PB128: How to Launch a Podcast and Get Your First Million Downloads

Note: we've now started adding full transcripts to our podcasts. Scroll down to find todays one. Getting Started With Your Own Podcast Today is this podcasts first birthday! That’s right - I launched this thing with those first 31 daily episodes back at the end of June 2015 and while we quickly scaled things back to twice a week, I managed to keep things running for a whole year thanks to the support of my team! I’ve completely fallen in love with podcasting as a medium and thought about making this a show about the lessons I’ve learned podcasting in the last year but given that I did a show like that back in Episode 50, I thought I’d reach out to a podcasting friend of mine - Brooke McAlary from Slow Your Home who started 3 months before me as a podcaster after having blogged successfully for a few years previously. Brooke has fallen so in love with podcasting that she’s fully transitioned Slow Your Home away from being a blog to being a podcast and has gone on to start a podcasting network at JackRabbit.fm. The network has 6 podcast shows in it already with more to come. Her Slow Your Home podcast just went past the one million download mark already so she’s had some real success! This chat covers a lot of ground but largely focuses upon her transition to becoming a podcaster and what practical lessons she learned along the way about podcasting. It’s perfect for anyone wanting to start podcasting and covers: Brooke's journey of going from a blogger to a podcaster Practical tips on how to get a podcast up and running The tools and technical aspects of Brooke’s setup that you should consider Thoughts on how to decide what content format to go with (interview vs talking head vs co hosted) How to push past the fear and other obstacles in your head How to launch with a bang to maximise reach How Brooke is monetising her podcast Why Brooke started a podcast network And there’s much much more! Listen to this episode above or over on iTunes. For those of you preferring to read - we’ve included a full Transcript of the show below! Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Darren: Hi there, my name is Darren Rowse and welcome to Episode 128 of the ProBlogger podcast. Today, I’m celebrating the first year anniversary of the start of this podcast. It was exactly one year ago, 30th of June 2015 that I kicked things off. I thought about doing a show today on what I've learned since then. I did a similar show back in Episode 50, but instead of doing that I thought what I would do is pick the brains of another podcaster who used to be a blogger, Brooke McAlary from slowyourhome.com and also the founder of the Jack Rabbit Podcast network.  She's an Aussie blogger who lives in Sydney, a mom, a wife, a blogger and that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode. Brooke has brought a wealth of information to today's chat. I interview her over the next hour so you want to grab a cup of your favorite beverage and we’re going to talk about her journey from going from a blogger to a podcaster. She's going to give you some practical tips on how to get a podcast up and running, particularly from the perspective of a blogger. We're going to talk about the technical stuff you need to know, how to decide what content format to go with. We’re going to talk about how to push past some of the obstacles that are in your head, some of the fear associated with podcasting, some of those comparisons that we feel as podcasters and bloggers as well, how to launch your podcast, how to monetize your podcast and why she started a podcast network, and then there's a whole heap of other stuff including a couple of attempts at humor which I’m not sure how that went but as I mentioned during the show, I’m getting tired, it's getting towards the end of a busy time for me and w...