Veteran podcast problem-solver Mark Steadman provides daily tips to help subject matter experts make better podcasts.
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Private detective Molly has an eye for detail and a strong moral compass. She's also a rabbit. Her newest case involves a number of disappearing hamsters, but hot on their trail are Roscoe and Bailey, two of Fogsworth's finest police detectives... who, it should be mentioned, are cats. Lurking in the shadows are the retired military minds of the town, including an obese pug and his colourful canine henchmen, who serve a sinister mastermind. Molly must team up with the cats and build new frie ...
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Stop wasting your listeners' time – edit your podcast
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Imagine sitting down for a one-to-one call with a client, and spending the first 5 minutes adjusting your webcam, making sure everything looked right, and chatting to someone else in the room. If you don’t edit your podcast, that’s what your listeners will expect – a disorganised session where the facilitator wasn’t prepared and kept getting distra…
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Record each Zoom call participant on a separate track
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Find the “Recording” tab of your Zoom settings screen, tick the box labelled “Record a separate audio file of each participant”. You’ll still get single video and audio files like you did before, but you’ll also get a separate audio file for each person on the call. This is essential for a podcast editor, because it means they can cut out noises fr…
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If you need to clear your throat, don't do it mid-sentence
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We all need a quick throat-clear from time to time. Or you’ve just got over a cold. Whatever it is, a quick cough is no biggie. But we as podcast listeners don’t need to hear it. And if you do it partway through a sentence, a podcast editor has a harder time removing it. So just take a moment, clear your throat, then start the sentence again. You w…
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Don't leave important calls-to-action to the very end
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If there’s something you’d really like your listener to do, don’t leave it ‘til the very end. I see it every month when I create reports for clients: the end-of-episode drop-off, where listeners reach the point where they’ve wrung all the value they can out of an episode, and are ready to hop to the next one. Not everyone does it, but as your audie…
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Put all your devices on Do Not Disturb before you hit Record
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Whether you’re a podcast host or a podcast guest, you’re a professional. When we hear your phone announce a new text or your laptop herald a new Slack message, you stop being a professional and you become someone who’s been disturbed while they were busy doing other things. While you’re recording a podcast, that’s the only thing you’re doing. Put y…
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Following a checklist before you hit record will really help you counter a lot of common problems that can affect recordings. When you’re new to podcasting, you’ve yet to build up the muscle memory and the mild complacency that can kick in. But as you get more comfortable behind the mic and with the process in general, it becomes easy to forget cer…
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When you get tongue tied, back up - don't barrel on through
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Even the most fluid and fluent speakers can get a tad lost halfway through a sentence. The aim of any good podcast editor is to make everyone sound their smartest. So the easiest way to do that is to stop, take a breath, and go back to the last full-stop in your mind. A skilled audio editor can often quite deftly cut together a few takes if there w…
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There’s a nasty sound, somewhere between a tut and a swallow, that’s really prevalent in podcasting. We almost all do it a little, but some do it a lot, and it can be pretty distracting. That sloppy, wet, lip-smacking sound (it’s gross to describe and unpleasant to hear) is often caused by too much saliva in your mouth while you’re speaking, which …
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We don’t listen to podcasts in groups. OK, occasionally there’s a car journey, but you know what I mean! When you refer to your listener as “everybody” or “guys”, you create distance between them and you. You put up a barrier that the listener isn’t allowed to cross, and you reduce them to one of any given number of faceless listeners. I’m still su…
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Last week you put out an episode, not a podcast
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A podcast always means a series of episodes, just like a blog is always a collection of posts, not a single post. 🤯 I know it sounds pedantic, but we make everyone’s lives easier when we start using the same (correct) terminology. Most of the time it doesn’t matter all that much, as people know what you’re talking about, but the medium can be confu…
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We have all sorts of verbal ways to communicate that we’re a little unsure of the point we’ve made or the objection we’ve raised. We can sometimes use phrases like “Does that make sense?” to soften the blow or to hedge our bets… maybe it’s a little bit like the old stereotype of the “Australian” upward inflection? I think we can also find ourselves…
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Asking a question? Stop speaking after the question mark
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If you’re not 100% confident in your question, it can be tempting to cary on speaking after the question mark. You know the thing: “Can you tell me a bit about how you got started? What was, um, what was it about the work you were doing? Why, so yeah, why did you want to pursue that line of work? Tell me, tell me about that. How did you…? Yep.” If …
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Everyone on the call needs to wear headphones
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Your listener doesn’t care if your hair gets messed up, and the video version is just there to promote the real (audio) podcast. If you’re recording podcasts remotely (using Zoom, Riverside, SquadCast, or any other online tool), every person speaking on the call needs headphones. No exceptions. If person A isn’t wearing headphones, every time perso…
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Always put your mic about a fist’s distance from your mouth
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It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve spent on your mic, or whether Steven Bartlett uses it or not. Where you put your mic matters more. Always try and keep your mic about a fist’s distance from your mouth. You’re unlikely to be using the sort of mic with a giant fluffy attachment like the ones they have on the F1. If you’re using a condenser mic…
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Don’t assume you know how to pronounce someone’s name.
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If you're bringing a guest on, don't assume you know how to pronounce their name. A name might read as "Anne" but be pronounced "Anna". You might be pretty sure where you put the emPHASis on which sylLAble, but you could be wrong. Some people will tell you when you're getting it wrong. Most are too polite, especially if it's only a little bit off. …
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When we parted ways last time, Molly had confronted our villain, known to most as Professor Fritz. Everything was looking pretty neat and tidy, with all the baddies in their place, and the hamsters almost home and dry. But in all the commotion, they’d forgotten about a small primate, with big eyes and strong little hands. Hosted on Acast. See acast…
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When we last left our heroes, they’d reunited after Patchee’s kidnapping by the dogs who’ve been putting the hamsters to work on a machine to generate power. The mind behind the machine belongs to a fox called Professor Fritz, whose assistant, Sam the slow loris, is now working with Molly, Patchee, and the police detectives Roscoe and Bailey, to pu…
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In the last episode, we uncovered the mastermind behind the hamster kidnapping: a fox called Professor Fritz, who paid some dogs to pick up the hamsters, strap them to a set of hamster wheels, and force them to generate electricity. What we don’t yet know is what Fritz plans to do with all this power, but it can’t be good. Hosted on Acast. See acas…
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We left Molly as she, Roscoe and Bailey were headed to the abandoned workshop in Handsome Gardens, hoping to meet and rescue Patchee, who is as we speak being marched behind a squadron of kidnapped hamsters, to who-knows-where. Things are about to get serious. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…
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Let’s head back to the old workshop in Handsome Gardens, where the sleeping body of Patchee the rabbit is being lowered to the floor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.By Mark Steadman
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We ended the last episode with Patchee rummaging around the army base where not so long ago, a football squad’s worth of hamsters were locked in cages. Meanwhile Molly’s found the note Patchee wrote about her, which doesn’t seem to have gone down well with Fogsworth’s private detective. What will happen when Patchee meets the blue tentacle? Hosted …
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Previously... Molly had sent Patchee off to speak to someone who might have a clue as to where the hamsters are being taken. Patchee wants to stay on Molly’s good side after nearly destroying her flat by accident. And speaking of said accident, there might be one thing the young rabbit missed when he was cleaning up Molly’s flat… something about a …
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Private detective Molly Whiskers has had a run-in with the Fogsworth police force, Patchee’s woken up from a concussion and has started tidying Molly’s flat, and the General – the big pug in charge of kidnapping the town’s football squad – is very, very stinky. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…
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Last week, Roscoe caught Molly snooping around in the park in search of Fogsworth’s hamster kidnapper, who may or may not be a large dog who goes by the name of The General. Meanwhile Patchee, in an attempt to come to his new boss’s rescue, has rather clumsily destroyed Molly’s china, and is in the process of clearing it up. Hosted on Acast. See ac…
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Previously, Molly and Patchee started their investigation into the disappearance of Fogsworth’s hamster football team, with Molly rushing out to presumably catch the kidnapper. When we last saw Patchee, he was lying on the floor after being hit by a whole cabinet’s worth of crockery – his reward for trying to leap to Molly’s rescue, but being perha…
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Last time, Molly Whiskers had agreed to take on Patchee as an assistant, they’d both met a hamster by the name of Mr Toggle, whose wife had gone missing, presumably kidnapped. Meanwhile police officers Roscoe and Bailey are also on the case. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…
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Molly, Fogsworth’s private detective, has just agreed to hire the young and shy Patchee after he realises the sign on her door was on back-to-front for some reason. Not the world’s biggest cliff-hanger, but just you wait… someone sustains an actual injury in this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…
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Roscoe & Bailey on the Trail of the Hamster Napper
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In the first episode we met Molly, Fogsworth’s private detective, who just so happens to be a rabbit. You were promised some new faces too, so let’s not waste any time and get into it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.By Mark Steadman
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The following is a story about rabbits, a couple of cats, a fox, and something called a slow loris, which is a funny-looking primate with big eyes. There's a kidnapping, a daring escape, some unnecessary violence, and later there’s a cow made of chocolate. It’s pretty safe for little ears, but if you’re the type of person who likes to get lost in a…
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