114. How to Make Podcasting Edits Easier and Faster (Without Losing Quality) | Online Business Growth for Solopreneurs

Do you dread editing your podcast? Or have you delayed your podcasting journey because of it? I hear this allllllll the time. It doesn't have to be overwhelming! In today's episode, I'm sharing simple strategies that can make podcast editing feel easier and faster, plus my secret weapon that will save you hours without sacrificing quality.

Mentioned in this episode:
Finger Clicker: https://a.co/d/3ZR7YFF

Check out the Podcast Growth Collective: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com/collective

This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Take the quiz to find out what you need to focus on for podcast growth: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com/quiz

Transcript

Hey. Hey. And welcome back. This is your podcast teacher, Julia Levine, and you're listening to podcasting for solopreneurs, the show that helps online business owners grow their podcast to get more listeners, leads, and sales. Today, we're talking about a part of podcasting that makes a lot of people groan, and that is editing. If you're already podcasting, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. And if you have not taken the leap yet, I would be willing to bet that editing is one of the reasons why. You might have heard horror stories about editing taking hours, feeling super technical and overwhelming, or just being so much harder than expected and you're afraid that you will experience the same.

I hear this all the time so you are not alone. And while I can't personally relate to hating the process of editing, I did start out in the field as an editor and I don't mind it myself, I do understand where the frustration and or the fear comes from. So today, I want to help with that and share my editing experience and expertise. We're going to talk through a few simple strategies that can make your podcast editing feel easier and faster. And I'm also sharing my secret weapon that will save you hours without sacrificing quality. Alright. First things first, garbage in equals garbage out. I have to start here because this one is non negotiable.

Good editing starts with good baseline audio. If your recording quality is poor, no amount of editing is going to completely fix that. Yes, you can improve it, but bad audio is never going to sound good. It'll just sound like slightly better bad audio, and it will take you hours and hours to get there. So if you are struggling with editing and you have not yet invested in a good professional microphone or you have not set up a decent recording environment yet, I want you to start there. And to be clear, you do not need to spend hundreds of dollars. My favorite professional microphone for beginners and experienced podcasters alike, the same one that I am using right now to record this episode is the Samson q two u. This microphone runs about 70 US dollars, and it sounds great if you're using it correctly.

Your recording environment also makes a difference, so try not to record in a room that is, like, big cavernous open spaces like a kitchen or your living room with vaulted ceilings. Something like that is going to make your audio more challenging to edit, and if you don't have professional training, it's going to take a while to get it to sound good. So starting with good input, a good environment, and a good microphone, that equals less cleanup for you and therefore faster editing. These pieces are truly the most important parts of simplifying your editing process and making it faster and easier. There is one other thing that I recommend you purchase and that is a dog clicker. Yes, you heard that right. A dog clicker. One of those little hand held training tools that makes a sharp clicking sound when you press it and that you use to train a dog.

I know you're probably thinking, what the heck? Julia has officially lost it. We're talking about podcasting, not dogs. But I promise you that I am perfectly sane and that using this dog clicker in a non traditional way is a game changer for your podcast. When you're editing your audio, you're looking at a waveform, which if you're not a professional editor just looks like a bunch of random audio squiggles. And trying to figure out where to make your cuts can be pretty challenging. So a dog clicker makes a very sharp distinct spike in your waveform that's super easy to spot at a glance and so it can make it easier and for you to identify where your cuts need to be made. So here's the process. When you're recording and you make a mistake, you're going to click the dog clicker.

You don't stop the recording. You don't start over from the beginning and rerecord the whole thing. You just click with the dog clicker and then repeat yourself. Then when you go into edit, all of those spikes are sitting there waiting for you. You zoom in, you clean up the spots where you clicked, and you ignore everything else. This is a massive time saver because you don't have to go through and listen to the whole episode start to finish. You just make your edits at those click points and you move on. So this makes it so that you are done in a fraction of the time.

A little extra bonus tip for you, I like to do three quick clicks right next to the microphone. So I hold up my hand, my clicker, and I put it, you know, an inch or so away from the microphone to make sure that the microphone is picking up the loud clicks and that makes it easy to see on the waveform. If you are holding your clicker further away, you have your hand resting on your desk or something and your microphone is closer to your mouth, it's not going to pick up the sound as clearly and therefore these spikes are not going to be as distinct and easily visible. I'll drop a link to my favorite clicker in the show notes. It is super cheap and it has a little loop so that you can wear it on your finger while recording. I just have it looped around my index finger and then, hold it up with my thumb to click it whenever I need to do a retake. Some people prefer to clap or make a tongue clicking sound and that can work too, but I love the consistency of the dog clicker. The waveform looks the same every time, which makes it super easy to spot during the editing process.

Many of my podcast startup academy students have called this one little tool a total game changer. I've even had some of them tell me that they finally stopped dreading their podcast editing because of this one genius trick. So there you have it, my secret weapon for easy and fast podcast editing is a dog clicker. I do have one more tip to share with you today, but before I do let me tell you about the podcast help desk feature inside of the podcast growth collective. While the collective does not have instructional modules about how to edit your podcast that's something that's covered in my podcast startup academy course you can submit any podcast related question at all to the help desk including editing questions. So this is a cool feature where you can submit a question to me at any time and receive a personalized response in just one to three business days. If you would like to receive answers and advice for all of your podcasting needs at any time, check out the collective at the podcastteacher.com/collective. Okay.

And my last tip for editing is to let go of the need to make every episode perfect. I know, I know, it is easier said than done. But perfectionism is one of the biggest time sucks during the editing process. And to be honest, it doesn't really matter. Your audience is not sitting there analyzing every little background noise, every little click, every, they don't care, right? You probably don't care if I have a little extra noise in here as long as I'm giving you the information. Now I used to spend forever removing every single filler word, every long loud breath, every tiny little mouth noise, but that took me hours and hours and hours. And the truth is I'm human, you're human, and humans breathe. Humans say, humans have little saliva noises when we're talking sometimes.

Now, of course, I do edit out anything that is above and beyond that's truly distracting, that's extra loud, extra obnoxious, but I leave in the rest. So normal breaths, they stay just like they are. If I say or like occasionally, totally fine. I just leave them there. Even a slight pause while I'm thinking of the next thing to say, that's just real life. That's what happens. And that's part of the beauty of podcasting, right, is that it sounds like a conversation with a friend. You're having someone in your ears.

You're not listening to a perfectly polished audiobook presentation. You are listening to just someone share their thoughts. Over time, I have learned to trust that my value does not come from perfectly polished audio. It comes from the ideas and thoughts that I share and the connection that I am creating with you throughout this process. And letting go of that need to have perfectly polished audio has not only saved me hours, it's made podcasting more fun again, which of course is really important for something that you're going to be doing week after week. So there you have it. Start with good quality audio, use a dog clicker, and let go of perfectionism, and your podcast editing will be easier and faster. Until next time, happy podcasting.