Hi everyone! I wanted to share with you one of the updates I've been able to make to the platform my guests are using. Many of you are aware I'm trying to stay within a budget for the podcast and not spend money until I have it. For that reason, I started the podcast using Zoom as my recording and meeting software for the online interviews. At first, this worked fine because there was no limit to how long an interview could last, but, over the summer, Zoom restricted individual recordings to 40 minutes with a timer banner added after 30 minutes. This meant that for each interview I scheduled, I had to send an updated email invitation to join the interview 3-4 times as each time block would time out. My wonderful guests met the restriction without complaint, but it was not a professional setup for the podcast and required patience from my guests.
About the time my laptop hit its demise in August, I lost 2 separate recordings on the Zoom platform and was unable to schedule one guest to return to start over again. I came across a new platform, Riverside.FM, which was recommended by a podcast growth training program I was attending in August, and I signed up for a 3-month trial of the platform at a reduced cost. The monthly cost is about $30, and I do not have that much regular monthly support coming in at this time. However, I wanted to see if I could improve the video and audio quality if I used a different platform from Zoom. The difference is fantastic! This platform records on each computer separately and uploads the video and audio as separate files for the best quality recordings. I can download the files after the interview and edit them into the final video and audio files needed for the podcast. I decided to spend the money for 3 months and am about halfway through that time period as of this writing.
A week or so ago, I received notice that a supporter had sent in a large donation through the Buy Me A Coffee platform, and that donation will carry us through 5 more months of using the Riverside.FM recording platform! I am so grateful for the support and thrilled that my guests will have a better experience in the coming months. Because of the generosity of another contributor, I am able to pay the monthly cost of using Canva for my thumbnails for a couple more months. The Canva online graphics software is how I make the graphics for social media posts, the thumbnails for the YouTube videos, and any graphics/photos that are added to the YouTube videos posted on the Water Prairie channel.
This ended up being a very long post. I'll close with a final THANK YOU to those who have decided to support the work I'm trying to do on the Water Prairie Chronicles podcast. I can't do what I do without financial support, and I appreciate every contribution that comes in!
Tonya