A COVID podcast was like a victory garden. Do you remember that from US History? The boys fighting overseas need all the veggies at the time, so it was our responsibility to grow a victory garden and produce your own produce! Who knows if it actually helped, but at least it felt like you were doing something.
That’s how it felt making a new podcast in the beginning of the COVID pandemic. The world was going through a history-making moment and we were all stuck at home. The COVID podcast (either about COVID or born out of those restrictions) became its own genre for a while, enough to have a recommendation list. It usually revolved around something silly or comforting, a new hobby many were picking up, or a mechanism for raising money for charities. It was an outlet for creation, for both the creator and hopefully the audience listening to it. And eventually, when this all got straightened out in a few months, the show would end.
But as the protests for police abolition around the country began and the quarantine remained, the COVID project seemed anachronistic. We had to reckon with our circumstances; a COVID podcast couldn’t end when “everything went back to normal” because there was no normal. So, what do you do with it?
We wrestled with this dilemma with our newest show, Meddling Adults. Mike Schubert wanted other people to make outlandish predictions while reading children’s literature for the first time and wanted a continuous charity mechanism, so we created a show to do both of those things, a non-profit game show podcast about solving children’s mystery novels.
This became a test on how quickly we could turn out what felt like a Multitude show. After the first season finished, we realized the staying power of the show and are preparing it for its second season. Although manifested as a COVID project, this became a template for turning an idea out in a short amount of time.
How do you pull a show together in a time crunch, and how do you keep it going if it catches on?
ABB — Always Be Brainstorming
Back in November 2019, the then-six Multitude members hopped on a video call, with one camera pointed at the whiteboard in the office. We had all creatively brainstormed a bunch of times before, for live show and panel ideas, names of new shows, and live streams. But we were gathering this time to come up with new podcast ideas.
Written on the whiteboard were a few well-known podcast genres: travel, cooking, true crime (non-exploitative), video games, and game show. The brainstorming challenge was: come up with a Multitude version of these shows.
We had been refining what a Multitude show was for years now, especially now that we had grown from our original three shows into a real business. A Multitude show is open-armed and open-hearted, explores a niche or nerdy topic, and welcomes all people who want to know about that topic into the fold while maintaining a critical eye on the subject matter. We can’t brainstorm “Good Podcasts,” but we could make the shows we wanted to see in the world.
After carving out 20 minutes of dedicated writing time, we started sharing our responses. No idea was left off the whiteboard (never pre-judge an idea as it is being brainstormed) and they quickly filled all the blank space.
Mike had the idea for Meddling Adults in response to the ‘procedural’ category. As he pitched the show, fellow Multitude members pitched in with ideas. In just five minutes, we had a premise: contestants would compete to solve a mystery from a children’s book, and the winner would decide what charity the show would donate its proceeds to for that episode.
By creating a brainstorming framework, we could keep the ideas flowing. Especially as six people with seven podcasts between us, carving out time to think and have ideas is essential. We have done brainstorms every so often, but uh, because of the state of the world, we haven’t maintained a consistent basis. That’s the plan once we finish getting our feet back under us.
Fast & Good & Furious
We talk about pre-production being the key to a great first podcast. You think about as much as you can before the first episode comes out, so you don’t need to change and grow on the fly (and tell people to just skip the first episodes because it gets so much better). But once you have the podcast skills and you want to make a new creative project, you can lean on them and turn it out quickly. You’d be surprised at how much faster this all takes when you know what you’re doing.
A COVID project can also be simple to start. The idea and the format can and should be honed, but then it is off to the races. Do one tier of Patreon! Use the same hosting platform you did before! Make art in Canva or Photoshop, or ask a friend! Get your friends who already know how to use a microphone and Google Hangouts or Zoom to be your first guests.
We spent so much time creating our first show, planning every detail, really taking our time in pre-production. But when the quarantine breathes down our neck, you can make decisions quickly.
They’re also not set in stone. Think about making your new creative project seasonal. You can make 8, 10, or 12 episodes and then give yourself an end date and revisit the details.
Need more motivation? Tell people you’re making this and you owe them the pilot. We sent the pilot to our Multicrew, our membership program. Not only did it hold the show accountable, the Multicrew was stoked to hear it and they gave us kind and immediate feedback.
Keeping It Going
Halfway through the first 10-episode season of Meddling Adults, it was clear that this show struck a chord. The audience grew much faster than we expected, people were excited for new episodes to come out, and many podcaster friends volunteered to be guests. We decided to wait until Episode 10 came out, then decide if and how we would keep the show going.
The end of a season is the perfect time to consider changes that could make your show better and your life easier. Nothing is set in stone, and a season break of a few weeks or months is the perfect time to put changes into practice. We debated: ongoing or seasonal? Weekly or biweekly? Edit in-house or hire help? Any tweaks to the art or music?
A seasonal weekly show made the most sense for us, with regular mini-episode updates between seasons. This format allows us to break the big commitment of an ongoing podcast into more manageable 10-episode chunks, and to build excitement (and do additional fundraising for charity) in between seasons. We decided to get some editing help for some episodes, freeing Mike up to prep for his hosting duties and book guests.
We also reviewed what made the show successful so far so that we could double down on what worked and switch out anything that didn’t. In Season 1 of Meddling Adults, we learned what books make for the best episodes: Encyclopedia Brown was a runaway hit, whereas Nancy Drew novels ended up being too long to summarize effectively for our format.
Finally, we refined the art, music, and Patreon rewards for the show. We also ran donation challenges to raise more money for our winning guests’ charities, allowing us to donate a total of $750 to The Black Trans Protestors Emergency Fund, RAICES, NAACP LDF, The Trevor Project, City Harvest, Women for Refugee Women, Assata’s Daughters, The Jeremy Fund, Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary, and The Black Women’s Health Imperative.
All that was left was to commit to a date! So, hey, Season 2 of Meddling Adults launches on September 9, 2020. Subscribe now to join us as we solve mysteries and raise money for great causes! (See? Gotta nail that call to action.)