Whenever you’re creating content you will most likely work in three stages; pre-production, production and post production. The same goes for podcasting. Pre-production is the time you take to plan out your podcast. If you are just starting you are going to need to decide a few things to get the ball rolling but you can always tweak and change over time as you get into a flow.
The first two things you need to do is decide what kind of podcast you’d like to create and who is going to be on the podcast. One decision may influence the other and like we said before, this can change. However, before you buy any equipment or begin recording you should know this much.
Some types of podcasts are; The Interview, have guests on your shows, maybe other librarians, or patrons or even people from other libraries. The solo podcast, as the name implies it’d just be on solo podcaster, this might be something your patrons would be interested. A conversational show, you’ll have multiple contributors, you can all discuss one topic or they can each bring a topic to discuss. If this is a library podcast you can talk about what’s coming up in each department, reviews of movies, books, music, current issues in your community or the library world, the list goes on. These are only a few, there are many other types, including fictional audio storytelling, another one that may be interesting for your patrons. You can mix and match these and depending on who in your library is interested in being on the podcast you may choose one format over another.
Once you have an idea of the format you’d like to try out decide on how long you want your podcast to be and at the same time how often you want to upload your podcast. For the amount of time it takes to record and edit we suggest, for a library focused podcast, to shoot for about a twenty to twenty-five minute episode and try to upload weekly. We find the length of this podcast is good for an average commuter and we can manage to edit and upload an episode every week on top of our other responsibilities.
If you decide on a longer form type of podcast you may run longer and in that case may only want to upload bi-weekly or even monthly, depending on your topic and the amount of content in each episode. Whichever you decide, just make sure you are as consistent as possible. If you decide on 20-25 minutes episodes, weekly, released on Thursdays, try to stick to that schedule as best you can. Consistency will help you build and keep your audience.
Lastly, before you begin production, have outlines for several episodes. You don’t need a full script but know what you will discuss. Doing this ahead of time will let you know if you selected a format that will generate enough content. You may find you need to go back and adjust your format, add other hosts or book more guests. Once you get into a flow you may not need to plan as far out but in the beginning have as much prepared as possible. Depending on the time sensitivity of your content you can record several episodes in one sitting and edit them and have them ready to upload well in advance.