Author-ized Articles

A funny thing has been happening to me in the course of my crusade to stem the tide of podcastus ignoramus. People keep assuming that I’m a podcaster. Never mind the fact that I never claim to have my own podcast and all my presentations are about how to use podcasts for marketing as a listener. Never mind that my bio on the flyers talks about what I’ve accomplished in podcast networking (is being internationally known as “Rhymes with Sketch” an accomplishment?) without having my own show. Time and again people will refer to “Sallie’s podcast” in the discussion after the presentation.

This must say something about the way the human brain operates, rather the way people who have only communicated with me in writing still manage to spell my first name “Sally.” There must be some cerebral paradigm somewhere telling folks that anyone who gets up and speaks about podcasting must be producing a podcast.

Well, no. I’m not, and have no plans to.

Which, of course, begs the question “Why not?” After all, I’m a huge fan of podcasting. I’ve seen how well it can work as a marketing tool.
The main reason is time. Thanks to a chronic health condition, I have about 20 hours a week in which to run my business, including doing all of my billable work. That means I have to be very, very selective about where I put my energy, and if I want to stay in business, the bulk of that energy has to go to client projects.

Let no one kid you about how much time podcasting takes. Most podcasters report a 3:1 or even 4:1 ratio of post-production to recording time, and that’s not counting pre-show preparation (like drawing up an outline and getting appropriate links and comments in order) or writing up show notes. After spending several hours removing 15 minutes’ worth of long pauses and “uhhhh”s from a teleseminar recording one night, I think this might be an underestimate.

So while I would probably get a kick out of co-hosting someone else’s show now and then, and I’ll happily do interviews, and I really enjoy giving presentations, don’t look for an Author-ized Version podcast any time soon. Podcasting is obviously a worthwhile investment of time and energy for many independent professionals, but first you have to have the time and energy to invest.