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Talking Texas History
Talking Texas History
Talking Podcasts 1
What does it take to start your own podcast? We're pulling back the curtain in the third season of Talking Texas History to share our own rollercoaster ride of surprises and successes in the world of podcasting. Whether it's picking your unique niche or understanding the magic connection between podcasting and traditional radio, we're here to light the path for aspiring podcasters eager to leave their mark in the vast podcasting world.
This podcast is not sponsored by and does not reflect the views of the institutions that employ us. It is solely our thoughts and ideas, based upon our professional training and study of the past.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that explores Texas history before and beyond the Alamo. Not only will we talk Texas history, we'll visit with folks who teach it, write it, support it, and with some who've made it and, of course, all of us who live it and love it. I'm Scott Sosby and I'm Gene Preuss, and this is Talking Texas History. Welcome to another edition of Talking Texas History. I'm Gene Preuss, I'm Scott Sosby. Scott, today, you know we've been having a lot of podcasts. I guess you know we're on our third season already.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. It is absolutely amazing, as we've said many times. You know, this is about two years and 11 months longer than I thought it would last.
Speaker 2:That's right Two years and 11 and a half months thought it would last that's right Two years and 11 and a half months longer than I thought.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And we've got tens of listeners, so we want to thank all of them.
Speaker 1:We can name them by name, if we wanted to right. Just give them a personal thank you.
Speaker 2:That's right and actually we've got a good number of listeners. I was just looking at one of the accounts. They send us an account of how many people listen to different podcasts and I don't know why this is, but it's sometimes the podcast that I don't think. I said, well, we'll just do this because we're going to do it and it's not like one of the ones that I think is going to be the most interesting one gets the most, gets the most listeners. So I'm I'm no judge of character. You know, don't listen to me, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, I will vouch that you are no judge for character and character. I will vouch for that completely. We've been friends for a long time, for over 30 years. So there you go, right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're asking that we should, since we are now podcast experts. Is that what you're trying to kind?
Speaker 2:of lay off. I think we are.
Speaker 1:I think we are Okay, so that's why we have decided we need to tell people how to do a podcast, maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, decided we need to tell people how to do a podcast maybe. Yeah, you know, I I kind of thought the podcast craze had hit a wave and had gone away, but one of the organizations I'm associated with started doing podcast classes and they said the room is full. People are still wanting to do this and we've got a lot of people that we know in the history profession, historians and maybe students. Last episode was students doing some interviews. It's something that can be done.
Speaker 1:It absolutely can. And an amazing thing is there's probably still a niche. You just said lots of people doing podcasts. You just said lots of people doing podcasts. You know how many podcasts there are out there right now in the United States, Not worldwide in the United States, 4.19 million, Are you kidding? I am not kidding. 4.19 million podcasts out there doing things. But still there's things for people to do, there's things how they do it. So maybe we just give a little primer. Maybe our question, our thorn out to our audience is so you want to do a podcast? Of course we're making a big assumption here, Gene. We're assuming we know what the hell we're doing.
Speaker 2:Well, that is a big assumption. So I will say this. So you know scott in my list of 27 jobs I've had for 10 years, starting when I was in high school um, I worked for a radio station, um in austin, in my hometown of new braunfels. So I worked, I think, four radio stations altogether over that 10-year period, and podcasting shares a lot of characteristics with radio, and so when I started looking into how to do the podcast and set it up, it really wasn't that different. But I mean, there's a lot of people who are getting into it. It's the democratization of getting your message out.
Speaker 1:That is true, and that's what the platform is great for. Everybody can have a platform in the way we do things now and think that you do so, Gene. We'll just start. This way we can bounce things off of it.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Somebody says they say Gene Preuss, I want to start a podcast. What's the first piece of advice you're going to give them? What are you going to say? This is the number one thing you got to come up with.
Speaker 2:Well, what is your idea? What is it that you want to do and you were talking about it earlier what is your niche?
Speaker 2:I think that's probably important, I think everybody you know, you know there's an audience for just about anything out there and you know you're probably not the only one that thinks a certain subject would be a good idea. But you got to nail it down Right. And some people say, well, I'm gonna have a podcast where I just, you know, talk and ramble is. You know, you got gotta think that might draw an audience. But what kind of an audience?
Speaker 1:so evidently it draws tens of people right. You just said we had tens of listeners just rambling, we've drawn an audience right but you know, so, like for ours.
Speaker 2:You know we wanted to do something that would be for other people who teach history and people who like history, so that was kind of our audience. But I'm going to go one one deeper than that, because sometimes some of the advice you get is not only what is my audience, but who is my audience, and so it's not just thinking about you know, know what type of people, who am I trying to like, what individual? And if you can visualize, they say that one person sitting in front of you and you're talking to them, what kind of show would you have? And that's a real challenging question.
Speaker 1:I don't think it is. I think it's hard for people to figure out. You ask, oh, here's my audience. Well, I have, I don't know. I want to do something on the history of sports in Texas or something. Okay, that's a good idea.
Speaker 1:And you say, well, who's your audience for that? Well, do you know who that audience would be? Do you know who would be attracted to that? You got to have some knowledge about that. I mean, it can't be. You know, I remember I was sitting in a bar one time and I talked to these 10 guys and they seemed to understand what I had to say. And I think that's number one. I would say, first off, if you're going to start something, absolutely Find something that you're interested in that you think your audience will be interested in, but it's got to be something you know quite a bit about. You know it's got to be something that you I'm not saying have expertise in, but something that your knowledge of is broad enough that you can understand not just what needs to be discussed If you have to bring on guests, who needs to be discussed, and also what types of discussions you need to have and how do you need to frame the discussions as you go in.
Speaker 2:You know, it's kind of like you know oral histories, we, you know that that's something that's right. You know, and in many historians you know realms, they know how to do oral histories. You want to do a little bit of research on the person, but you want to have some knowledge of the topic so you can listen to their responses and guide them along the way. And there's, you know, one of my favorite, I guess, people that I really liked listening to when I was a kid was Larry King. Did you ever listen to Larry King very much?
Speaker 1:I listened to him some. Yeah, I did. I remember the first time I was time I got really angry at Larry King because the radio station in San Angelo when I was young, starting at 10 o'clock they took the programming of music off and put Larry King on and I had to start listening to him. I'm like I don't want to listen to Larry King, I want to hear Merle Haggard sing. But I did. And one thing about Larry is Larry King and I realized this later knew how to ask questions and he knew how to ask questions to get a response that is right now.
Speaker 2:Larry king, by his own admission, uh, he did not want to know anything about the guest. He wanted to come in into it fresh. He wanted. He said, I want to interview a person as if I'm a person off the street coming in and talking to this person. Now I mean, okay, but in a lot of his interviews he knew those people right. But you're right, I was trying to think what did Larry know how to do? He knew how to ask questions.
Speaker 1:Certainly did, and that's something you talk about historians and oral history and that's our background to some extent, because we we do these. You do more oral histories than me. Uh, it's not something I must uh call myself any sort of a specialty into, but I have done a few and I've conducted an oral history project. And one thing I've learned from that and I think this is instructive for a podcast which hard to say given the way we ramble on, but you need to know when to shut up to. You know you need to know when not to say something.
Speaker 1:If you have a guest, let them talk.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, and, and for us to talk about this. This is, like you know, pots calling kettles black.
Speaker 1:Um, because I can talk for a long time, if you need me to, or even if you don't need me to that's what I think of. Uh, you knew him and he was my colleague. He'd retire.
Speaker 1:I got here to sfa but tell my oral history is bobby johnson dr bob johnson to know bobby for a while you would have I don't know if this guy would be, you know and him being an oral historian, because Bobby liked to talk, bobby liked to tell stories. But when you listen to Bobby Johnson do oral histories, bobby Johnson, he understood the actual value of knowing when to shut up and Bobby could ask a question that would set his subject off and they could just talk forever and Bobby just would let them and that's why Bobby did Great Oral Histories, because he knew how to do that. There's actually a similarity in doing a podcast, I think, in that regard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't want to say that I'm an artist, but it's an art at doing it and I, you know, it's something. That that I struggle with is how do you ask a simple question, an open-ended question that people are going to respond to, and is going to get them, uh, like Bob you were saying about Bobby, get them started and going. Now, we have friends and I'm not going to mention any names here, but we have friends who you could ask them one question and they'll go, they'll talk for an hour and that's fine and that's great. But you also need to know how to be able not only to ask those questions but then, uh, have some control over the interview right to steer it in the right direction and that's another thing that you bring up.
Speaker 1:If you're going to do a podcast, you better better develop the skill of, yes, knowing when to shut up, but also knowing when to suddenly move your subject into. They need to maybe come focus back to what they need to say, because you know what we talk about. One thing, and somebody would ask me what's an important thing about a podcast? And I think if there's one thing you and I have been very good about is we understood from the beginning people don't listen to this for an hour and a half, two hours. No, they want to do it short and and we came up with 30 minutes. Our podcasts are 30 minutes and that's what they are, and we structure them when they're 30 minutes and we make sure the guests know they're 30 minutes and we keep to that. That's why we we've even had to do sometimes two and three parters, because it's like we're not going to go on for more than 30 minutes. So I'm saying, man, set you a length and make sure it's the length of where you can cover what you need to, but you don't drag on with it.
Speaker 1:I liking it. I tell this to students sometimes when I tell them when they're writing book reviews. I said here's what a book review, the best book review, is short and sweet. I said envision it like guerrilla warfare. You're in there, you make a little mess and you get the hell out All right On this podcast are kind of that way, you know that's what you need to do, that's right.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, um, going back to the oral history model, um, what we tell people, or what we used to, what I was taught as an oral historian, what I tell students when they're going to do it, is only expect to spend about an hour, because if you're talking to someone and you're asking them to, you know, go into the past, into their memory and think about, you know, something that happened a long time ago that actually does wear people out.
Speaker 2:If you go on and on and on and on, and so we say, you know, keep it under an hour, you can always go back and do another, one, another interview if you need more. Likewise with the podcast, when we were, I was looking at the lengths, right, One of the you know, because we were. You know how long should it be? Here's a half hour, because I was looking at some statistics on how long people sit in their car when they're driving. They said that the average is about half an hour, and so I thought you know, if people are listening for you know when they're driving and they've got their podcasts on, about half an hour is about the time that they have and that's when they listen to them.
Speaker 1:Gene, we do a podcast. I've listened to it at some point Every one of our episodes. Every time I listen to it, it's in the car. That's where I listen to podcasts. It's in the car, you know. That's why I'm going on a trip and I'll well, I take that back. Why I'm on the treadmill working out, I also listen to my podcast, which means I'll hear your voice as the pain sets in sometimes of me on the treadmill.
Speaker 2:so I'm like blame it on you that I'm feeling the way I am well, not only, not only have to talk about length, scott, you got. How frequently do you want to do it? And this is something, something I've got to say for our listeners. I'm not as how do I say this? We don't get ours out as regularly as I would like to, but we aim for it.
Speaker 1:We're pretty good about every other week. We've missed a few of that and I think that's about right. You know there's the uh mark twain saying that talk about politicians and baby diapers. That should be changed frequently. For the same reason, uh, and I'm thinking about when we talk about a podcast you want to hit again, we're talking about hitting a sweet spot. There's a reason why, when television programming came along and they began to come up with programming of television, that they set on the once a week type of model for television programming, because any more than that could be too much, but any less than that lessens the frequency of people tuning in, because it becomes a habit. We settled on two. I think a lot of pod, I know a lot of podcasts do once a week. There are some that do it every day but they're more of general use podcasts and it's almost like you. Just you know you said a lot in tune with radio. I think they'll take the Joe Rogan experience, for example.
Speaker 2:I mean he's on every day.
Speaker 1:They says they're like four hours long and they're long, but that's kind of like old radio programs used to be, you know, because it was something people turned into. But when you're having a specialty, niche things like ours, people probably don't want to hear that every day. And first off, how much content Can you come up with content for something every day? I would hate to. How much content can you come up with content for something every day? I would hate to. I mean, I write a newspaper column and I spend sometimes two hours staring at my ceiling trying to figure out what I'm going to write on that week. I would hate to have to come up with something every day to do that.
Speaker 1:So I think that's something you got to hit on, you know, once a week, I think it's fine. We do once every two weeks, I think those are good. I think once's fine. We do once every two weeks, I think those are good. I think once a month is too infrequent and probably more than once a week for most podcasts is too frequent and I would think you would want to get somewhere in between that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do know some people who do it once a month. Another thing you want to think about is guests. Now we have guests on our show quite a bit, but then there's times that it's just you and me and guests. We've had some really good guests and I want to thank everybody who's been on our show because they've made it good.
Speaker 1:That's right, We've had fantastic guests.
Speaker 2:They've I mean they've made it good. That's right. We've had fantastic guests. Sometimes the problem with guests is a you know, like you were saying, you sit down, you look at this ceiling, so what are we going to talk about? Who can we get? So it's sometimes getting your guests or guests available even. And then it's also scheduling, because we do and this is something we talk about later on but how do we do the technology that we use? You know, we do our interviews and our discussions via Zoom. We're on Zoom right now.
Speaker 1:There's other platforms people can use. Well, that's a good thing to talk about, gene. I mean, I know we're talking about other things to talk about. Tell people we can tell people. You've got to have a platform, you've got to have somebody host this thing.
Speaker 2:There's no thing, you just throw out there and hope people listen to it. Well, and you've got to think about other things too, right? What kind of microphones are you going to get? There's technology, there's microphones. There's technology, there's microphones. There's Zoom, there's computers, and I mean there are some things to think about. I'll tell you one thing I work with this one public access station here in Houston that I do some work with, and I had to take this media savviness class right, understanding media, and one of the things they taught us that's always stuck with me and really is true is that for every minute you're on the air right, that you're broadcasting or you're recording or whatever think about 10 minutes to prepare, right, so it's what you're seeing, the, the show itself, and I think this is true of television too, right? Uh, or movies, what you see, that final product is the tip of the iceberg, and underneath the water is a giant amount of planning and thought and ideas that went into that.
Speaker 1:So planning is, pre-planning is essential I agree, and you know we make. You know we make a lot of ourselves and when it's a joke we talk about, we just come on and ramble oh, we're just going to wing this. But that's not generally true before either one of us go on the air. We have come up with and spent time coming up with questions, coming up with some knowledge of who are if we have a guest, who they are, what they've done, uh, what are some of the things that that they are known for, so we can prepare for questions and things like that. But even more than that that this knowledge and research, to some extent, if it goes in a certain direction, you have to be ready to follow it in that direction, so you have something about that to bring it out. So so I think that's. I think that's another one I've.
Speaker 1:I've listened to some podcasts before there's. They're sports related mostly, and you can just tell and some of them gain quite a bit of listenership that these guys thought the idea of a pocket was just them Like. I'll go back to the analogy of in a bar. This is just me pontificating about sports in a bar.
Speaker 1:And I'm just going to come on here and talk about sports. You know what? There's no sustaining power there, because how often do you want to listen to some guy pontificate about how great the New York Yankees are, but from like he's on a bar stool. You know what you do in bars with those people. You move away from them. You don't want to listen to them on that. So so you do have to have a somewhat. You've got to be knowledgeable, but you have to also again, do your research to some extent. Be prepared.
Speaker 2:I think that's the best thing before you go on the air be prepared well, I'm going to give an example from a recent couple of shows that we did, scott, and that was on the hurricanes. You know, we did two episodes on hurricanes in Texas history and I did a little bit of research. Yeah, I knew, but I got to tell you, scott, you really did a lot of research. I think you said that you wanted to turn that into one of those columns that you write you were going to do that.
Speaker 2:So you were doing a little bit of extra research. But I've got to say you, you really, you really uh carried a lot of water for that and that was a a lot of.
Speaker 1:that was because you know what I learned a lot and I started looking into it and I said this is, this is damned interesting. Some of these, some of these hurricanes, particularly some of those in, the, uh, 18th and 19th century, I'd never, never heard of, I didn't know about that. They happened to have the consequences. So it was kind of amazing to do that. But yeah, you do, you got to do your prep. You can't just get on there and wing it. One other thing, gene, I think this goes.
Speaker 1:someone probably would then think about it, but you think about hosts and how you want to do this and how you want to set this up. Hosts, and how you want to do this and how you want to set this up. You and I are lucky because we've known each other a long time and we're used to just talking with each other. That's why we that's one of the strengths of I've heard of people say it that's one of the strengths of our podcast, cause we sound like we're having a conversation. But that's probably lucky on our part that it happened. It probably doesn't happen that way. Very often You're going to start a podcast and if you're going to have hosts together, y'all better have some rapport. You better know what you're doing together.
Speaker 2:And you know people think, oh well, I've got some friends and we'll just you know, kind of like, sit around the bar and talk. It's not that easy and you've got to think about people that you can interact with. I was watching TV last night and there was a rerun of one of the late night shows and they were interviewing Steve Martin and Martin Short. You know those guys have been working together 40 years and they finish each other's sentences. They have these. I think it's a stable of jokes that they tell about and about each other right they sit around and they insult each other.
Speaker 1:And they made it a certain shtick, if you will, about the deal, martin Short's kind of the sardonic and most biting, if you will, of the sardonic, uh, you know, uh, and most biting, if you will of the two. And see, martin, it's almost kind of naive-ish about things and about and they just go back and forth each other. I thought you were going to talk about. You first came in the light night, because this is what came. This also ages me, what came into my mind, and it was something I read too often also about how close knit, and not just close because they hung out together, but because they knew what each other was going to do when they perform.
Speaker 1:Remember Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon? Oh right, those guys were, their timing with each other was perfect at all and they knew their role, they knew what they're supposed to do, and I think that's part of it Each of you is. I think that some of your co-hosting, as you go on, you'll develop this is what this person does and this is what this person does, and the job of the other person is to make sure you make sure you can amplify what the other person does. Well, and vice versa. On that, and I think, and that's something that you have to think about before. So again, it has to be someone you have good rapport with before you would do something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know so. And the other thing is is that, who are you going to do the show all the time by yourself? Are you going to have the same person you're working with, or you have to have similar same person you're working with, or you have to have similar schedules too, right?
Speaker 1:Scheduling is a big thing, but also. Scheduling is easy for us because we barely work.
Speaker 2:That's true. But you know, and it's also the scheduling, but it's also who is going to carry the show of. One person can't do it one week or one month or whatever. You know, people get sick.
Speaker 1:People get sick. People have different things. We've had different circumstances. I think back I don't even remember which one it was where you were having some sort of problem. You were having a drive. Take somebody to school yeah, one time I pick something up and then your audio cat out. My first thought when that happens, oh my God. This is now I have to carry this sucker off by myself, but because I'd done a little research and we were good, we'd done this, that was well into a year when that happened. I was able to do that. So that's one thing you have to, but you know, genius, there's another thing you have to, but you know, there's another thing that you haven't talked to people about. That I think it's very important and it's the part of this podcast that you handle for us. I have nothing to do with this folks Cause. I know I'm like Sergeant Schultz and Hogan's heroes. I know nothing.
Speaker 1:All right About the technology of a podcast. You know. Here's what I know about a podcast. I joined the technology. I joined the link that gene sends me. I hook up my microphone y'all can't see it when I'm showing jeans I hook up my microphone uh, to my computer and I wait for gene to let me into his room so we can start. All the other technology is yours. So let people know what they need to have, what they need to do about that technology well, you're going to need a microphone.
Speaker 2:Now a lot of people could say, well, I've got a laptop or a tablet or my phone, I'll just plug something into that. Well, it's not always the way it works and you've got to have good, good-ish technology. Now I don't know what kind of microphone you're using. I don't remember offhand, but I've got a.
Speaker 1:What is it? It's called a blue, as I would say, a blue bluetooth microphone I.
Speaker 2:I've got one, a blue as well, a thx, so we're both using very similar microphones. Sometimes I might, depending on where we are, I've been known to use my ear pads or my air pads, air pods.
Speaker 1:I've used those.
Speaker 2:We've done it at home a couple of times as well, and so I use Mac, which I think is a little bit easier to use than than my PC. I use the PC at work, think is a little bit easier to use than my PC. I use the PC at work and use the Mac at home. But yeah, so we're using it Zoom. Zoom is across multiple platforms, but you know, so just using what is on your computer isn't necessarily going to work, because that microphone is not really made for up-close voice. It's a condenser voice that picks up a lot of noise. You want a microphone that's somewhat dynamic. It picks up your voice but it doesn't register extraneous noise. And if you've got a good enough microphone, even if it is a condenser, you can work around that. But you've got to think about having a decent microphone. And that's probably the biggest issue, right? Because how does it plug into your computer? How does it plug into your recording device? If you're using a recording device and not Zoom, are you going to have a separate? Most everybody's using digital these days, right? So you can have digital recording devices.
Speaker 2:Zoom, which is a different company from the video conferencing company. There's another company called Zoom. They make microphones, they make cameras and they make podcasting devices, so there might be some expense. You need to do some research into that. What kind of plug-in is it going to take? Because there's USB plugs, there's stick plugs and then there's four-prong plugs that go in. You have to figure that out. So spend some time researching that. What kind of microphone, what kind of expenses do you want? And then you've got to look at a couple of other things, like who's going to host your podcast, and you know what, scott, I'm going to say. There's a little bit more to talk about, not only the technology, but the marketing. And why don't we? We're just we're running up against the time stamp here. We'll do another one like we say why don't we do another one?
Speaker 1:we'll just do another one and we'll talk about all these other extraneous ideas and then we'll ramble on like we're at a bar, because if one thing we've discovered now is doing a podcast, I guess is analogous to sitting at a bar with a drunk right. You know what? I've listened?
Speaker 2:to some podcasts. We could start drinking in our podcast.
Speaker 1:We could start drinking. I've actually thought about hey, let's just see what you know. You say that, but our friend, joe Pellerin, had an idea one time he's been on here before. He wanted to do a sports podcast and he wanted to call it uh two guys, two guys, uh with a, with, with a shot and a cigar. Uh, the idea was that it would be, you know, uh, you sitting in a bar talking, but then he, then his wife, had a baby and he became a father and that kind of fell away for him.
Speaker 2:So but yeah, I think there's plenty of time.
Speaker 1:That's right. I think there's plenty of plenty of material for us to do this again.
Speaker 2:And we'll talk, so part two will be coming up. So I hope we got some information across and some things to think about, and we'll pick this up where we left off next time, ok.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Goodbye, everybody, bye.
