I hit ‘publish’ on November 24.
To retrieve that date, I had to actually look up ‘Plates Magazine’ on Spotify. Because it felt as if it was just two weeks ago.
I’m writing this out today to remind myself how far I’ve come. I had a conversation with another creative recently, and I mentioned how the goalpost for me kept getting pushed further and further away. She then posed a very simple prompt: to look back to the very beginning of Plates.
I keep a “yay” list of things (I’m not in the club of the liberal use of “gratitude”, hence “yay”) on a daily basis. But being so focused on the daily/weekly/monthly, sometimes I forget to look back at the biennial yay list (which I have never actually listed out for myself–but maybe I will). A moving goalpost is especially tough when there are many people eager to interrupt and invalidate the work.
I digress.
. . .
The podcast was launched when I said it would be launched. A week prior to the first episode going live, I sent out an email to my subscribers on the Plates Magazine Substack list, telling them about the podcast. At that time, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to/was able to launch one with my existing commitments to the transcribing, editing, grant writing, designing, photography, marketing, sales and distribution of the physical magazine itself.
To date, I have never checked the stats of Plates podcast. Because if I think about the (billions of) people who never hit play, I would completely disregard the handful of the early ones at the table, who were curious enough to stick around. If social media taught me anything, from Friendster to Instagram, is that your real friends are really only a handful from that list and barely make up even a particle from the existing network.
. . .
I started before I knew I could record, edit and produce an entire season consistently, from quarantine. When Tuesday arrived, I’d stop tinkering on the episode and hit publish. Because sitting on it would just impede the other tasks that I had to work on.
As for the how-to part of this, I don’t have a magic answer for you, except to just publish it today. Even if it’s not perfect. Because it will never be perfect. Even podcasts with teams of editors and producers and talent booking managers and thousands (millions?) of followers/listeners behind them can’t deliver perfect. So, why should you?
An aside: I was also extremely in awe and inspired by a friend, who launched his podcast ‘See See Talk Talk’ on all things cinema mid-last year. Despite having to deal with varying mic and soundproofing issues in the beginning, and across several episodes, he was vulnerable and generous about his learning process.
. . .
Here’s my “tech” list to produce a podcast with zero budget and from quarantine:
- Recording: EasyVoiceRecorder mobile app (free)
- Microphone: Rode MicroVideo, which I just plugged into my phone
- Editing: Audacity desktop editing tool (free)
- Hosting platform: Substack (free). I chose Substack because I wanted to alternate between a newsletter and a podcast each week. But there are other free platforms like Anchor and Buzzsprout. There are also countless lists of reviews and “top X” lists of free podcast hosting platforms like this one from DiscoverPods
And here’s an obvious one: Search for “how to launch a podcast for free” or “with no budget” or something along those lines and you will find a treasure trove of videos like this one on ‘Podcasting 101’ by Google Podcasts and PRX and Buzzsprout’s YouTube channel. Just be careful, not to spend too much time “researching” that you never hit record.
What I absolutely did not have/do/use:
- Months of planning, writing out scripts, etc. I just picked a title I could talk to a friend about. And hit record
- Expensive gear
- A soundproof location
- Leave an episode on the shelf because it wasn’t “good enough”. No more of that for 2021 and beyond)
- Ask for someone’s “feedback” before I hit ‘publish’. No matter how good of a friend that person may be, asking for feedback — and worse, listening to — feedback from someone who isn’t in the arena can be crippling for your entire creative practice
- Conform to the checklist of what a podcast should be. E.g. Be a certain duration because metrics say so; guests
- My pop filter and lapel mic, which I bought sometime in the past year and a half thinking I would need them to get started. Spoiler: They’re both still in mint condition.
P/S In addition to a podcast, 2020 reminded me of the the many cracks in independent publishing and distribution — especially when the narratives are “other-ed” in the Eurocentric biases of gatekeepers. I’ve been sitting on this idea for a while now, and would like to invite you to be part of the process of launching a Plates Mates membership programme. I’ve created this super short survey here, which will help me gauge interest and gain a clearer understanding of the sustainability of Plates. It’ll take less than five minutes to complete. Your insights will really help me design how to move forward with Plates in this space. I hope you’ll consider checking it out. Thank you in advance for your time. And as always, thank you for being here.
