I admit I’ve struggled with my podcast, The Vineyard Years, since my chum became ill and had to give up taking care of the technical side of putting out this podcast. It’s one of those tasks that has a level of skill that does not come naturally to me. As I’ve said before I think of myself as a writer rather than a broadcaster.
My friend PW started my podcast, produced it to a very high standard and I suppose I feel obliged in some way to continue with it even though it’s a struggle and the standard is nowhere near as high. As I struggled I did wonder why a retired person of 73 should want to put out a fortnightly (approximately) podcast not about retirement itself but about just one aspect of that retirement – our vineyard. Why would the challenge of posting a blog or a Facebook page or even a photocopied newsletter in old school format, not be sufficient?
What might be the attraction for a retired person in putting out a podcast if you’re not naturally disposed to an audio medium? Certainly in my case it’s not because I like the sound of my own voice. Recently the attractiveness of regional accents has figured in the newspapers. Northern accents (which mine is) are on the way out or in the next article, no, they’re more popular than ever, witness their featuring in all kind of adverts on TV. Whatever, I don’t much care for mine, so it’s not that.
Also there are the problems with quite a complicated process, such as – recording on one machine (Mrs Summerhouse’s iPad) by reading a chapter at a time from my book (when Mrs Summerhouse is out with the dogs so their barking doesn’t feature), sending that file via email to another machine, changing the format of that file from the one it’s recorded in to one that is acceptable to the Audacity programme where you put all the bits – recorded chapter, music intro, music outro, credits etc – that’s where it gets really difficult.
Not to mention taking out all the verbal ‘fluffs’ (usually at least two per recorded chapter) which is really, really difficult and much more challenging than removing mistakes from this written retirement blog. Throw into this witches brew making modifications to sound quality, time-shifting each file so you get the correct overlap and general juxtapositions of each of the above audio files. All this has to be saved to the correct format to transfer it to my blog which is how it gets released to you my reading, or rather listening, public. And the big problem is that because I only do this once every two weeks (at most) I’ve pretty much forgotten what I did last time and have to start from scratch each time.
I suppose, in a bizarre way, putting out the podcast comes from the same motivation as writing my retirement blog or even filling in my diary every day or even really bizarrely, stay with me here, the reason my garage is full of junk – something along the lines of well, I’ve started (or acquired in the case of the garage) and I’m going to continue with it. It’s the, I’ve started so I’ll finish, way of thinking about life. After all I did say in the publicity for the podcast that there are 70, and counting, chapters to transfer. I’m only up to chapter 19 and as I’m writing new ones once a month, it will be some time before I’m done.
And why am I writing all this now? Well because The Observer on Sunday had another article on podcasting. It likes writing about podcasting, witness what used to be its radio review section now mostly featuring reviews of podcasts. The Sunday article featured ‘20 must-listen indie gems’. I looked in vain for my podcast. Nope and nothing similar to mine. One day maybe, if I keep going.
The article wasn’t overly optimistic about the future of ‘indie’ podcasts, apparently the medium is going corporate. Popular, independent podcasts are being bought up by Apple, Amazon, Spotify and the like. I confess the mention of £ signs did give me pause for thought. I think I mentioned in a recent retirement blog that for the first time in our retirement a slight worry about our finances. So maybe if I could earn some money from a podcast it might be a way to go in the future.
True the article questioned how ‘lo fi’ podcasts could survive. ‘How can independent podcasts continue to be funded, and noticed, expand their audience and community? How do they stay creative?’ Or later on in the article, ‘No platform or investor has solved the problem of discoverability. Your podcast can be great but how can you get people to hear it?’ Oh and also the article says, the successful podcasts have a star presenter or some such. So not my own voice. What about David Hockney or Alan Bennett, for example? Maybe not, maybe now is not the time for me to start thinking about expanding my podcast empire.
If I did though I would probably need to be thinking of my actual retirement blog in the form of a podcast. I mean with over 900 blogs there’s plenty to go at. I suppose my first action should be to check the internet to see what already exists in the form of retirement podcasts. There must be one or two but I haven’t looked*. If I do I need to bear in mind that if they exist this is not necessarily a bad thing, it just shows there is some kind of market for such a thing.
Anyway watch this space, as they say from little acorns big oak trees grow. But then do I really want a bloody, big oak tree in my garden at this time in my life?
*I looked, there are dozens.