The Podcast Asylum

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