One of the most common questions I get, both from potential clients and from other copywriters, is “How did you start working in podcasting?”. And it’s a good question because my job is pretty unusual.
So because it’s summer and it's too hot to think about writing anything more complicated, I’m going to answer the question in this blog post.
The short answer is that I’ve been into podcasts since about 2017 (which is late for the OGs of the game, I know) and when I set up my own business, I wanted to see if the podcasting industry had space for me. And it did.
The long answer is longer. Obviously.
It actually started with my old job. I worked for 5+ years at Booking.com, helping hotels in the southeast of France to improve their content on the platform and thereby entice customers to reserve their rooms. This job helped me to hone my attention to detail and my ability to find key details from properties. I was also always switching perspectives, hearing what was most important to the owner to tell people about their property and translating that into what was most important for their future guests to know.
I stayed with Booking through several internal department shifts and although I was casually looking for other opportunities, it seemed like I was in there for the long haul. But the world had other plans for me. Come 2020, there was a global pandemic that hit the travel industry like a tonne of bricks. And come 2021, I was made redundant.
Copywriting. I’ll be a copywriter, I decided. That’s a thing, right? I Googled it and it was, so I went ahead with it. That meant setting up a business, which I had help with thanks to my redundancy deal from Booking. And if I was working for myself, I wanted to use the opportunity to explore my own interests. I turned once again to Google to ask “What services do podcasters need?” and found that podcasters like to have something called 'show notes' to accompany their episodes. Great, I thought, I can do that.
I set up a profile on Fiverr selling show notes to podcasters and then I waited. And waited. I didn’t have any interest for weeks, until I had an order arrive out of the blue. But then I realised I had no idea what to do or really what I had promised to deliver (ah, young business Sarah), so once again my friend Google came in clutch and helped me to answer my next burning question “How do you write podcast show notes?”. I read up, tried my best and sent off my version of podcast show notes. I didn’t hear anything back from that customer for ages but a few weeks down the line they gave me a positive review (and a tip!). And then I started to get a few more orders and a few more after that. I had repeat customers and brand-new customers. Eventually, it was taking up about half of my work day.
But here’s the thing: my customers still wanted show notes, but they wanted more than that too. They wanted to be able to share the ideas from their podcast far and wide across the Internet, because they loved their content and were proud of it. They wanted me to select highlight quotations from their podcast for their social media platforms and they wanted their episodes turned into blog posts. They wanted me to write their LinkedIn posts and to choose sections of their podcast to feature in audio and video clips.
It took me a while to come to the realisation that this part of the podcast industry is incredibly underserved. Successful podcasters are too busy to do it for themselves and although AI tools are getting better and can create a quantity of repurposed content, they can’t do quality. So I stepped into the breach.
And this is where I am, two years later. I have an unashamedly niche service for a niche audience because that’s where my passions lie and who I can help the most. There’s still a long way to go but I’m enjoying the journey.