Advice on Starting a Podcast

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I want to answer a very, very common question that I get, and I thought it would be simpler for me just to put it in one place so I can send the link to people, and that is,

John, how do I do what you're doing? How do I become a podcaster?

How do I start a podcast? How do I get big on YouTube? How do I get big on iTunes?

I don't know that I'm big, but I'm big enough that I get the question. And this is a question

I'm very happy to answer. One of the first things, though, I usually do is I do warn people about this.

It is not all that it's cracked up to be. And what I mean by that is some people have a little bit of a star -struck attitude when it comes to someone who's big in the podcast world, very similar to a movie star or something like that.

In fact, in some ways, there's a different dynamic because someone who's in the podcast world is very self -made.

They just got a camera and they started talking, and people liked it, enough people liked it that they had a show.

No one ... Well, sometimes people help you along, but in this world, it is very sink or swim. I mean, you could pour thousands of dollars into someone to do podcasts, but if no one listens and they don't like the content, then it's not going anywhere.

And it's a very interesting dynamic. It's one that I never planned on getting involved with. I never thought, even five years ago, if you came to me and said,

John, would you consider becoming a podcaster or an influencer online or writing books?

Writing books, I probably would have said, yeah, I could see myself doing that, maybe like 10 or 15 years in the future, not maybe right now.

The other stuff I would have said, no way, it just wouldn't have been on my mind. I did blog.

I did make videos sometimes for social media, but I never thought of it as a regular podcast.

The thing that ... There's so much I could talk about here and I want to keep this short, but the thing that I want to really emphasize is it is work.

If you want good content, you will have to put some work in. Some people are natural.

Some people can, on very little information, create a very interesting narrative.

They're good storytellers. I'm not in that category as much. People, I think, is my perception, they listen to what

I say because I have an organized and outlined way of presenting information and I give you information often that you can't find other places.

There's a niche in what I'm doing. It's unique. That's honestly why this podcast even exists in the first place.

I've told this story before, many of you know. I started podcasting as an outlet, just as a way to get my ideas out there and think through them myself.

That's how I process information sometimes is by talking about it. In fact, there's been times

I've talked through things and I've come to understandings that I didn't previously have through thinking them through out loud.

Audible communication, hearing what I'm saying, helps me think through things. Writing also does that in a different way.

For many years, I did write here and there. Sometimes I'd take breaks for years from blogging and then

I'd go back to it. A lot of it was on political stuff, a lot of it was on historical stuff, a lot of it was on biblical stuff.

Sometimes I would write on other things. When I got to grad school, I just knew

I didn't have time. I couldn't write like I did and I wanted to.

I did want to influence things. Even if it was just my little circle of friends, I did want to influence things, but I also wanted to figure things out.

You got to keep some of these goals in mind if you're going to start down this path. If you're doing it just to make a difference, that's the only goal you have, like make a political difference or something, there's a good chance you may be disappointed, at least initially, because you may be podcasting for a long time and it'll never be picked up by a lot of people.

That's just the reality. I made cell phone videos, actually it was before cell phone videos, vlogger camera videos, for years without really anything.

It was just something I did sometimes. I had little periods of time where I did it more.

Sometimes when I had gripes about something, I was annoyed about something and I put out a lot of content. I remember 2015 and 16,

I put out a lot of content. There was a lot of things that were annoying me that were happening in society.

That's not always the right motivation, I'm not saying it is, but it was an outlet. I didn't want to go complain.

Was it complaining, John? Were you just complaining? Some of it was. Some of it was me outlining all the issues

I had with something and why we shouldn't do something we're doing. I think there is a biblical way to complain,

I think. God heard the cries of the Israelites when they were in Egypt. Very dangerous, though.

There's a very, obviously, do all things without grumbling and complaining. If you're doing it in such a way that you don't trust

God, then there's an issue with that. Maybe I crossed that line, but hopefully it was most of the time just an outlet for what

I was thinking, organizing my thoughts and getting it out there. Then I felt like there was a burden off my chest.

For years, no one listened. Hardly anyone did. Maybe a few people in my friend's circle. Here and there, maybe one blog

I'd write or one video would go semi -viral. But then, like I said, when I got to grad school,

I just didn't have time to write, so I decided I'll just record myself talking about things I'm interested in. It could be anything.

The first podcast, I think the first one I did, one of the first, was on hiking.

Many of you don't know, I really enjoy hiking. I'm a member of the Catskill 3500 Club. It means more to me than my degrees.

In fact, when my first book was coming out, I actually talked to, I don't know if it was a publisher or just someone close to me, but I remember saying,

I don't want to put my degrees down. I just want to put that I'm a member of the Catskill 3500 Club. It means I learned more climbing those mountains in the

Catskills than I did getting my degrees, I feel like. Maybe that shows a little bit of a just ...

I was in worlds where degrees were very much overappreciated.

Oh my goodness, someone has a degree. I knew the people that had degrees, and it wasn't always all that impressive, so I bristled at that a little.

Anyway, I liked hiking, and so I did a podcast on that. How many people listened to it?

40, 50, maybe 80 tops? I don't know. It wasn't many. It wasn't even 100. I used

Anchor Podcasts. It wasn't even a video,

I don't think, it was just audio. I'm going to introduce you to some things as we go through this, but Anchor is a audio platform that's free that you can upload a video to.

It actually has tools. I'm not getting paid to say this, just so you know. It will put it on iTunes and many of the other podcast services.

There is an option to make some revenue. You can put automated ads on your video if you get to a certain level of subscribers, and you can make money.

I'll be very honest with you. There was a time I was pulling in about $1 ,000 a month through Anchor, until someone last year called me from Red Circle, which is a very similar podcast app.

They said, we can get you a better deal. We can do better for you.

I went back and forth with them for over a month, and finally I said, okay, I'll do it. One of the big things for me was,

I don't want to be canceled. Everyone's getting canceled, and they assured me that I wouldn't be canceled, which I don't know what that means.

I didn't sign anything, but I trusted the lady who reached out to me enough to say, all right.

What I've learned is, that was a major cut in revenue, and I didn't quite know what

I was doing. I didn't know anyone else who was doing this. A lot of what I'm going to be sharing with you is learning by experience, but Red Circle, I probably could be pulling in about the same.

It's not about money, by the way, at all. If you can get some revenue, and that frees you up to spend more time on podcasts, then it's worth it.

You're putting out a better quality product. That's why, if you can generate revenue, you want to try.

Red Circle has some automated ads. A lot of them, I couldn't morally ... I had to keep going in and adjusting.

I don't want underwear ads on my podcast, things like that. Then, I only want ...

There's mid -roll ads, which are the most expensive, usually, and then there's pre -roll, and then there's the ones you put at the end.

Generally, I just put ones at the end, because my audience is composed of people that are mostly working class, and they don't want their time taken up with a lot of mid -roll ads and a lot of pre -roll stuff.

I try to keep that light. I know some of you appreciate that. Thank you. There is a cost to that.

You don't get as much revenue, but I wouldn't want to listen to a podcast if I had to listen to an ad every couple minutes.

That's something to just keep in mind, a little advice on ads and a little advice on podcasting software and what's out there.

I'm not against using Red Circle. Anchor was a better deal for me when I was using it, but I haven't gone back, because it's very hard to switch back.

It is very difficult. It's a hard process. I'm going to just kind of see what Anchor does in the next few months and see where I'm going.

It was very important to me to have the connection, the personal connection, with people there who said that I wouldn't be canceled.

I didn't get that from Anchor. Anchor is a podcast software or service where you communicate with people through emails.

Sometimes, it's delayed. With Red Circle, you can get a hold of a person through Zoom or phone calls.

They're very personable. At least, they were when I started a few months ago. There's some information for you on audio podcasts and some of the programs that I've used.

When it comes to video, you can use YouTube, obviously.

Of course, there's a danger in that now. You can get canceled. In fact, I've had many of my videos edited or, well, demonetized, really, is what it is.

Some of them have. I've had to edit them because of copyright things. That's not often at all, but that has happened.

In fact, there was one of my top videos, Why Are All My Friends Marxists? There was a clip in there because everyone's trying to pretend like they're on the side of the revolution.

They've always been there. I think it was the Military Channel had a documentary on Robert E. Lee. There was a little snippet on YouTube of a story of Robert E.

Lee going and praying in this chapel. He says, the ground is level at the foot of the cross next to a black man. He sets the example for the people in that church that we can integrated worship.

I was making the point that if you're trying to cancel this guy, he's one of the guys that you should be looking to as an example early on of someone who was actually somewhat forward thinking, you'd think, in the minds of the progressives.

I got a copyright strike way after the fact. I found out the Military Channel completely scrubbed.

You can't even find it anymore. I don't know how many things are like that, but there's a lot. The information that is seen as insensitive, even if it's not, is gone.

It's going away. You could have a video that was out there for a while, and you used a clip from something, and you could have a copyright claim filed against you.

Be aware of that. That's an issue on YouTube. The other issue, obviously, is if you talk about anything related to off -limit topics.

You have to be very careful if you're going to use YouTube. Some people say, why even use

YouTube? There's Gab TV now. There's Rumble now. Some people who like Gab TV don't like Rumble.

I think it's a deception. They're not really for free speech. They're for free speech more than YouTube, though.

You can use Facebook Video if you want to do that. Video is very helpful if you want to do presentations.

I use PowerPoint for my presentations. I'll put the videos in there a lot of the time.

The slideshows, there's actually a feature on PowerPoint where you can format the slideshows to have graphics and all that with the click of a button.

Get to know PowerPoint. That's a good program if you want to find something to present information with.

There's other programs out there, too, but PowerPoint's the one that I was used to, so that's the one I used. Those are some of the video formats.

I know there's other ones out there that people are on. I'm not familiar with them. Those are the ones that I've used.

Gab TV I've used for some montages and things like that. I haven't used it for my general podcast, mainly because they have a limit as far as ...

I think it's two gigabytes. Some of my podcasts are more than that. YouTube is the main place, but I do upload it to Facebook.

I do upload it to Rumble. YouTube, there is more revenue. Rumble offers revenue options, but they're not great.

Facebook, I applied for it, but I was confused. I haven't used it.

I don't get enough views on it anyway. If I get canceled from YouTube, that's a big chunk right there. It'll probably happen at some point.

I'm certainly expecting that. People who are starting out right now,

I would say, yeah, get a YouTube account, and use it, but I don't know if ...

If I was starting out now, I wouldn't make YouTube my main place. I wouldn't make that the hub. It just has kind of naturally happened that way, because at the time, the cancel culture stuff hadn't really started on YouTube much.

I think I had already started the podcast when they canceled Alex Jones. That's how early it was. I waited a year for them to approve monetization.

Some people never get approved. Others get approved right away. You take a chance on that with YouTube, and you have to reach a certain threshold.

I don't remember if it's 5 ,000 subscribers or whatever, 2 ,000. It changes, but there's a threshold you have to reach to even be able to apply for that.

It can be lucrative. There has been months where I've made over $1 ,000 just in revenue on YouTube.

That's not every month. I'd say YouTube generally is between probably like $700 and $1 ,000 a month.

Sometimes lower, sometimes maybe. Well, it hasn't been, I don't think, higher in a while, but it could be higher. If you get a video that goes viral, and you get a lot of clicks, and you have ads on that, you can generate some revenue.

That's YouTube and video formats online.

Now, some people do live broadcasts. I've done that a few times, and I'm not against it.

I'll probably do some more in the future. My lifestyle makes that difficult, though, because you need to be able to plan in advance for those, or at least,

I mean, you don't have to, but it's good to be able to plan in advance so people know that you're going to be live. It's much more interactive, and usually

I have a mission. I have like, here's what I want to present, and my time is very limited. It's hard for me, too, to plan in advance sometimes, especially with all the construction, and the move, and the family issues that I've had over the last few months.

But that's one feature that a lot of people do like, so YouTube offers that. Facebook offers that.

Rumble now does offer that as well. That's becoming a universal feature. I don't believe Gab does. As far as equipment to be using, right now

I'm using a Canon Rebel T8i. You can use a

Logitech webcam, though, and I probably would still be using a Logitech webcam, except for the way my office is,

I look very distant. I have to have a lens that zooms in a little bit, and so I had to use my

Canon, and it's frustrating sometimes because the battery runs out. I would suggest, if you're starting out, just get a Logitech 1080p webcam.

You can go to Best Buy and get one, and it's fine. The quality's fine. You can plug it right in to your computer, and unless you're doing something aesthetic, like art, if you're doing social commentary, it shouldn't matter that much.

If you're just starting, you don't want to invest in anything too expensive. Get a ring light. I have one.

I have a nicer one now. It costs me over $100, but most of the years, like the first three years, three, two, whatever, two years,

I actually started out with my phone. I was just using my phone. Then I got a ring light that was like $20 for probably makeup and things like that, and it had a little stand for your phone.

If I had to do it over there, I wouldn't be using my phone. I'd be using a ring light with a 1080p webcam from Logitech.

It's fine to use your phone. It just makes it hard to present things if you want to present things from PowerPoint or another program.

As far as software, I use XSplit Broadcaster, and you do pay a fee.

I paid the fee for an unlimited lifetime membership. I don't remember how much it was, but that's a really good program, very easy to use, and it'll do screen capture and all of that.

Then CyberLink PowerDirector 365 is the program I use for editing if I need to edit anything.

That's a very good program in my opinion. I really like it. I have a PC. If you're an Apple person, this stuff wouldn't apply, but if you're

PC, CyberLink is a great program. You can input all your intro and outro music and all of that through that.

Speaking of intro and outro music, you can go to a lot of websites that will generate that kind of stuff for you, or you can just record it.

For a while, I had just my own guitar. I recorded a little ditty on my phone, and I uploaded that.

Then Tim Bushong, actually, who has a lot of good albums and stuff, he does the intro to James White's show.

He did the intro to Conversations That Matter as well on his electric guitar, and he just sent it to me.

The graphics, I don't remember actually what the website was. There's a lot of them out there, the websites that will just do podcast intros.

You might pay $15, $20, $25, $30 for upload an emblem or whatever your podcast name is, and then it'll generate something that looks kind of cool.

That's how that came into being. You don't have to have that initially for a podcast, but it is good to have something, some way of introducing it, some kind of a welcome sign.

That's software. That's hardware. As far as content goes, you want to make sure with a podcast, what

I've learned, because I couldn't figure out at first, well, I kind of knew, but I'm like, why me?

Why am I a go -to guy on the topic of social justice? That was never anything I was setting out to study.

In fact, I changed even my focus in grad school to doing a thesis on social justice, in part because of the podcast.

I had been seeing it at the seminary, and I took a stand against it, and that was really when

I started to get interested in this topic. But I wouldn't have known.

I didn't know at the time that there was going to be this BLM thing in 2020. I didn't know about the lockdowns and all the stuff that has ended up happening.

I didn't know what was going to happen, but a lot of that stuff, I had been prepared for years before.

I had to think through a lot of these things before even getting to that point. That's just my own bio.

That's my unique life experience and my interests. I found a niche, and it was a niche that not a lot of other people, it wasn't a crowded niche.

It is more now. It wasn't at the time. At the time, people didn't really want to talk about social justice much.

Critical theory, that wasn't a big thing. And the people who did often were very, in evangelicalism especially, very careful.

They didn't want to name names. They didn't want to call even false teachers brothers if they were on the conservative side, if they ever talked about it.

In my mind, some of it was kind of pathetic. And I think that's what drew a lot of people to listening to this podcast is,

I just said what I thought. And I did attempt to be true to what the word of God says and what reason dictated.

But I think because I wasn't afraid of going after sacred cows and naming names and saying, yes, this person.

Yes, Al Mohler's doing this. Yes, Tim Keller's saying this. Yes, these things are wrong. Right? That, I think, was what a lot of people wanted to hear.

And I found that out when I did the podcast. I think it was like my second or third podcast on Southeastern and my experience there.

And really the only intention behind it was I want people to be warned about this school. They're not telling you on the front end how much they're about social justice.

And you get there and then you find out school is kind of woke. And, you know, that's a topic for another day.

I've already done a lot on Southeastern. You can get through there without, you can navigate the minefield, but it's a minefield.

And so I made a video thinking that people that were going to go to Southeastern would see it.

And then it blew up. It just took, you know, overnight. I had thousands of people watching this video.

That's where it all started. And that people were reaching out to me from all over the country. John, what you described is happening here.

I can't say anything. It'll fire me. And it broke my heart. And I thought I need to spend a few more weeks on this.

And then weeks became months, months became years. And the issue never went away. It kept amplifying.

And, and here we are, it's still an issue. It's the, the debate has changed quite a bit, but it's certainly still an issue.

And in fact, more so in some ways, it's become more ingrained than it was. And so this is a niche for me.

Now I'd venture outside of that quite a bit. I go into some, you know, certainly during the election,

I was going into more political things. I still do things that interest me when

I want to do things that interest me. Trying to think.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'll, I'll just talk about issues that are beyond the social justice movement, even.

But when it comes to evangelicalism, there just wasn't a lot out there at the time. And there still isn't.

Honestly, you had AD Robles. AD and I don't have different ways of communicating. And I think many of the strengths he has,

I don't have. And so there's people who are drawn to him for his personality, for the way he presents information.

There's people who are drawn to me though, for the, for the same thing. They, I come across probably as a little more serious.

Sometimes he, he, he's got a good sense of humor. I present things in a very like bullet point way.

AD is very conversational. A lot of stories. I think AD is actually more interesting than me, but I think a lot of people though, they, they think though, very linear linearly and they, they want like the bullet points.

They want like point a one, two, three point B. They want that. And I think that's why a lot of people come to me.

So there wasn't a crowded field. You had AD. That was really all you had talking about this.

Now you have some other organizations and stuff trying to get in on it. And some of them have,

I'll tell you what, man, and I know this for a fact, some of them have a lot of money. In fact, not just conservative organizations, but even social justice organizations or organizations that favor that have poured a lot of money into trying to get on YouTube.

And I mean, I thought just off the top of my head, Southeastern did this all of a sudden they're doing podcasts on YouTube.

No, one's watching them, but they're doing them. Russell Moore tried this, you know, hardly anyone watched it, but they, they hadn't, you know, there's money behind this.

And there's, there's some, there's a bunch of conservative organizations I'm thinking of right now to one in particular that just feels so bad they poured.

I happen to know they poured tens of thousands of dollars into,

I mean, right now it's probably hundreds of thousands, but, and, and it's, it's, it's just sad to me. It's not.

And you have to ask the question, why do some, why does a guy with a cheap webcam giving his thoughts on something?

Why does that pick up more listenership than like a big organization? That's spiffy and guy has great cameras and studios.

And so one person like devoted to uploading on social media and that kind of stuff, why in the world?

And I think a lot of that has to do though, with, with having skin in the game, having bravery, being willing to name names being people don't feel like they're being faked out.

They, they know that they're giving, getting the truth that this is what you actually think. And you're, you're not trying to massage it for some other purpose.

I think that's a big part of it. Authenticity is so in demand that people are tired of being fake, faked out.

They're trying to be tired of being lied to. And even if something feels that way, when it's not, they don't want it. Sometimes, sometimes.

So I think that's part of it. I think the content is the most important thing though.

And if you want to have a very successful podcast, you can, you can invest in all the right equipment and it can look great.

But if you don't have content, there's no reason for people to listen. So here's what I'd ask someone to do.

If they want to get into this, think through what you have to say.

Is it, is anyone else saying it out there? And if they are, and they're not being picked up a lot, why is it?

What's the flaw? What, what, what are they doing wrong that you could do better? What's your niche? Do you have something unique to present?

Because you can present information better than someone else and be successful or it is what

I did. You can present information. No one else is presenting. And you think about it this way. Think about it as a, like a news cycle as like a big circle.

Okay. And if you are inside the circle talking about information that's already out there, most people, if they don't know who you are, if you have no name recognition, there's no reason to listen to you.

If you enlarge the circle by bringing more information to bear, more crucial information, helpful information, and interpreting a certain situation, people will listen to that.

And that's what I did. I brought in information no one was talking about at the time. Everyone knew something was going on at these seminaries.

No one would talk about it. People were afraid and I came out and I said, this is what, this is what's going on at Southeastern.

It was new information. And so people were drawn to that. I think since then more things have crept into this.

It's been not just that there's new information. It's that, you know, sometimes it's personality. Sometimes it's, we just like, we like a certain character quality we see in this person.

You know, there there's a force of habit, but I've listened to this person for a long time.

So all those things start to come to play in it. And, and, and so see, we're almost half an hour into this.

I got to land the plane here somewhere. So I'm going to circle back to what I said at the beginning. And that is count the cost.

All right. If I would start off small, think about the most unique things you have to say and the things you can say the best cheap webcam,

Sam, put it out there on social media. See if it gets picked up. You could try to pay for some.

I mean, I never really did that, but you, you can try that. If you want pay for a, a some, some to advertise it on Gab or, you know, you could do it on Facebook.

I wouldn't recommend that. Why pay an organization that hates what you're saying, but you could do that and get the word out there and just see, just see if people listen to it.

That's the thing. See, see if there's positive comments, see if people are blessed by it. See, that's the way you figure out whether this is something that you're good at, maybe do it a few times.

And if you're not getting any response or the people, you know, people just don't like it and people aren't listening and they're, then

I think you might have your answer. And that's not a bad thing. Not everyone has the same skill sets. There's nothing wrong with that.

I tell people it's a crowded field right now in podcasting. Everyone's got a podcast, so there's nothing wrong with having a podcast, but everyone's got one.

And I do sense on a local level, people listen to podcasts, but you know, what's a lot means a lot more is flesh and blood right in front of you, especially in ministry.

So don't sacrifice flesh and blood relationships for a podcast, especially if it's not your job.

If it becomes your job, then you know, you do your nine to five, that's your job. But if it's not your job yet, and you just, you're trying to do maybe get there one day,

I would just, just be careful, just be guarded on that. The other thing is a lot of people who reach out and want to make a difference.

And if that's your sole goal to make a difference, podcasts can help.

I mean, I'm, I'm making a difference, I think, right? It was, I know people message me and say, I make a difference here and there, but there are, for most people, there's a better way to make a difference.

It's not podcasting as much as it is local community action in your church, become a leader, teach your people on, in the community level, join the school board, join the

County seat for your government, you know, participate in the town hall meetings, become a

County or become a, a town councilman. So, you know, start in those areas in the political realm, or just get involved in a civic organization.

You can do pretty much everyone. Most people can do that. Okay. And you can make a better, you can make a bigger difference.

And I think it's a lot more rewarding and life giving than a podcast. Now there's advantages to a podcast. You can do it.

You're flexible. You can do it from anywhere. I can travel and do it if I want. I can make my own schedule to some extent, but honestly, this has been a lot more stressful for me, a lot more doing the podcast writing.

Now I'm traveling some, this has been way more of a stressor, like no comparison. Then when

I was working for a furniture repair company doing the, it was a seven to three kind of most, most days was like seven to three, seven to five.

Then I transitioned to, I did my own furniture repair. I have my own company I owned and there were stressors in that.

Some days were terrible, but honestly much less stressful than this. In my opinion, even though I know there's perks to doing this, but I'm just telling you, it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Once you get to the point of this is your life and this is what you're doing. Look, I'm blessed. I'm not complaining. Just so you know,

I'm not complaining. I wouldn't trade this in. I love doing it. I love all you out there who are listening. And I know this makes a difference.

I know it helps. I am. I'm not going anywhere. Okay. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying there is a personal cost.

I didn't have any gray hairs when I started this. Okay. My hairlines receded a bunch since I started this.

Part of it is because I'm in a political, political area that I'm focusing on.

And so I endure a lot of attacks, some that you don't even see. And like,

I remember the week before Christmas, right? It was, I had all this personal stuff going on with my family, all this church responsibility stuff.

And I was attacked, I think, by three different people in vicious ways, or like four different people.

In ways most of you, you would have no clue about, but a lot of it was the result. In fact,

I think most all of it was the result of the podcast. Saying things that people don't care for, and they just want to rip you down.

They don't like it. So just, if you're going to get involved in something controversial like that, just realize it's worth it, but you got to know that you're getting into it or else you get surprised.

And I was somewhat surprised, and I wasn't expecting it to get to the point it did. When you have major evangelical leaders coming out and basically calling in hits on you behind the scenes, and, well,

I don't want to get into all that, but be able to handle death threats. Be able to handle people calling you names and all that kind of stuff.

And you're going to get that in the world anyway, right? But when it's impersonal, people just are more nasty when they think they can get away with it behind a keyboard.

And it's somewhat frustrating because you're not looking at someone in the eye either. It's not like a local thing where you can do that.

It's very veiled. There's a certain element of it that's a little bit artificial.

And so just remember that. Now, I don't want to paint too ugly of a picture either.

My life is very blessed, okay? I'm so grateful for all of you who support the podcast. I didn't mention that.

Patreon is the service I use. I've heard that there's other services that are better, but I started with Patreon, so I'm sticking with that for people who want to donate to the content you're producing.

And you can give them perks. I give books away through Patreon. I give slideshows.

People have access to me, so that's what they're getting, is they're getting access to me whenever they want. They can message me if they donate to the podcast.

Anyway, I'm grateful for all of you who do that and make this all possible. So I'm not complaining. I have to say that because some people get into it and they don't realize that's what they're getting into.

And it's an iceberg too. There's a lot of work behind the scenes, right? So I'm not just doing podcasts. I'm writing books.

I'm traveling. I'm also in a lot of counseling situations, a lot of people reaching out to me, asking me about situations in their churches, a lot of people from conservative organizations and stuff who will reach out at times and want to know information about this or that person.

And so I'm spending a lot of time that none of you ever see walking people through situations.

I can't do that with everyone, but I spend a significant part of my days checking emails and messages and trying to get answers to people if I can.

I can't always do it. And I'm realizing that more and more as that list of that pile of emails gets higher.

But you'd be surprised. Some of the people that I've gotten messages from that I would never say publicly, but the podcast gets into some interesting places.

I'll just put it that way. And so if you do what I'm doing and you get to a level,

I don't know what the level is, but once you get past like 20 ,000 subscribers on YouTube, let's say, you might find out your podcast gets into some interesting areas and you might have a lot of work kind of behind the scenes that people don't see.

And so you also got to prepare for the podcast. There's a lot of that. So this podcast is an example of one.

Some of them I don't have to prepare for. It's just the information's there. But a lot of them, if you're doing something serious that you want people to share, you're going to have to prepare.

So yeah. And it might bring you into other areas. Like I had the last day in studios, right? So we're making documentaries too.

I forgot about that. It may be able to launch you into other areas because you have an audience now that you can pitch things to them.

You can say, you know, I really want to see this done. I want a documentary on this. Can we make it happen?

Can we crowdfund this? Podcasts can be great launching pads for that. So I've gone way longer than I thought, so I should probably really land this plane now.

I hope that answers a lot of the questions that some of you have about podcasting and helps you think through whether or not that's something you want to start to get involved with.

It doesn't have to look like me, but the people who ask generally that's what they're trying to go for is something kind of like what

I do. So you can just do it as a hobby too. It doesn't have to be, I mean, you can talk about fly tying or something not controversial that hopefully maybe

PETA would get upset at you for catching fish or something. I don't know. Anyway, I hope that was helpful. God bless and more coming as always.