For the past couple of years, I’ve been on a crusade to talk about how small podcasts and podcasters can get paid. I’d gotten into podcasting after years of being a blogger. I added a podcast to my content creation process because I love to talk, connect with new people and I wasn’t interested in being on video. What surprised me was how much I loved podcasting.
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By the way, when I started-I was broke. Real broke, I used Free Conference Call (dot) Com as a way to meet with my guests and just started where I was at. And for a very long-time, we’re talking at least a year or so into podcasting, I didn’t really think about monetizing the content. Which was strange because I was making money online with my brand. Soon, though, there was a point where I began to feel like the podcast content that I was producing needed to pay for itself and I needed to pay for my time.
If you’re thinking about monetizing your show, I created Podcasters Getting Paid for hosts of podcasts getting 10,000 or fewer downloads a month. You can monetize your show and I want you to continue listening to why I created Podcasters Getting Paid, who it serves and my goal for this resource. Also, if you’re an anti-monetization person, I’m not trying to persuade you to monetize your project. This information is for people who wanting to monetize their work.
Listen to the Episode
Podcasters Getting Paid
What if I told you that your small and scrappy podcast can get you paid? Mine has and I love it for me. In fact, from 2021 through mid-2022 I made $19,500 on projects related to my podcast and my overall brand. That number doesn’t include other ways that I made money during that time leveraging my small online brand. I’ve created Podcasters Getting Paid, an affordable biweekly resource that shares deep dives into all of the different monetization strategies you could consider using to monetize your show.
Subscribers gain access to once a month online office hours, free webinars, tips/tricks advice and interviews with podcasters of smaller shows who’ve monetized their content. You CAN make money with podcasts getting 10,000 or fewer downloads a month. Go to https://creatorsgettingpaid.com/get-paid for more information.
Show Notes
Welcome to the Brand Building Lab, I’m your host Michelle Jackson and I help progressive online entrepreneurs design businesses that lead with intention while earning money.
I was attending Podcast Movement 2021 and sitting slightly anxiously in a session. It was yet another session on podcast monetization that left me super frustrated and low-key angry. This session happened to have a panel of industry professionals who were talking about working with podcasters, the Click Per Mille monetization model and when they will work with a podcaster.
10,000 downloads or more.
What frustrated me was that I was getting well below 10,000 downloads a month and was making money with my content creation efforts. Finally, I raised my hand and because I’m THAT GIRL, I went off and pushed back on this narrative that smaller shows can’t get paid.
I was so tired of watching podcasters’ faces after sessions such as that one and seeing the loss of hope they would feel because they weren’t getting 10,000 downloads or more a month. But, they knew that they were doing amazing creative work with their shows and overall brands and were getting amazing feedback from their listeners and overall communities that they served about their work.
I was one of those people. I wasn’t hitting 10,000 podcast downloads a month, much less an episode but I was still attracting a variety of paid projects and opportunities as direct result of the work that I was creating.
In fact, right before Podcast Movement Nashville I had just received a $5,000 check for the completion of a project that would ultimately pay me $14,500 in 2021. That’s a nice chunk of change. By the way, no one asked for my download numbers for that project. Or, the other partnerships that I’ve worked on with solid payments.
Small Podcasts CAN Get Paid
If you’re running a smaller show that is consistent, has received feedback from your listeners and has a well-defined listener avatar you absolutely can attract money to your project. For the past 3 or 4 years I’ve spoken at:
- Outlier Festival Denver
- Podcast Movement
- Podcast Movement Evolutions (L.A.)
- FinCon
And I’ve talked most often about how small projects can still earn money and those solid earnings can change:
- Your mindset about what you’re capable of
- Who you connect with while working on your project
- Access to resources and tools you may not have considered
- Creative freedom
By the way, for me, earning $500 a month consistently really changed how I viewed making money online. That $500 helped me pay off a ton of debt and then I was able to grow that $500 and I began to earn even more.
Why is Podcasters Getting Paid a Substack (versus a course)
To be honest, I was seriously considering creating course. The thing is, I already have a course that I absolutely love “Make Money with Ebooks” and what I learned from that course is that the students needed long-term help and community.
Why?
Because it takes time to write a book. It’s the same with monetizing a podcast and overall online brand. I knew that with any product that I created around podcast monetization-I would need to give my students long-term access to me, a community and ideas.
Podcast monetization is a long-term process. You can’t just take a course and that’s it. Folks will need encouragement, a cheerleader, someone or someones to share their ideas with. Subscribers will need community to network with and more. And, I didn’t want to create a product that wasn’t accessible to everyone. If I designed a course, it would be significantly more up front versus small affordable payments each month until you achieve the results you’re working towards.
So, I decided to create a Substack based resource. Here’s why I did that.
Easy to use, accessible, affordable and community members can move on easily when they’re done. If you’re wanting to monetize and aren’t sure where to begin, need idea inspiration and just HOPE that you can make money with your small show that you’ll give Podcasters Getting Paid a try. Content monetization is a marathon not a sprint and Podcasters Getting Paid is the resource to help you along the way.