Just wanted to share a resource with you. I put together an audio recording of the 5 keys to creating a profitable podcast. It was done as a teleclass about 6 months ago and now, I’m offering it as a 5 part mini-audio course.

To get this recording, you actually have to subscribe to the feed. Just enter your first name and email address below, then click on your favorite feed reader button. When you do, a unique feed is generated that you can copy and paste into your feed reader.

Thanks to Paul Colligan’s awesome service called Premiumcast for powering this mini-course.

One of the people I profiled in my book Podcasting for Profit is Terry Fallis. When I interviewed him a year ago, he was using a podcast to share the contents of his newest novel, The Best Laid Plans.

At the time, he couldn’t get a literary agent to represent his title. Many were saying that the topic - Canadian political satire - was just too narrow of a niche to be of any interest to a publisher.

Well, Terry continued to use a podcast to share the contents of his book. People started to take notice. He built an audience and finally self-published his book.

This week, Terry found out that he won a prestigious book award called the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Part of winning this award was getting $10,000. This on the heels of finally getting a literary agent to represent him.

I’m so proud of Terry on many fronts. But most importantly, I’m tickled pink that he used a podcast to indirectly profit from his passion. I wouldn’t be surprised if Terry donates a portion of his winnings to charity because he’s just that type of guy.

My advice? If every door is slammed in your face, don’t give up. As Terry shows, you can use a podcast to share your passion with the world. It may take a while, but soon people will notice.

I’d like to invite you to a 75 minute teleclass that I’m hosting on Wednesday April 16, 2008 @ 8pm EDT.

The teleclass is called 3 Ways Podcasting & Social Media Can Help You Stay Profitable During Any Economic Slow Down. I’m excited about this teleclass and I’d love for you to join me.

This FREE teleclass is designed to do 2 things:

• To give you tips on how you can use podcasting and social media to recession proof your business.
• To share with you a brand new program that I’m launching.

If you’ve been on any of my teleclasses, 95% of the information you get on these calls will help you put it into action right away. To get the call in details, enter your first name and email in the boxes below.

If you’re reading this in your feed reader, you’ll have to go to my blog to enter your deets. Just click on the title of this post so you can enter your info in the fields.

I got an email this morning from Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type and Typepad blogging systems. Apparently, they’ve made some cool changes and one of them directly impacts podcasting.

Over the past 3 years, the only blogging platform I’ve recommended for podcasting is Wordpress. I tried to add podcasting to Typepad and it was so difficult. I had to rejig this and rejig that and at the end of the day, I still had to use a flash player from another service within Typepad just to make my audio file visible and playable in my post.

Fast forward to today and it appears that Typepad has finally woken up. There’s a plugin that enables you to add podcasting easily to Movable Type. I’m going to poke around Typepad and provide a screencast of what I see. Maybe, there’s hope for Typepad afterall.

Hey Andy! Maybe Six Apart could use the advice from a podcasting expert? Let them know that I can help.

Update: Bryne, the creator of the podcasting plugin for Movable Type, let me know that his plugin is only for Movable Type. As I re-read my last paragraph, I can see there’s a bit of confusion. So, let me just clarify. Although both Movable Type and Typepad are made by Six Apart, both are different blogging platforms. There’s a podcasting plugin for Movable Type, as I noted above. So far, I haven’t seen one for Typepad. So, I’m going to investigate whether or not there’s a podcasting plugin for Typepad. It’s been 2 years since I’ve used Typepad, so I’m going to take a peek. Anyone willing to create a guest account for me on their Typepad account so I can poke around?

After writing Podcasting for Profit, I didn’t think there could be any other book written on podcasting. But then, I found out about Richard Harrington’s new book called Producing Video Podcasts.

That’s the hole in the podcasting book genre right now - how to produce video podcasts. I’m glad to see that Richard and his co-author, Mark Weiser, have written a book about this. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy so I can share my review with you. For now, head over to the book’s website to read more.

After Michael Geoghegan stated that Podcasting Is Dead in his presentation at the 2007 New Media Expo, I said that I would no longer entertain this debate and stating anyone who does is trying to link bait.

So, here I am, four months later, posting about this debate as to whether or not podcasting is dead. There’s a reason why I’m addressing this now:

• Wizzard, the company that owns Libsyn, released some statistics that the number of podcast requests across their network is in the billions. Very encouraging.
• Mark Evans called me out wondering whether I would lay in on this debate.
• Paul Colligan stated that when he attended CES, podcasting wasn’t the star, going as far as to say that podcasting is no longer the story.
• And I’ve finally figured out the #1 reason why most people claim podcasting is dead and I must share this epiphany.

More on Unprofitable Podcasters Claim Podcasting is Dead

Remember this video?

Well, it made its way on the Top 100 list on You Tube in the Science & Technology category.

Now, this video is number 99 out of 100, but hey, I’m happy about this because it means people can find me. There are thousands of videos on YouTube, so any help I can get to rise to the top of the heap is awesome in my eyes.

Don’t forget to share this video with others by grabbing the code on YouTube.

The day after Thanksgiving Day in the United States is called Black Friday. On this day, consumers enjoy steep discounts and huge bargains on many items.

I decided that I too would offer a steep discount on some products that I know will help you launch a podcast with confidence. I took the top 5 questions asked during the virtual book tour and matched them with products from my vault.

It’s all available in a neat little bundle that I’m called the Black Friday Podcasting Bundle. Here’s the five questions that I answer:

• If I’m Not an Expert, Should I Podcast?
• How Can I Develop a Podcast that People Want to Hear or See?
• What’s the Best Way to Record My Audio Podcast?
• What Do I Podcast About?
• How Do I Get Started With Podcasting?

To find out more about this bundle, click here. The excitement starts on November 23, 2007 at 12:01am EST.

I keep getting this question, so here’s a 3 minute video where I explain what podcasting is using the example of 2 talk show divas, Marilyn Denis and Oprah Winfrey. Does this help clarify what podcasting is?

If there’s one thing that prevents people from starting a podcast, it’s their accent. I hear this so much, especially from those with a southern drawl. “I don’t like my accent,” said a baby boomer to me recently on a teleclass. “It’s too southern.”

There’s little anyone can do if they have an accent. You could hire a dialect coach to help you lessen the sound of your accent, however, you won’t need to go this far. Why? Because there’s an audience of people who will love your accent and listen or view your podcast because of this.

More on 7 Things that Influences How We Say Things