Public Speaking

Virtual Cons Are Just As Exhausting

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 2 Comments

Well. I ran social media, did tech support/moderation, was on panels, and attended panels all this past weekend.

It was definitely a bit much.

Thursday

I still had my day-job, but after I signed off, my evening was all the last minute prep.

A donation for advertising gave me the go-ahead for some facebook ads on Thursday night. So, I tossed half the money at boosting the ‘Where to find Virtual Balticon’ post, and half at a short slide show, inviting people to the event. We got several thousand views, and a couple hundred engagements — including 5 or 6 people accusing us of spamming them (and my ‘Sorry. fb algorithms are unpredictable’ response led to the complainers accusing me of being a bot. But seriously, if they weren’t going to reply to each other’s ‘spam’ accusation comments, how was I supposed to know they were reading ANY of the comments. I didn’t see a reason to reword my answer to the same exact complaint if they didn’t see fit to reword the complaint).

Then again, we still had plenty of people — many regular Balticon members — that said they didn’t hear about it until half-way through — or after it was all done. Somehow my own mother, despite listening to me ramble about this con on numerous occasions, missed that it was going to be free. *facepalm*

Social media only works so well — and you can only communicate to the people who are on and looking.

Before bed on Thursday, I also scheduled hourly reminders of each panel with links to register. I finished about 4am, after 3 tag-ups with different team members after 11pm.

Friday

Friday morning was helping people log on, and making the moderation schedule (tech had said they would do it, but several emergencies meant they ran out of time).

I’ve never seen Opening Ceremonies before, but when I watched it, I got that ‘It’s Go Time’ feeling, just like I do at a physical con. Only alone. And in silence in my own house. It was very surreal.

I wanted to see all the panels like I normally do, but couldn’t stop myself from making sure everything was still running smoothly on Discord. And helping people sort out how to log-on and talking them through any technical issues.

I have some partial notes from… wow! 11 of the 13 panels/presentations I hit. I didn’t think I did that well.

At first, I tried to get the screenshots from all the techs and post them during the first 10 minutes of the next hour… It only took me 2 hours to give up on that level of perfectionism.

With panels only running until 10pm, I decided I’d just wait until AFTER the last panel of the day, and batch process them. Sure, it wasn’t quite as lively for the social media feed, but they were already getting the hourly schedule. There’s trying to make things convenient for people, and then there’s flooding them.

On Friday, I only hit one panel that I tried to take notes on: the 6pm Writing For Themed Anthologies. The other two, Bad Book Covers and This Kaiju Life LIVE were presentations — or performances — I could just enjoy. Plus? They were after dinner, so the tech support had slowed down by then.

After the final panel, I hit a Discord party or two, hanging out and chatting with con attendees, just like hitting a room party at a con. Only, you had to bring your own drink and snacks. While there, I prepped and posted all the screenshot images, and headed off to bed by 3am.

Saturday

I woke and caught up on the Discord threads and social media before logging onto the 10am You Can’t Shop at Target in Middle Earth only a few minutes late. Next up, I got to hear Nick Martell and Keith DeCandido read some excerpts from their work while eating a bagel. Nick introduced us to his world and characters, and Keith ripped out our hearts.

I was doing tech support, but got to hear most of the noon, Tips for Writing Combat. Then, an hour solo-tasking, and checking all the social media locations to see who needed help. 2pm was storytime with Kingdom of Warrior Women: The Dahomey Kingdom and its Amazons.

I’d considered a few of the 3 and 4 o’clock panels, but ended up just doing Discord and then prepping for my 1st panel at my home convention, and second panel EVER: Dealing With Literary Rejection. We had people who gave rejections, people who received rejections, and people who did both. I had the joy of having the agent I’d gotten my first rejection letter from (via his assistant) on the panel (Joshua Bilmes of Jabberwocky). I did my best to come across as intelligent and well-spoken, and hope I was at least a little entertaining.

After a good hour in the Discord After Panel Discussions room, with some lively chatter, I sat in on Science Fiction Has Always Been Political with some excellent discussion and great examples, and Making Painful Edits. I finished my day listening to some pulpy adventures with Daniel Kimmel and Michael Ventrella.

I took a quiet evening walk around the block, just to move. My back had started tingling, like it was going numb. NOT a sensation I’d felt before. I might should see my chiropractor again…

Then, I visited the tech crew zoom party. While, of course, prepping the screenshot posts and working on outlining my questions for the panel I was going to be on in the morning. Finally, I swung through through the New Media party, just long enough to say goodnight. At half-past-three am. Again.

Sunday

No way to sleep in on Sunday — I was starting off my day with two panels. Sure, 10am sounds perfectly reasonable to most people, but that’s about when I show up to my dayjob, and I don’t usually care if my hair’s dry from the shower or my face is made up before I roll into the office or up to my work-from-home desk. No, I do not own a hair-dryer.

But, I made it, showered and made-up in time for the 9:30am pre-panel check-in. Well, maybe it was 9:32am, but still.

Beta-reading propositions, What Are You In For? By this panel, I started to feel a little more solid with my speaking skills, (although, I think I used the same interjection a couple times.) We’ll see if I’m brave enough to watch it when it rolls out. Then, the after-panel discussion and a quick moderator meeting, before the 11:30 am call for my third and final panel of the weekend.

This time? I was moderating. I toasted another bagel, (cinnamon raisin with plain cream cheese for those of you who are curious), then looked frantically for where I’d put that outline. By the time we had most of the line-up, I followed procedure from what my other moderators had done for me. I asked if the other panelists wanted to hear my questions in advance, read them out, and then asked if they had anything to add. Nothing.

What’s This About A Social Media Presence. I had some solid panelists, including the very chatty Tee Morris who literally wrote the books on social media. Luckily, he knew he had a tendency to chat and smoothly finished his sentence and ceded the floor after each gentle “thank you,” from me. We had a moment of veering into politics (losing one attendee loudly from that, on the chat), but for the most part, it went very smoothly.

In the Discord After-Panel Discussion, Tee complimented my moderation and I admitted it was my first time. Polite or not, I was glad to hear the rest of the panelists thought it had gone well.

I drifted in and out of the Dinosaurs: The Update presentation, then tuned in for most of Momentum for writers and How to Self-Edit That Lousy First Draft.

By the end of that panel? I was FRIED. I wanted to see more. I wanted to support friends and see them chat. But I was DEAD.

Plus? As I reminded myself, I could always rewatch the panels once they went up on Youtube.

So, I swung by the virtual con suite, got myself some hotdogs, and chatted with my dad and another con-goer about guitars until I had food in me. For those who don’t know, my dad usually hangs out in the con suite, and that’s where you go to find snacks and random conversations. That hang out was one of the most-like-a-physical-con aspects all weekend.

And then I NAPPED. For nearly two hours.

I realized when I woke up that I’d never made a special announcement for the film festival, which had gotten its schedule finalized rather late. And that the festival had already started, so it was too late. So, all I could do was announce the Monday 1pm rerun. I’m Sorry Short Film Festival Lovers! I dropped the ball.

But, I made it up in time for most of Choosing Your Perspective and then, because it would NOT be recorded, made sure to take a lot of notes at, Body Disposal – A Primer for Writers. Unfortunately, this presenter has had her presentation stolen, wholesale, 3 times, so I will NOT be sharing these notes publically online.

I did not realize when I went in, that the Body Disposal panel was 2 hours long. And because it was the last presentation of the night, they let it run over and run over it did. I wanted to hit 3 of the zoom parties (closer in feel than I would have expected to the standard room party), but by the time I hopped out of the second one, the third had just gone to bed. At quarter to four in the morning. Again. Whoops!

Monday

I slept til 10:45 am when my alarm went off. I caught up with my alerts, got dressed, and then my alarm went off. That’s when I realized the first alarm was my weekly “don’t forget to sync your fitbit alarm.” Oh well, it’s not like it had woken me up that much early.

At 11:30am, I was hosting my one-and-only zoom session for bluestonearcher’s Reference Like an Artist. He’d been running training for the techs and the panelists for the last two weeks, helping me with documentation and things, so it was fun to run, and I wanted to do it right with my trainer watching. But! I flubbed giving him Any Time Warnings At All. So, he was halfway through a sketch when I messaged, “Um, here’s is your 10, 5, and 1 minute warning.” We managed to wrap with 90 seconds to hand-off the stream so the next panel could go to twitch. WAY too close. Sorry!

I listened in some on Novel, Novella, or Short Story right when that wrapped, getting a scattering of notes. Then, I prepped and listened in on the final panel of the con, Improving Balticon. I logged on in case people had Social Media questions, but no one did.

With the text-only format forcing people to formulate their questions before we got to them, we managed to get through 170ish questions in under 2 hours.

I know many people hated the lack of video/audio from panel attendees, but others LOVED the ability to chat without interrupting the panel. Especially for “what was the name of that book”, but also any side comments. Plus, a lot of people’s bandwidth starts to choke when streaming more than 6 or 8 videos.

During the Improving Balticon panel, I posted the rest of the screenshots our techs had gotten me. On average, 1 an hour. I wanted to be sure the con had faces, not just technology.

And just like that? The con was over. The Discord quieted to a dull roar, I threw together a “Thank You” image to post, and I ordered some Thai for dinner.

I never made it to our Second Life portion — never even installed it on my laptop. Discord was enough of a resource hog.

Virtual Balticon was a massive undertaking, achieved in under 2 months of work. Massive kudos go out to the staff that pulled it together, the panelists/guests who went through all of our training and provided the content, and the fans — without whom, we’d be talking to empty rooms.

Everything You Need To Know About Convention Panels

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 3 Comments

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you probably know that I share a lot of notes from “panels”.

If you’ve never been to a convention, you may be unfamiliar with panels. If you’ve only been to corporate/work conventions, you might look at them as torturous boredom. Or, at the very least, strictly educational.

At their most basic: panels are simply several people, sitting at table, facing an audience, sharing their thoughts on a subject.

Typically, these individuals are what’s referred to in the DC metro area at least as “SMEs” – subject-matter experts.

And, quite often, these panels have one of the panelists acting as a moderator. A good moderator asks the panel questions, makes sure everyone on the panel is heard, tries to keep any debate lively without getting too personal, accepts the questions from the audience, and does their best to help with crowd control.

A typical con panel is 50 minutes, with the first 30-40 minutes being for the panelists to talk amongst themselves about the subject, and the last 10-20 minutes being for Q&A. With a brief introduction at the beginning, and a minute or so for closing thoughts and self-promotion at the end.

Now, panels aren’t the only things to attend at a convention, there are workshops, dances, book-readings, concerts, parties, and more. In fact, before I got so involved in my writing journey, I had attended a bunch of conventions and maybe 2 panels. These days? It’s a weird weekend if I attend fewer than 20.

Never fear, you can be a writer or a fan without ever attending a convention. Although, that’s partially why I like to share my notes, so that those who can’t, or don’t attend panels still have access to the nuggets of information I try to glean from the experts.

But, should you ever attend a convention, I want to set you up for success — so you’re seen as an excellent audience member and not someone to avoid.

4 Things Not To Do During The Q&A Period

  1. “This is more of a statement than a question…”

    If you attend panels, if you’re on panels, you will hear this phrase. A LOT.

    I know that there are plenty of bright, intelligent people in the audience, I know many of them would have made excellent panelists themselves, and many ARE actually on other panels. BUT. Unless you are on this panel, this is neither the time, nor the place to insert your own opinion on the subject.

    Save it for twitter. Or facebook. Or your friends — after the panel. You will not impress the panelists, you will not impress the audience. You will, however, trigger a massive eye roll, and a lot of tuning out.
  2. Providing tons of background for your question

    Especially in writing panels and gaming panels, audience members will want to provide background for precisely why they’re asking this question, in the hopes that they will get a tailormade answer. And because they’re just plain excited about their world and their story and… everything.

    It’s fine to give a little context, but no more than 20 seconds. I’ve listened to audience members who took up to 5 minutes to get to the question portion of their statement. Most moderators aren’t going to let you get that far.

    When you take that long, you’re taking time away from the panelists answers, and keeping other people from asking their questions. (And sometimes? It comes across like you’re stealing the time to market your own stuff, which is exceedingly rude.) If you know you have trouble getting to your question within 30 seconds, work with a friend in advance to rephrase until you can. Or, take it off-line, talk to them after the panel or at their table.

    Caveat: People at merchandise tables are NOT your audience, they are trying to sell their own merchandise and it is incredibly rude to scare away potential sales by dominating their attention.
  3. Off-topic Questions

    The panelists are prepared to speak on the subject described in the program. The other audience members are there to hear the panelists talk about the subject described in the program.

    If you have a specific question, that is unrelated to the panel, ask it after the panel.
  4. Asking tons of questions

    If no one else is asking, feel free, but don’t monopolize the Q&A period. Ask one, then give other people a chance to ask theirs — they’re paying as much to attend as you are and deserve the chance just as much. Only, if no one else has questions, should you go for a second question.

All that said, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ask for recommendations, or a panelist to speak more on something they hinted at.

For some shameless name dropping here, I once attended a panel with the ever-famous George RR Martin on it, and, once the panel opened to questions, I asked a question addressing what I *thought* the panel had said it was going to be on in the first place. (Martin complimented my question, but the moderator actually answered my question the best…)

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, if the Corona-virus permits, I’m actually signed up to be a panelist at three cons this spring and summer. Hopefully, I’ll be as good behind the table and I try to be in the audience.

Have you attended con panels? Are there any tips or tricks I missed?

Fighting Impostor Syndrome

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 3 Comments

We’ve all had our moments.

Sometimes? You’re learning a new skill, practicing and playing with it. But something is holding you back from taking the next step — be it submitting your work, trying out for that team, or selling your creations.

Sometimes, you’re placed in a position where you supposedly know what you’re doing — either because of your bluster or someone else’s assumptions. It could be on the job, online, or when they send you home with your first newborn kid (or so I’ve been told). And every moment, you’re just sitting there, hoping to keep everyone fooled so they don’t know how big of a fake you are.

Impostor syndrome. Most of us have experienced it. Some of us live with it.

For those that don’t know? Impostor syndrome is defined as “a psychological pattern in which one doubts one’s accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.“

In my most recent Author Spotlight, Katherine talked about submitting hundreds of poems while in college and it made me think. I always wanted to be a writer, but it took me until I’d been out of college for a long time before I started taking my writing seriously. Before I even started contemplating sending my work to other people.

With my first manuscript? It’s on its EIGHTH round of revisions, because every handful of rejections, I stop submitting and start looking into how I can make it better. I tell myself it’s making me a better writer. I tell myself I’m building skills and improving. But, there’s definitely a part of me that is LOOKING for things to fix. Because if my best effort was rejected, that means I’m not good enough. I should just go home.

Dwelling on that might be good for a night or a week after a rejection, but it’s not going to get me anywhere.

5 Ways To Confront Your Impostor Syndrome

  1. Take a class

    Maybe you do stink. Maybe your skills aren’t where you want them to be. And honestly? All of us could improve, no matter how good — or bad — we are.

    In that case? It could be time to take a class, brush up on the skills we’re good at, learn techniques to deal with our weaknesses, and discover new things that can make us shine.

  2. See How Far You’ve Come

    If you look at your old stuff, compared to your new stuff, you might notice a change. An improvement.

    Or? If you like your old stuff better? Revisiting it might be the way to get that voice back — so you can run with it!

  3. Re-visit What You’re Proud Of

    Whether it’s a single sentence, a poem, or a novel, reread that thing you made that made you proud. See what you’ve done, what you’ve created. Remind yourself that this is a thing you can do!

  4. Save The Good Notes

    When a beta-reader or critique partner or reviewer says something about my work or forgets they’re critiquing, I file that away. In one (very stalling moment last October), I copied one encouraging note onto a piece of paper and taped it to my wall.

    Then? When my writing is going rough, I reread their kind words, where they tell me how much they enjoyed my writing, or compared it favorably to an award-winning series I adore, I stick my chin up, and I get back to it.

  5. Say “BLEEP It”

    Sometimes? All you can do is tell yourself: “So what if my writing stinks, and everyone else’s writing is amazing and so much more deserving. I finished this and I’m putting it out there anyway. They can take it or leave it, but it’s mine.”

    Otherwise known as ‘fake it til ya make it’.

It can be hard. Writing is years of work with no guarantee of success. It’s a labor of love and requires near-infinite patience with the publishing industry.

If you need to step away and take a break; if you need to do something else because it’s killing you? Do it! Do what you need to take care of yourself.

Plus? You can always change your mind. Your writing will always there for you. Waiting. However comforting or creepy that sounds.

Besides, you can’t be the impostor, I’m the real impostor!


Recently, I’ve been making a lot of progress on my short term goals — the ones I can control. So, what triggered my recent bout of self-doubt?

On the advice of a friend, I started applying to be a panelist at science-fiction and fantasy conventions a couple years ago. You know, the ones I like to attend 30 panels in 4 days at?

And this year? I’ve had 3 conventions accept!

Meep! I’m still an unpublished writer. All I’ve got is this blog/vlog where most of the time it feels like I’m shouting into the void. Basically, a free vanity press where all it costs is my time and my dignity. I’ve been going to these cons and taking notes from the greats! What makes me think I can sit up there and talk, that my advice and perspective is something worth listening to?

Well, as my calendar reminded me, I’ve been blogging for nearly 5 years and haven’t missed a week since before this time last leap year! I’m consistent, mostly coherent, and still giving fresh takes. I’ve got experience querying in the current market, and people I beta-read for keep coming back for more, so I can’t be too useless — or mean!

Step one for this bout of impostor syndrome was to update my business cards and add “Blogger | Vlogger” to it. Because that’s a big part of why I’m going to be up there.

Enough teaser, Morgan. Tell us where you’re going to be so we can properly stalk you. (Note: please don’t stalk. Just say hi, and keep it casual.)

I’m going to be at RavenCon 15 in Williamsburg, VA April 24-26 and once I got my tentative schedule, my impostor syndrome backed off a little. (Plus, I have my own panelist bio page that is basically the best. I’m pretty happy with what I finally decided on for my new profile pic). But, anyway, my panels.

  1. NaNoWriMo
  2. The Writer and the Beta Reader
  3. Social Media Best Practices for Writers
  4. Social Media, or, Why I Haven’t Finished My Novel

This schedule is still tentative and subject to change. But these are all things I can talk about for ages — at least the basics — without feeling like I need to step back and let the experts talk! Now to find out if I actually enjoy being on panels, and get my stuff out there to be published!

For the others conventions, I have no schedule yet, but I’m going to be on panels at Balticon in Baltimore, MD May 22-25, and in New ZEALAND at CoNZealand for WorldCon from July 29-August 2nd! With any luck, those panels will be along the same vein and I’ll really find my footing on panels.

And maybe get something published.

Have you ever faced impostor syndrome? What did you do to work past it? Or did you just run?

Have you ever paneled at a convention? Any tips for a neophyte? 

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Booktube: The World of YouTube Book Discussions

/ Morgan Hazelwood / Leave a comment

The booktuber world is right next door to the authortuber world — full of people talking about their to-read lists, the books they’re actually reading, and their own community. As opposed to us authortubers, talking about writing tips, writing progress, and apparently streaming virtual write-ins. Both are full of people passionate about books and wanting to talk about it on youtube.

In the titular panel at WorldCon, Stevie “Sablecaught” Finegan, Claire Rousseau (Books and Quills), Thomas Wagner (SFF180), Linnea Sternefält (RobotMaria133), and Brianne Reeves (BreeReadsBooks) shared with us their experiences being booktubers.

Why Youtube?

Everyone had their own path and reasons that led them to youtube.

For Claire, 5 years ago, her partner started a geeking out/gaming channel. After seeing how it went, and attending a convention, she wanted to get in on it too, but with her own hobbies. Thus, her booktube channel was born.

Linnea started as a blogger. She’d seen the English-language booktubers, but was worried there wasn’t a large enough audience in her native tongue. Then? She found the other european-vloggers and decided to try it anyway.

Bree had graduated from college and was underemployed. So, she got back to her love of books, found the community, and wanted to join the conversation.

Thomas had been doing traditional book reviews on http://www.sfReviews.net since 2001. He’d seen his gamer friends start up game vlogs and wanted to try, so he tried it — without even knowing the community was there! He’s found that reviews are a lot more personal when your face is attached to the words.

Common BookTube Videos

These booktubers wanted to talk about books on youtube, but what sort of videos are out there?

  1. Book Hall
    – A stack of new books that you’ve gotten.
    • Thomas called his a ‘mail bag’, because he didn’t know it was a thing
    • Bree loves watching these, but hates recording them
    • Linnae loves these
  2. TBR
    – Your to-be-read pile. What you’re planning to read in the coming week or month.
    • Claire loves these
  3. Wrap-up
    – Your end of the week/month where you talk about which books you actually got to, and what you thought about them.
    – Some people do a video for each book (like Thomas, with his traditional book review roots)
  4. Book discussions
    – Talking and analysing books. These come in many forms.
    1. Simple analysis
    2. Comparing the book to the movie
    3. Comparing and contrasting different books of a similar theme
  5. Top 5 Wednesday
    – Share your top 5 books in a given theme/genre

Getting Started on Booktube

Don’t be afraid to join in. You don’t need much to get started, and all of the booktubers out there started just like you, wondering why anyone would care what they think about books.

These are people who love reading and just want to connect with other fans. Just like you.

  1. All you need is a smartphone, a youtube account, and the internet
  2. Crappy videos are fine – talk to people and build community.
  3. Try to post on a consistent schedule, at least once a month.
  4. Audio is more important than video, look to upgrade that first.
  5. To upgrade your video, you can do it in phases
    1. Better microphone (like a Blue Snowball mic + pop filter)
    2. Better camera (like a logitech USB webcam)
    3. Better lighting (like umbrella lights)
    4. Video Editing (like VegasPro)
  6. Monetization.
    1. If you get big enough (4,000 view hours + 1,000 subscribers), youtube will let you monetize.
    2. Patreon may be a better way to get money, but you have to have something to offer people at the different tiers that people are interested in. And that often means bonus material.
      NOTE: Most monetized channels can pay for a coffee. Or, in a good month, start to recoup the money they spent on equipment.
      WARNING: In some countries, it is illegal to accept donations/ patronage without giving them something physical in return.

Joining the BookTube Community

Most of these tips are going to sound familiar if you’ve seen any of my other posts on joining other online communities.

  1. Subscribe to other booktubers!
  2. Comment on other booktubers!
    • Comment on what they’re discussing, be on topic! You might think a compliment like, “you’re pretty” is something everyone wants to hear. Instead? The booktuber is probably thinking you didn’t care about what they were discussing.
    • NOTE: If your comment is non-specific, just long enough that your name links back to your own channel, they can tell you’re just trying to use them to find followers. It’s rude and won’t win you any friends.
  3. Watch to the end! Many booktubers have bonus material there. Like booktube challenges, or requests for you to share your own links below (either for your channel or similar themed videos).
  4. As always, don’t be disappointed at slow traction. It takes a while to become an “overnight” success.

Booktubers to watch!

If booktube sounds up your alley or you’re already a fan, here are some people the panelists suggested to check out.

And, of course, they didn’t do it themselves, but I’m happy to plug them, our panelists:

Had you run into Booktube before?

Are you a booktuber yourself? Tell us how you got into it and share your link below!

As always, thanks for tuning in, and I’ll be back again next week with more panel notes. And maybe some ramblings on PitchWars, because it’s that time of year again.

The Future of Podcasting

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 1 Comment

Podcasting has had its ups and downs since it first started. The market is big, but there’s a lot of small fish out there and it’s hard to get noticed.

At the titular panel at Balticon53, Mark Redfield, Mike Luoma, Philippa Ballantine, Christiana Ellis, and Fred. G. Yost discussed where podcasting has been and what they hope and fear we’ll see in the future.

What Is Podcasting and Where Did It Come From?

Podcasting, for those who are unfamiliar, is the practice of using the Internet to make digital recordings of broadcasts available for downloading to a computer or mobile device. Traditionally, these were audio-only, but some are on Youtube.

Caveat: I have a vested interest in this topic. The Anansi Storytime and other Legendsmith Productions I help voice are podcasts.

Technically, you could argue that my vlog is a podcast — especially since I’ve been considering downloading the mp3s and setting them up on a server…

Many podcasts grew out of the audio-dramas from radio of yesterday – and these really capitalize on the strengths of the format. Some grew out of blogs. Some grew out of traditional radio talk shows.

Podcasting gone through several phases:

  1. A ‘nerd’ thing
  2. OMG! Podcasts are everywhere!
  3. Yeah, podcasts. *shrug* They’re normal. Like TV.

Podcasting is more democratized than traditional media, but there is the fear that as it gets bigger, it will become more corporatized, regulated, and controlled. Like the internet.

Where Is Podcasting Going?

To the best of my knowledge, none of the panelists were time travelers or gifted with foresight, so all of these are clearly educated guesses, wishful thinking, and/or fears.

  1. There’s a lot of fan content – some image that will only grow
  2. There’s a feel that the podcaster ‘clubhouse’ was invaded by infomercials – but the money’s not there, so this may be temporary.
  3. Niche marketing (with big bucks) from corporations however, is a bigger concern and is competing with home-grown content.
  4. Corporations and old media are just porting stuff wholesale — this doesn’t always work. But they’re risk averse.
  5. Patreon is already helping support podcasters (or at least pay for a little bit of the equipment) — subscriber Podcasts are coming to other medias. Some are now on Luminary.
  6. It’s getting mainstream!
  7. The fear? A lot of the popularity is driven by obnoxious commutes. As self-driving cars become a reality while more and more companies have work-from-home policies, the audience might shrink.

Tips For Podcasters

  1. You need consistency
    • Publish regularly
    • Pick a tone/voice
  2. Don’t be generic — you’ve got to show your passion
  3. Don’t chase trends — grow your community
  4. Professionals having fun does better than a clean, polished lecture. (Where do I fit on that spectrum, peeps?)
  5. Don’t tie all of your media to one service
    • The host might change the rules and flush your content (Tumblr)
    • The host might decide you’ve violated copyright/decency/etc and delete your content.
  6. If you record a long segment, don’t be afraid to break it into sections! A part 1 and 2 can be good for driving more listeners to the earlier content they might have missed

Do you listen to podcasts? What sort of podcasts do you like?

What do you see for the future of podcasting? Did the panelists get this one right?