Did you know there are two million podcasts out there? And every week seven million people tune into their favourite pod – whether it’s something hugely popular like My Dad Wrote A Porno, something smaller more niche like Suzy Buttress’s The Casual Birder or one of the wave of narrative non-fictions like The Missing Crypto Queen. And every time someone sits down to listen to any of the two million podcasts out there, they think “I could do that. I could make a podcast.”  If only they knew how to start and grow a successful podcast. Well, as chance would have it…  

“I’ve been podcasting since 2016 when I was first handed the keys to the delicious. podcast, for the food magazine of the same name”, said Gilly Smith, whose own Cooking The Books pod, a must for food book lovers, has just celebrated its first birthday by being ranked globally in the top 10%. “Delicious was one of the early ones in Britain, but in America podcasts had been making waves for some time”. 

What makes “How To Start…” different is as well as the stuff everyone wants to know but doesn’t really need to know like “What kind of microphone should I use?” it’s packed with stories from the podcasters themselves. There’s Ira Glass, the Godfather of Pod, who created This American Life, the team behind My Dad…, George The Poet…

What’s the secret of a successful podcast? “It’s about really saying something. It’s such a great platform – more and more people want to listen, it’s easier to find great stuff and it costs almost nothing to make. ”So those people who say “I could make that. I could do a podcast”, are they right? 

“Like everything, you have to work at it. Editing takes more skill, not just learning the buttons but knowing what to leave in and take out, but really it’s as easy as storytelling. If you like telling stories, do it. Think about what you want to say and who you want to say it to. Me, I just want to change the world.”

You can find How To Grow A Pod and Cooking The Books on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and buy the book from any good – preferably local – bookshop