties as host – and other stuff. And then I’ll probably be talking about your intro and outro. So here’s my own outro:
And those are my thoughts and adventures for today. The important question is though: have you got any adventures to share? I’d love to hear from you and share your experiences with the other podcasters listening to this show. Get in touch –
And remember:
Keep podcasting.
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