Without playing jazz in my retirement life, as I mentioned in my last retirement blog, there may be a bit of a gap in my activities and consequently in my satisfaction levels with my retirement. It may be the folk fiddle group that I’m going to try out on a Thursday night* might be the stocking filler or maybe I need to look elsewhere.
This might be something entirely different as yet unthought of or it may be a modification of an existing retirement activity. What about my podcast? Could that be expanded to fill the void? What do I know about podcasts? You’re right not a lot. I know they’re very popular. But how can I make my Vineyard Years podcast bigger, more popular? What do other podcasts have going for them that I can exploit? Time for some research.
A quick internet search coughs up a few plusses for a podcast and specifically why they are popular, increasingly so. For example, they’re easy to access; you can listen to what you want (comedy, music, news, crime fiction etc etc.) and if you have a phone, where you want and when you want; you can listen in bite size chunks for the generation of the short attention span; they’re multi-task friendly, you can listen commuting (not much of this if you’re retired), walking the dog, getting your morning coffee, etc; they build intimacy (whatever that means); they provide an instant community. At least that’s what my research says. OK, I can do all that.
And, from somewhere else on the internet, it says they don’t have to be a set length like a radio programme. And also a lot of money is coming into the area in terms of sponsorship and advertising (although the latter would in my case be a very dubious plus), as you will read in a moment.
And sure enough, reading the news on my phone this morning, I came across a BBC article entitled Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper ’Not everyone can do a podcast’. Certainly not if the grammar is important they can’t. Conjugate the verb ‘to do’. As in ‘to do’ a podcast.
Whatever the grammar, apparently Spotify have just paid a reported $60 million to do whatever they do with podcasts for the rights to this one, ‘making the sex and relationship podcast one of the most lucrative in the world’.
So what lessons can I learn from Alex Cooper? There must be some. You need a weird title? The Vineyard Years isn’t very weird but I can probably rework it without losing its essence. Aliens in the vineyard? Are there Vineyards on Mars? When is a vineyard not a vineyard? Do vines have sex? This needs more work. Maybe I’ll come back to this when I have a different mind-set.
I suppose first and possibly foremost Alex’s podcast is popular because it’s about sex, oh and therapy, that probably helps. Hmm, neither of those appeal greatly, but maybe I should read on. I do, and the article comes up with the following, she says:
‘On my show I’m trying to show how with my personal life you can be a successful woman, you can find whatever your lane is and you can have a successful relationship and someone that is going to be supportive of your career.’
Oh and passionate, she is passionate about something or other. Unfortunately I can’t remember what and I didn’t write it down, But clearly I need to be passionate about something also – carrots, beer mats, windscreen wipers. I don’t suppose it matters what just so long as I am passionate about it.
Is that all, well that should be simple enough. All I have to do with my Vineyard Years podcast is to tweak it a bit. By that I mean find a way of including in my stories about the vineyard, sex, therapy, how to be a success in your career and life as a whole, have great relationships (presumably without sex) and just find your lane. I think that must mean find a nice hobby if you’re retired or find a paying job if you’re not. But be passionate. Simple.
Of course there’s all the technical side of podcasting that doesn’t come easily to me. And I’m guessing if you want to be an ‘A lister’ you have to have the technical quality spot on. But then come to think of it, perfection really isn’t my strong suit so maybe podcasting isn’t what I’m looking for to fill the hole. So back to the drawing board. Drawing board, art? You never know.
*By the time you get to read this I will have tried out the folk fiddle group on Thursday night but probably won’t have had time to write about it. If it fails I may still be open to expanding my podcast passion.
No need, it went well, more later.
Lovely