Those of you who have been reading this blog long enough may remember my short-lived attempt, about eight years back, to turn it into a podcast. I had this notion that maybe I could somehow reach more people if I simply took my existing blog entries and recorded them in an audio format that people could listen to while doing other things. This didn't work well — the number of people listening to the podcast was, if anything, fewer than the number usually reading the blog — and I gave it up after a few months.
Of course, I now know that this was no way to go about making or marketing a podcast. Simply reading from a script, posting the recordings on a free archive, and expecting listeners to somehow discover them, was never a reasonable approach. But supposing for a moment that I had figured out a way to create a successful podcast and attract a large audience, what then? Would there have been any way to make money from it, maybe even enough to give up my day job?
My latest assignment for Money Crashers gave me a chance to explore this question. I learned about, and then wrote about, all the ways that podcasts can make money, such as advertising and sponsorships, selling premium content, soliciting donations, and selling various podcast-adjacent products like books, courses, and branded merchandise.
Mind you, all of these approaches only work if you have a successful podcast already, since the amount you make with each one depends on the number of listeners. I'd probably have no more luck monetizing a podcast now than I've ever had monetizing this little niche blog, which just doesn't have enough readers to be worth a sponsor's trouble. But if any of you readers are better at the business of attracting podcast listeners and just can't figure out how to turn all those ears into cold, hard cash, this article can help.
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