New book How to Start and Grow a Successful Podcast
A new book, How to Start and Grow a Successful Podcast, offering tips, techniques and true stories from podcasting pioneers is published next week, 11 February.
Written by food journalist and podcaster Gilly Smith, the book is for creatives who are striving to understand how their content could be successfully turned into a podcast, from conception through to execution, distribution, marketing and monetising.
From This American Life’s Ira Glass and George the Poet to the teams behind My Dad Wrote a Porno and Table Manners with Jessie Ware, exclusive behind-the-scenes advice and informative, inspiring stories that teach how to tell the greatest stories in the world are also included.
Topics covered include:
- Recognising who your show is for, deciding what it is about and where to find inspiration
- Deciding on the format and working on structure and script
- Hosting, casting and interview techniques
- Production expertise – from equipment you’ll need to editorial tips and determining the ideal length of your show
- Distribution – deciding on a release schedule, show art, metadata and how to distribute
- Growing your podcast – promotion and building community among fans
There are also case studies from podcasters across genres and a companion podcast, How to Grow a Pod featuring interviews with the pioneers.
Author Gilly was an early adopter in British food podcasting and was nominated for a Fortnum and Mason award in 2017 for the delicious. podcast. She is the producer and presenter of Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith, the delicious. podcast, Leon’s How to Eat to Save the Planet, The Borough Market Podcast and The Write Songs. She produces The Food Foundation’s Right2Food podcast and Philip Lymbery’s The Big Table podcast.
Initially a radio and TV producer, she has written seventeen books, mainly about the influence of culture of food in its various forms, as well as articles for the national press and academic journals, largely about food, philosophy and ethical travel. Smith’s Taste and the TV Chef (2020) won the UK Gourmand Award for Food Writing.