How to Launch/Monetize a Podcast & Web Series at the same time
The how-to guide on how to create & monetize a podcast & web show
I think the best way to learn things is figure it out on your own and then share how you did it. I am happy to do this today after I was able to publish my webseries & podcast. I always get excited when I can do two things at the same time, so I am going to show you how to create both a web series & the podcast at the same time. This means doing a video interview, and leveraging the audio only for podcasts. It seemed a bit intimidating at 1st, but these days… anything is possible after simply just doing some research. Below is a step by step guide of how I was able to create a web series, which can also leverage the audio to publish to all the major.
Gear
You will need some specific equipment to make the experience & audio quality great for your viewers & listeners.
Lighting
No matter how much natural light you might have in your room, there are still side effects to the existing lighting that you have that can either cause unneeded glare, or creating a lighting experience that might have too much of a weird tint. What is helpful is this kit that you can buy on Amazon which comes with a bag and is very affordable. This will highlight your face when you are on camera and creates a much more bright ambiance. Most importantly, it will give your web series a professional touch.
Camera
The camera that comes by default with you laptop is usually decent, but if you spend a little more money, you can give your video content the full HD experience. This makes a huge difference when it comes to the first impression of if the video is a more professionally produced video or an amateur one. The Logitec 1080p webcam is a great start.
Microphone
Similar to the camera, the microphone also by default is not as good as a slightly better usb microphone. The Blue Yeti mic with a pop filter is by far a great solution to address this audio clarity issue.
Recruiting and Scheduling Interviews
Before you can record any content, you need to figure out (1) what your brand is (2) who your audience is (3) who will you interview (4) how do you convince people to join your podcast as an interviewee. Great ways to connect with interesting people are going to really cool events that are more intimate to build organic relationships. It is also great to leverage your existing network for warm intros. We are tribal in nature as humans, so it’s always great to be connected with someone through a common contact. Once you have people willing to join as a guest on your show, you are ready to execute. This means you will need to schedule an interview and make sure that this automatically records the video. ZOOM meeting has worked great for me especially when you upgrade to the pro version since this allows you to autorecord and store your videos in the cloud and also download the full video (for a web series) or just the audio (for a podcast). Below are a few screenshots of the download options and recording menu options. The for a web show, videos can be uploaded into all the major video hosting providers that are free like youtube & vimeo, but if you don’t want to be subject to ads and have control, you can look into wistia.com
Stock Background Music
Along with the great sounding voices that are on the track, you will want to spice up the sound of the track with some background music. The good news is there’s alot of sites that allow free and great sounding royalty free tracks that you can download and blend in to your track. The only thing you need to make sure you do is paste the attribution information that comes with the free song to give credit to the music creator. Here are some great sites to get free music (make sure you filter on royalty free).
https://www.free-stock-music.com/
https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/2
Edit the video in imovie
The power of iMovie is that you can upload the raw zoom meeting video file into it, and add/edit the video, theme music, transitions, etc..
When you are done, you can simply export to various channels, and then export the audio to put it into the Anchor Platform so that you can distribute it across all platforms
Hosting & Revenue from Ads
You want to make this as seamless as possible. To do this, you can explore various hosting providers which have pros and cons. I like Anchor, because the UI is easy to use, and they already set you up with advertisers who can be added to your podcast if you choose to do so.
Once you get your audio files in which easily drag and drop, you can split your podcast in certain areas so you can drop in an ad. Having the ad in the middle is called a mid-roll. Once the advertisers come in, you just read the script
Podcast info & Image
You can add your podcast info easily as you setup an episode. You will need to upload an image for the podcast & the podcast episode. Normally for each episode, people like to ad an image of the person. What is tricky is taking an image of a person and removing the background. But this tool here solves that super elegantly. https://www.remove.bg
I also recommend some type of editing software like photoshop or sketch to be able to create the image at the right dimensions like it was done here.
Once you get everything uploaded for the 1st time, it takes about 48 hours to publish to all major channels (Spotify, Apple, Google, Stitcher, and many others). You can see the status of how many platforms have been distributed on the Dashboard page.
Here’s a link to my podcast if you want to see the finished product: