Filed under: music, podcasting | Tags: 300 episodes, celebration, horns, podcasting
As I surely have said before, I am not fond of tooting my own horn but only a handful of others will toot their horns for me so if my horn needs tooting, the task generally falls to me. I have to seek out the milestones, keep the markers in sight and just generally seek out opportunities for self horn tooting. It’s tooting time again. I’m writing this in anticipation of my Three Hundredth Episode of the podcast version of this blog.
The blog is almost 14 years old. The podcast turned six this month.
I don’t have any special episode planned for this nice round number. It’s not an interview podcast so there’s no bringing on very special guests. I could edit together some clips but I feel like listening to me talk about 300 different things really quickly, one right after the other might not be a fun listen and it would be a hell of a lot of work.
This blog, this podcast, is about a lot of things but I always return to the source in the title. It is always grounded in the challenges we artists face in this artist unfriendly world.
In the six years I’ve been doing the podcast, I’ve recorded 226 covers, pulled 35 songs from my archives, recorded 10 old songs I’d never recorded before and 12 new originals. It’s a lot!
There’s been drama. There have been surprises. There was cake for the 100th episode.
The practice I got from all this podcasting led directly to my being able to make the leap into Audio Drama. Having made one season of The Dragoning, I’m now making a second, with actors on three continents.
And the thing is – 300 is actually a lot of episodes. One of the most famous successful (and lucrative) podcasts of all time has only 185 episodes still. I have done significantly more episodes than Reply All. Granted, their shows are a lot more complex than mine. But they also have a staff with salaries and Spotify money to back them up.
I do this for free. Sure, my patrons help support me doing it for free but it is not a money making endeavor. I tried an advertising scheme a few years back and in the two weeks I had it going on, I made $1.38 so…you know. There’s no profit in this work. The company that makes Reply All, however, was sold for $230 million. It also pretty much imploded last year. I mean – I think a lot of people aspired to be Reply All but sometimes just steadily working at something, year after year yields results too. I’ve got 115 more episodes and no major reckonings.
When I started the podcast, it was really an experiment with the form. I know it seems like everyone has a podcast these days but in 2016, it was still a little bit new. I started on Soundcloud. Some episodes are still there. One of them because more popular there than any other episode before or since. That episode (Art, Entertainment and SpongeBob SquarePants) is also the most popular on my current podcast platform, though it is not even in the top 150 of the blog. The second most popular episode is the Harry Potter/Hangover which has even fewer views on the blog than SpongeBob. I guess this says to me that in podcasts, people like popular things that are already popular, especially when they are things Millennials grew up with. (Pssst – Millennials, what else are you into? Maybe I should do more podcasts about stuff you like!)
I’m on all the podcast apps now. I’m available on the podcast apps you’ve heard of and many, around the world, that I’m guessing you have not. I love increasing the possibility that something I say, or sing, might speak to someone thousands of miles away.
When people say “Everyone has a podcast these days,” it can really make me feel like these three hundred episodes are not such a big deal. This isn’t really horn tooting material when any old schmo can record a podcast! But it’s more than Reply All! And recording something once a week like this does add up to something eventually. It adds up to three hundred!
This post was brought to you by my patrons on Patreon.
They also bring you the podcast version of the blog.
It’s also called Songs for the Struggling Artist
You can find the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Every podcast features a song at the end. Some of those songs are on Spotify, my website, ReverbNation, Deezer and iTunes
*
Want to help me make another hundred episodes?
Become my patron on Patreon.
Click HERE to Check out my Patreon Page
*
If you liked the blog and would like to give a dollar (or more!) put it in the PayPal digital hat. https://www.paypal.me/strugglingartist
Or buy me a “coffee” (or several!) on Kofi – ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
Songs for the Struggling Artist 