#20: Podcast Update - The First 20

 Hey everyone, I thought it would be good to take a few minutes to give a quick update on the podcast and some of the things that are coming down the pipeline.This is podcast episode #20. That might not seem like a lot but from the production side of things, it is a small milestone in the podcasting world. If you have listened to every minute of every episode by now you have listened to nearly 1,068 minutes or 17.8 hours of content! That’s a lot of content!! I set the personal goal of trying to release once a week since starting the show in the Fall of 2018 and I am not too far off from that. I think that weekly releases are just right for the intent of the show and it gives you the listener the right amount of information to listen to over the course of a given month.

I will let you in on some of the back-end stats because it is very exciting - the listenership for the podcast has grown significantly over the past few months. Each month continues to set new records in terms of downloads and episode views; that tells me that there is continued interest and hopefully value in what I am publishing. The growth tells me that word is spreading AND that you are coming back for more, each and every episode. Regardless - thank you for listening and subscribing to the show! This means a lot and it lets me that this venture is a worthwhile  resource for our community.

Now a little into the business side of things. I have mentioned this in previous episodes, but there is a small amount of operating overhead to run the podcast. These expenses are minimal but they are a constant reminder that few things are free in this world. Being thoughtful and considerate of you as my listener and knowing full well that advertisements can significantly detract and hinder a podcast experience, I have thought long and hard about how to mitigate the hosting expenses and I have a few ideas. Some of these have happened since episode one but others are new and will start in the coming episodes.

First - On this episode and episodes going forward I am going to draw more attention to books and other resources mentioned in the show. The Band Director’s Lounge is an Amazon affiliate which means that if you use our links to click-thru and purchase certain products, the podcast will get a small percentage of that purchase. This does not add anything to your price tag or inflate your prices at all - Amazon just shares a portion of its sales with its affiliate. The margins are very low but the idea is that many small purchases will help whittle down our operating expenses. If you want to help support the podcast, please use the book links found in the show notes of all episodes. The books are also listed in the “Books from episodes” section of the website and some of the most recent book recommendations are shown on the right hand column of the website. Once you click-thru you can continue shopping for other amazon products, just consider clicking through The Band Director’s Lounge first as this will help us out!!

Second - I have found a couple of products that have been immensely useful as a band director that I would like to draw direct attention to. These will be shared in the form of short advertisements read by myself during podcast episodes. I know that you are here for the content and not these advertisements so I intend to be respectful of your time AND to only select products that I have found useful. As of this episode, the products that will be talked about on the show will be advertised as an affiliate. This means that The Band Director’s Lounge will only receive support if purchases done by listeners, not just by listening to the advertisement. I will not be representing products that I cannot stand by or items that I think are not worth your time. I know how precious your time is because I know that music educators are busy people and I will continue to be respectful of that.

Third - If you or someone you know would like to simply donate to the podcast to help cover some of our expenses, this can be done through paypal. The link to the donation page can be found here: paypal.me/pools/c/8dpQAkgwuQ. I set this up understanding that some people like to support things monetarily in the form of a donation. If this is you or anyone that you know- THANK YOU!!

The first product that I want to mention goes by an odd name but I think is extremely useful to people in our p