This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Grace and I have now been podcasters for a couple of months. It is a lonely experience as we don’t really get any feedback, unlike with our YouTube vlogs. We often get comments (mostly good ones) written underneath which we always try to answer. Note to all of you – please tell us what you like (and if you must, what you dislike) about our podcasts so far. Also do let us know of any topics you would like us to talk about on our podcast -Everyday Stuff for Older Women.
What we love about podcasts is that we can do it in our pyjamas, with no make-up, drinking a G&T at 8am and no-one knows! Well we are not quite as decadent as that. But we have had a few funny incidents whilst trying to record them, including times where we could not stop laughing. Try listening to Cataracts, Coffee Pods, DIY Sex & Diego and see what I mean.
Why isn’t there a book, Podcasting for Dummies? All I can find is YouTube vlogs showing us how to improve our podcasts or increase our subscribers. However they are all produced by young American men. Some of their tips are generic. However I am not sure they are tuned in to wonderful women over 50. And mostly British ones to boot!!
Anyway here are some of the difficulties that we have experienced so far. The very first time Grace and I were interviewing someone, we were raring to go – or so we thought…
Helen Venables, CEO of House of Colour, arrived punctually at my house at 11am. We had a cup of coffee whilst she measured me up for some of the glasses available on her website. If you want to read about these lightweight glasses which come in wonderful colours and with interchangeable arms, then click HERE for our post.
Grace then arrived and we got our recording equipment out. Having discussed the format of the chat we did a voice test and…
My house has wooden floors throughout and so the sound was full of echo. We moved around. We cuddled up on the sofa. We even tried the small dog room as we thought the size might help. However apart from the doggy smells, we gained nothing. Helen was patient, Grace was supportive and I started to sweat as I tried to rectify the issue. Long story short, our editor, Chelsey, managed to sort the recording out at a later date. Afterwards I had to lie down in a darkened room as I had technological overload from watching all those ‘How to Podcast’ videos.
Grace and I met up last week in her (carpeted) house and feeling fully relaxed we recorded a couple of podcasts – the first of which is available today – Boomerang Kids. We were inspired by Poppy’s post that she wrote in February – Boomerang Bliss – Poppy welcomes her eldest daughter home.
However I think it was also to do with the fact that I probably clicked on something that gave us the echo, but who really knows. Maybe we should just stick to recording podcasts at Grace’s house.
My next challenge is to add a second microphone. Our editor has sent a very helpful video link and the instructions are easy to follow (if you are a digital whizz kid rather than an ageing Luddite like me). It involves two computers, one to watch the video and one to actually do the recording and an attention span longer than that of a sparrow! I suppose one of my kids would solve the issue in a nanosecond. Wouldn’t it be nice if they were to boomerang back into our house – there are advantages!