This series is all about newest podcasters. Its sole purpose is to introduce these awesome podcasts to the world as well as share their podcasting insight to empower the community!
Q & A with Matthew Amster-Burton From The Spilled Milk Podcast
When did you start podcasting?
The show debuted in January 2010, but it took several months of planning, false starts, terrible deleted episodes, and the like before we actually published episode one.
Why did you start podcasting?
I had been a writer for Gourmet magazine until it abruptly shut down in October 2009, so I desperately needed a new project, and I wanted to do something collaborative, which writing usually isn’t.
I’d been listening to a lot of podcasts, especially You Look Nice Today, that consisted mostly of friends trading one-liners, and I had a hunch Molly Wizenberg and I could do that pretty successfully.
What’s your show about?
It’s about the foods Molly and I like to eat, and occasionally (see our Scary Food episode) about the foods we hate. We tend to do an equal number of junk food and real food episodes.
Each episode is about 15 minutes long and covers a single food topic, like spinach, French toast, apples, or energy drinks.
The whole point of the show is to make people laugh; food just happens to be what Molly and I do professionally and therefore like to talk about.
We’ve recorded episodes that were informative but not funny, and they never aired. But it’s hard to know in advance what’s going to be funny. I mean, apples aren’t funny, right? Yet our apple episode is our best ever.
What’s your podcasting set-up? Hardware, software, CMS, etc.
We use dynamic microphones, the smallest Mackie mixer, and a Tascam digital recorder.
I encourage everyone who is remotely serious about podcasting to avoid recording directly into your computer, which is asking for trouble.
Computers crash; dedicated recorders almost never do, and you can get a great one for under $100. The only time we’ve lost a recording, it was because we ignored this advice.
For editing and publishing, we use Rogue Amoeba Fission, GarageBand, WordPress, and Libsyn.
How have you promoted your podcast?
These days, mostly Facebook. Shortly after our debut, we were featured on the front page of the podcast section of the iTunes store, which drew thousands of listeners, some of whom even stuck around.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
That podcasting is a skill like any other, and it takes practice.
If you like to talk, that doesn’t automatically make you a good broadcaster. Listen back to our early episodes and you will hear terrible microphone technique, missed joke opportunities, dead air, and every other rookie mistake.
Unless you’re a former NPR employee like our friends at The Sporkful, your first episode is not going to be perfect, but that’s no reason to give up.
So how about it? Are you ready to delve into the world of Spilled Milk? Subscribe or listen on Facebook! If you want to reach out to the Spilled Milk podcast you can email contact(at)spilledmilkpodcast(dot)com.
Are you ready to start podcasting? We are ready for you!
