This series is all about libsyn 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’s with Jacy and Cindy from FIX IT Home Improvement Podcast
When did you start podcasting?
We started podcasting in May 2014. We release one episode per week and have done 62 so far.
Why did you start podcasting?
Jacy: I didn’t know about podcasting until Cindy turned me onto it. She was telling me about a great interview she had just listened to.
I started listening to some of the podcasts she had recommended and then discovered a whole new world of media.
I was amazed by all the free content that was available on all these different subjects. I started talking to Cindy about starting our own podcast to compliment our YouTube channel.
After listening to a lot of these podcasters talk about the income they were making from sponsors, I thought podcasting would be a great way to make more money.
Cindy: When Jacy first approached me about podcasting, I didn’t think it would work for us. Who would want to listen to us ramble on about home repair projects?
But being the supportive partner I am, we started laying out the format of the show. I didn’t think we could make money with podcasting. In our podcast, we give recommendations for products that are top rated from our research or we have used and liked.
How could a listener take our recommendations seriously if our episode is sponsored by some company? After a lot of discussion about sponsors, we decided we needed to be unbiased in our opinions and not take on sponsors for our podcast.
What’s your show about?
Jacy: FIX IT Home Improvement podcast is a weekly podcast where we discuss products and projects for around your home. We take one subject per episode, dive deep into it and then we explain what every homeowner needs to know about it.
Cindy: Originally, we were going to discuss three topics per episode. A new product we liked, a project inside your home and then a project outside. But when we started laying out a few episodes, it became too confusing for us to provide an in depth explanation of any of the topics.
Jacy: We research one topic and layout an outline for each episode. We discuss interesting facts or the history, we explain the topic and then give our recommendations and tips.
What’s your podcasting set-up? hardware, software, CMS. etc.
We record with the BLUE Snowball microphone that we plug directly into our laptop.
The software we use is the free version of Audacity. We use Skype when we have any interviews and we use the free version of Pamela to record that conversation.
We have a Logitech headset that we use while we are using Skype.
How have you promoted your podcast?
We release our episodes every Sunday. On Mondays, we post the episode on our social media pages.
We post to several home improvement/repair pages on Facebook and Google +.
We also use Twitter, Stumble Upon and Tumblr. We normally record a video about what this week’s podcast episode is about and post that on YouTube as well.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
Jacy: I spent six months or more before we started podcasting listening to as many podcasts about podcasting as I could.
I studied the Podcast Answer Man, School of Podcasting, Podcasting 101, Podcast Talent Coach and Ask the Podcast Coach. I felt confident that I knew what I was doing before we started this podcast.
And then it was time to record our first couple episodes… I thought it would be easy.
These are subjects we know and have researched. Cindy and I have worked together for years, it should be no sweat to pound these episodes out.
Cindy: Our podcast is around 20–30 minutes long and it takes us about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to record every episode.
We record a segment, listen to the playback, decide whether or not to keep it, move on to the next segment or rerecord. Its quiet a process and sometimes very frustrating!
Jacy: To create a quality episode that you can be proud of, takes a lot of work. It takes us an additional 1 & 1/2 hours to edit the podcast. We have to make sure all the segments flow together and we cut each in the right place. No clicking noises, papers shuffling, etc.
Cindy: I didn’t know how much work would go into one episode. My cousin listens to our podcast and he was telling me it was nice that Jacy and I just sit down and record our conversation. I told him that its great if that’s what it sounds like to our listener but that’s not how it works!
If you’ve got some projects in your house that need “fixing’” or even starting, why not get some momentum going by listening to FIX IT Home Improvement. Go ahead and subscribe!
You can also check out Jacy and Cindy’s YouTube channel or connect via Twitter.
If you’ve got a massive skill that you need to get out into the world, you need to start a podcast and we would love to host your media!