A Look Back at the Podcast (#100)

In this podcast episode, we discuss what has happened to the show during the preceding 99 episodes, spanning about four years. Key points made are noted below.

I hardly ever talk about the podcast itself, since that’s not why you listen to it. Still, I figure doing this once every hundred episodes won’t bother people too much.

Recording the Podcast

I started Accounting Best Practices about four years ago, with some very basic recording equipment.  The first couple of episodes were horrible. You may have heard about how easy it is to record a podcast, but it’s more difficult to do one that actually sounds good. So, I spent about $500 for some basic equipment, and posted the episodes on iTunes, and then took them right back down again.

And then it took about a year to swap out all of the equipment and get everything working just right. So now I record through a professional-grade microphone, which then goes through a bunch of rack-mounted filters that stack about a foot high, and then it’s stored in a Marantz digital recorder. The full rig ended up costing about three thousand dollars.

I need all of those filters because my voice is not the best. In fact, it gets so gravelly that I can’t record before ten in the morning or after four in the afternoon. And on top of that, I speak with very strong sibilance, which is the “S” sound, so one of the filters is called a de-esser, which reduces the “S”. In fact, if I crank up the de-esser too much, it sounds like I have a lisp.

Once I had the recording system figured out, I went back and re-recorded all of the earliest episodes and reposted them. I also got a professional voice talent to record the introduction. There have been a couple of versions, but I think the latest one is the best. It’s done by Emma, who’s located near London.

The Show Format

I also kept altering the format of the show. There were some pretty long shows for a while there, with multiple segments. I finally altered the format to match another podcast, called – believe it or not - Grammar Girl. Grammar Girl is about using the correct grammar, and she has quite a large following.

What I liked was that she blew through the intro really fast, and told you what the episode was about within just a few seconds. That way, you’d know immediately if you wanted to listen to the rest of the podcast. And that’s where the seven-minute episodes come from, with just one topic on each episode.

Interviews

The next thing I wanted to do was get in some interviews. So I called around and recorded a few talks with other accounting authors, and even got some decent interviews with companies that put out accounting products.

The trouble is, companies just don’t believe it when you offer them free marketing, so most of the places I contacted either didn’t return the call at all or else acted really suspicious. So, after way too many calls to line up interviews, I finally backed off. It’s just too difficult. So, there may be occasional interviews in the future, but there won’t be very many.

You also may have noticed that I had a partner for a while there, named Ralph Nach. It was great to have him, because Ralph is an accounting trainer, and he really knows the subject matter, and he also talks better then me. I’d love to have him back, but this podcast is not a minor commitment. I spend three hours to create every seven minute episode. Ralph wasn’t doing any of the production work, but he sure as hell was doing a lot of the speaking preparation, and after a while, it just took up too much time.

The Number of Listeners

Speaking of commitment, I started doing this as marketing for my books, of course, but there’s no way that extra book sales pay me back for all the time required. I think the real issue driving me is just the number of listeners, because there really are a lot, and that creates an obligation to keep going.

So far, there have been 626,000 total downloads, and that works out to 6,300 downloads per episode. That doesn’t mean that there are 6,300 regular listeners, though. There was a huge spike in downloads back in February of 2007, when the show was featured on iTunes. In case you’re wondering what kind of impact that has on a show, the download volume per month went from 11,000 in January of 2007 to 58,000 in February, and right back to 11,000 in March.

Episode Popularity

In terms of popularity, the most downloaded show of all time was number 58, which was about forward-looking statements. But that was during the iTunes spike that I just mentioned. Outside of that one-time hiccup, the original series on accounting controls has been the most popular, with about 10,000 downloads each.

Copyright Issues

I haven’t copyrighted anything about Accounting Best Practices, so if you want to copy it, pass it around at work or at school, then of course, go right ahead. I would like to hear about how you’re using it, just for my own edification. So far, I’ve heard from an oil company in Bahrain that keeps a copy for its accounting staff, and the same goes for a master’s degree program in Singapore.

Parting Thoughts

The strange thing is how little I hear from anyone. If you like the podcast – then, please – go to iTunes, look up the podcast, and right a review. Also, if you have any suggestions for future shows, then please send me a message. My e-mail is bragg.steven@gmail.com.

And finally, about advertising. I don’t intend to allow any on the show, because it’s already there. I usually plug one of my books at the end of each episode, and that’s enough. Accounting Best Practices is all about giving you some good, usable information, and I’m not going to water that down with a bunch of additional advertising.