25: What is a Podcast Editor and Should You Have One?
Now that you've edited your episode 00 and see how time-consuming that process can be, let's talk about something that can be a HUGE help and time-saver ... a podcast editor.
In this episode, I explain what a podcast editor is, what they typically do, what you can usually expect to pay them, and why you should absolutely hire one as soon as you can possibly afford it.
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Transcript
Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more. Welcome to Episode 25 of podcasting for coaches. As promised, last week, we are talking about what a podcast editor is and whether or not you should have one in this episode. So you might be wondering why I haven't talked about this yet, you have already put together your intro and your outro and your episode zero and a podcast editor would have been amazing to have during those parts of launching your podcast. However, I have two reasons that I have not talked about this yet on the podcast. One is because I didn't want to come off to salesy right at the beginning of the podcast. For a lot of you listening, you don't know who I am, you haven't connected with me already. And I didn't want to just come right out in the game and say, You need to hire a podcast editor and hey, guess what I can maybe help you with that. Because that's just not really my style. That's not really how I am. The second other point, which is actually the more important one is that when you edit yourself, and you listen to the raw audio, without it having anything done to it, you become a better speaker, you hear all those ways that you make mistakes. Whenever you talk, you hear the crutch words that you constantly say, you notice that you say like every third word, you noticed that you can't start a sentence without saying, or, and so or even just so in my case, you hear all those little verbal tics and those little quirks. And those you can start focusing on to eliminate to make it a much, much easier and better experience for you, your guest, your podcast editor and your listeners. So before we get into starting to conduct actual interviews for your podcast, if you're going to have an interview show, I wanted to really dig into an editor so that you can hire one now so that you don't have to do all of that going forward. So a podcast editor is basically exactly what it sounds, they edit your podcast. Now, if you don't know what that really means. You're not exactly sure what exactly a podcast editor can do for you or help you if so, podcast editor in very broad general terms is somebody who will take your raw audio file, so the ones that straight from the program, when you record it, you have done nothing to it, except hopefully listened to it just about check that there wasn't some kind of major catastrophe or issue and you send that to them. And then they can take those files, and clean up the background noise level the audio so that you and your guests are at the same volume, they can remove those verbal tics and crutch words, they can remove false starts, they can do those kinds of general cleanup things. And then they can also mix the show together so they can combine it with your intro and outro music, those kinds of things. Now, some podcasts editors will stop their services here, some will only edit and mix the show for you and then you're responsible for doing the rest. There are some who will upload the show to your hosting service. There are some who will help in the creation of your episode artwork, there are some who will write the show notes for you and even schedule them on your website. There are some who will even do the social media posts. Every single podcast editor is different in the services they offer. This also means every single podcast editor is different in their rate, and how they like to work. So when it comes to rates or podcasts, you can have literally anything from $15, an episode to two or 300. For an episode, it just depends on the quality of the editor, the experience of the editor, and the services that they are providing, as usual, and I hope that as a coach or consultant, by now you understand that you get what you pay for. So those editors who are $15 an episode, it's probably not going to be the best quality, they're most likely going to be based outside of the United States, which means that there may be some issues with the language barrier. And if they're writing your show notes, there might be some issues with that as well. And the quality of the audio is just probably not going to be super super polished. And since this is a part of your business, we need to focus on that quality of the audio really being there. This is not a hobby for you it is your business. Now does this mean you cannot find a quality editor outside of the US or on Fiverr for example? No, it just means you'll probably have to go through quite a few of them. And a lot of headaches and a lot of wasted time in order to find that gem that diamond in the rough that one that is just hidden and is amazing and nobody knows about and you got so lucky because you found this incredible editor who can do you know the work of a $200 an episode editor. for 15 bucks probably not going to happen it's going to waste your time let's just not even go there typically what you can expect to pay for a good quality editor i would say depending on your show and what services you want them to provide would be between $60 to 200 per episode now the reason you're going to want a podcast editor if you can afford it is because if you haven't already realized in editing your episode zero it can be a huge huge frustrating pain it can be technical and it can be a giant time suck so generally speaking it is said that for every one hour of raw audio editing can take anywhere from two to four times that length so for one hour it can take you two to four hours to do one episode i can tell you that with the level of editing that i put into my client shows and even this one here i actually edit it two times the normal speed which means i listen to people sounding like chipmunks all the time so as i'm playing through the audio it's playing twice as fast as it would if i were to just play it normally and it still takes me generally about two to one so for every hour podcast audio is still generally takes me about two hours to get through it because i meticulously edit every single little mouth noise that i possibly can every little background noise that i possibly can so for someone like me who has been doing it for at this point two and a half years i've been editing bad gas and it still takes me two hours for every one hour of audio think about how much time that is for you someone who's not as skilled or proficient in audio editing to do this every single week for your show what could you be doing with that time in the four hours it takes you to put together a podcast episode each week could you be making other money could you be on the phone with potential clients could you be creating your course could you be marketing it could you be guessing on other podcasts could you be doing any number of things that will bring in revenue instead of just wasting your time so this is what you have to think about when you're considering the cost of hiring a podcast editor not how much money you're paying them but how much money it's going to allow you to make so that's kind of a very brief overview of what a podcast editor does and why i really really think that if you can afford it you absolutely should hire a podcast editor to save yourself so much time and frustration every single week if you're interested in hiring a podcast editor or even want to learn a little bit more about it i highly encourage you to tune in to next week's episode where i'm going to give you my top tips for hiring a podcast editor i'm going to explain where you can find one and the questions that you should ask them before you hire them thank you so much for tuning in and i will see you back here for episode 26 have a fantastic week and that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches if you're wondering if now is the right time to start a podcast for your coaching or consulting business head on over to podcasting for coaches.com where you can either take a free quiz or schedule a one on one consultation with yours truly thank you so much for joining me today and i will see you back here for the next episode