The Podcast Asylum

How to Do Everything with Podcasting
Shel Holtz (with Neville Hobson)
McGraw-Hill, 2007
Paperback, 360 pages
ISBN: 978-0-07-226394-7
MSRP US$24.99

Disclaimer: As a contributor to the authors’ podcast, For Immediate Release, I might be expected to have a biased opinion. I do, but I also held the book to the standards of their podcast and their blogs. If it hadn’t been good, I would have been seriously disappointed.

But not to worry, it’s good.

Naming a book “How to Do Everything with Podcasting” is ambitious, but that was the publisher’s choice. They have a whole series of “How to Do Everything” books. And while there might be things you can do with podcasting that aren’t covered in the book, it’s impressively comprehensive.

I particularly appreciated the details about sound editing in Chapter 9 when I had to assemble the interviews from the iMeme conference. (It helped, but with background noise as bad as that, there’s not a lot you can do if you don’t use a directional mic in the first place.) The only omission I’m aware of in that section is a reference to the Levelator, an amazing tool every podcaster should have. (It’s free, too. Gigavox invented it in self-defense.)

I imagine many people will head straight to Part IV, “Make Money with Your Podcast,” but I really appreciated Part V, “Use a Podcast as a Business Communication Tool.” These 65 pages are pure gold for any podcast evangelist operating in either the corporate or small-business world. Shel and Neville start by pointing out that creating a podcast is not a business goal. Rather, podcasting is a tool that can serve a purpose in the business’ overall strategy. If your company starts podcasting “because everyone else is doing it,” the podcast is not likely to be a success.

There’s also an appendix about legal considerations for podcasters, one listing podcasting resources, and a podcasting glossary to help you sort out the jargon. And to keep up to date (because things on the Web change so quickly), there’s a website for the book. You can find Shel’s mix-minus instructional video (for recording Skype calls without echoes) and a whole lot of other good stuff—including a long list of links to podcasts.

Three cheers and five stars, guys.

SRG

The Business Podcasting Bible
Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian
Heritage House Publishing, 2007
Paperback, 286 pages
ISBN 1-933596-37-6
MSRP: US$19.95

I hadn’t gotten very far into The Business Podcasting Bible before concluding that the book designer should be hauled out and shot. The book is very difficult to read, not because of the writing but because of the way it’s put together. The font for the main text ought to be called “eyestrain.” It’s plenty large enough, but seems to vibrate on the page. (Being able to see the text on the other side doesn’t help, either.) Given that one person in eleven is subject to migraines, as I am, headache-provoking print is not a good investment.

The sans-serif font in the sidebars is actually easier on the eyes, the graphic design truism about not using sans-serif fonts for long blocks of printed text notwithstanding. But the sidebars themselves are maddening, because most of them run to several pages. A sidebar is an eye-catching thing, particularly when set off with a shaded background and a different font. It distracts from the main text. In order to finish reading the sidebar, I had to go forward several pages, then come back and read the rest of the main text—or read the main text first, and then come back for the sidebar. Either way, it created a lot of work, and it interrupted the flow of ideas, making it very hard to take in the information the authors were trying to impart.

I also found it jarring that the word “podcast” was capitalized and often used instead of the word “podcasting.” We don’t capitalize “radio” or “television” or “film,” so I can’t think why we should capitalize “podcast.”

These formatting issues are a terrible pity, because Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian have some great things to say about podcasting for—and as—a business. I’ve been a regular listener to Marketing Online Live, where most of these ideas were previewed, for years. Colligan and Mandossian are probably the ultimate authorities on making money with your podcast, because they’ve used everything they tell you about in their own businesses.

This is not a technical how-to book about podcasting. If you want to know how to record and edit your podcast, set up your feed, and so forth, read Podcasting for Dummies or How to Do Everything with Podcasting. If you want to know about dead-time learning, teaching your audience to consume podcasts, premium podcasting, and monetization, read this book.

Better yet, buy the book and download the bonus audio you get from the member site (instructions on page 77). It’s a sight easier to take in than the printed version (so to speak). The member site hasn’t been all that active lately, but the recordings of the LA an Orland Podcasting Secrets Workshops contain tons of helpful tips, and Paul Colligan’s “Picking Your PodcastTopic – 17 Questions You Must Ask Yourself” is not to be missed.

It’s probably worth the 20 bucks just to get the audio downloads, but my recommendation would be to wait and see whether they overhaul the next edition to be more readable. It would be easy enough to solve the layout problem by incorporating those long sidebars into appropriate parts of the main text, saving sidebars for short tips, and to pick a better font and thicker paper.

Or go back and listen to all the archives of the Marketing Online Live podcast, which covers most of these topics. And whether or not you download the earlier episodes, subscribe now if you have any interest at all in podcast monetization.

SRG

Podcasters suffering from this syndrome do everything in their power to prevent people from finding, hearing, and subscribing to their podcasts. Common symptoms of Podcastus Inhospitus include:

• Not posting any show notes, thus making the podcast invisible to search engines.
• Not providing any information about how to subscribe within the podcast itself.
• Using a proprietary file format which requires a particular media player.
• Not offering listeners a way to comment on or contribute to the show.
• Not providing a direct link to the RSS feed for those who don’t use iTunes.
• Not providing a “click-to-play option for people who prefer to listen at their computers.

If your podcast is keeping people out instead of inviting them in, contact the Asylum before it’s too late.