I posted the last tech talk after one month. Let’s sit down and review what I learned over the past year. For more context, take a look at Tech Talks Part 1 and Part 2. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
I think the most important attribute for producing a show is consistency. It’s even more important than the quality of the content. The people who do really well excel at both. We released two episodes every month on the 1st and the 15th. I’m proud of the content that we created, and we met every deadline. I look forward to more of same in the future.
Now let’s talk about money. Part of the fun for me is learning how to run this venture like a business. From production to marketing to sales to finance, there are new things to explore every step of the way.
I decided to track expenses by calendar year. There are some knock-on effects: annual fees are absorbed in their entirety, as opposed to being distributed as a monthly expense. All of that money is spent up front.
Consequently we finished 2023 $128.42 in the red, even though that number includes subscriptions that we are using this year. We lost money. Here is where I look to reduce our costs, improve our ad sales, and ask for your support.
This week I moved our hosting from RSS.com to Podbean. The main reason was to gain access to Dynamic Ads. I included host-read ads in our episodes, which meant the ad that I recorded for Codenames before Spiel in October could still be heard today. The first ten episodes had no ads at all. Dynamic ad insertion includes today’s ads with every episode going all the way back to Tigris & Euphrates. Moving to Podbean also saves us $35 per year.
We still record our episodes on Podcastle. They offer hosting now. Paying for a single solution that does everything would be great, but they don’t have dynamic ads. I still do all of my editing with Audacity.
Thanks to all of you listeners, I attached some real metrics to our show and sold our value! Floodgate Games renewed their sponsorship for another six months. A huge “thank you” to Floodgate Games! I believe that I can bring on one more sponsor. I want to avoid selling midroll ads because I personally dislike them. You listening to each episode from start to finish helps me in this endeavor.
Which brings me to support. We are truly grateful for all of you, and your enthusiasm for our show! We receive your kind feedback via email and our social media channels. You are spreading the word and it shows! And if you happen to have a couple of extra bucks lying around each month, then please consider mashing that Patreon button and joining our team. Every little bit helps!
