A Chat with Steve Olsher of Podcast Magazine

Hey everyone, Ashley here with RSS.com. On today's episode, we're talking to Steve Ulshur, who's the founder and creator of Podcast Magazine. Enjoy the show. All right, well, Steve, welcome to the show. I'm so excited you could be here. Could you do us a favor and tell us what it is you do? It depends on the day. For today, we're talking about Podcast Magazine. So I am the founder and editor-in-chief of Podcast Magazine and a podcaster since, ooh, I think I did my first episode in 2009.

Wow. So you're like an OG in the podcasting world. Now I'm just the O. That's awesome. So when did the idea for Podcast Magazine come to you? This was like around, what year was that? It was October 2019. And actually I was, I remember very specifically because there was one of those sort of moments in time, you know, where you kind of hit that crossroads on an idea. You're like, did I do this or not do this? I was actually at an event for aspiring influencers, I guess is the best way to put it.

And the guy who was doing the event, somebody I've had a lot of respect for for a lot of years, he actually spoke on my stage back in 2015, as he was at Brendan Richard. And he just did a lot of stuff in sort of the online marketing world and personal branding world and all that fun stuff. And so we had this event called Influencer. And for a couple of years, he had been talking about launching a magazine called Influencer. And I thought it was a really good idea.

You know, he'd have a magazine about influencers. And of course, he'd be able to sit down with people who are doing pretty cool things from an influencer standpoint. And then, well, hopefully they would share that feature, right, with their audience. And his magazine would grow, his mailing list would grow. And it's just like, you know, it's really a smart idea. But he hadn't done anything with it by the time we got to that event. But there was a sign for it.

And I remember Influencer magazine coming soon, it just kind of landed on me again, October 2019. I was just like, why isn't there like a podcast magazine, something about our space, right? And I looked online, of course, you know, what you do, you're sitting there and you get an idea. And of course, you go online and podcastmagazine.com, nothing, Google search, looked like a couple people did a couple of things trying to do some things, but there wasn't anything active.

And I was like, hmm, well, let me see what I can do here. In, you know, this short little period of time of sitting in my chair and on a break in between sessions. And so I look at podcastmagazine.com, it wasn't available. But I was able to track it down and I was able to see that I could buy it for about 2500 bucks. So I was like, well, you know, maybe I'll buy the domain, put a team together, maybe I'll write like a maybe 30, 40 page or two or something like that.

And you know, maybe it'll be around 10 grand in or so and it'll be like a $10,000 experiment to see if this thing has legs or not. And I thought it would make sense, you know, just like Rolling Stone dominates the world of music and Vanity Fair dominates the world of entertainment and Sports Illustrated dominates the world of sports. I just really felt like it would make sense for our industry to have a magazine. And so I said, you know what, fine, I'll buy the domain, I'll give it a whirl.

And pretty much every month, give or take, we've been over 100 pages with every issue publishing monthly since our first issue came out in February of 2020. So we were basically from my sitting in the chair with an idea to launching our first issue in roughly 100 days.

Wow. I mean, that seems like so fast to go from idea to actually having a product out there. What was the process like of like actually making it happen, turning it from an idea into a published magazine? Yeah, the first idea that came to mind, of course, is well, we need a mock for the cover, right? What would this cover look like? And so I went on 99designs and we had a contest and had some people try to put together some covers.

And so that was really step one is let's try to take it out of our heads and into just the real reality, the realm of someone actually being able to look at something, touch something. And so that was the first step was let's try to figure out what a mock of this thing might look like. And so after I started posting around this idea, people started reaching out and just saying, hey, are you going to need writers for this? What's your plan?

And so before we knew it, we had a pretty good design in place. I had already started to line up some folks who wanted to write for the magazine. And then somebody came up to me at one point and just said, hey, you know, I'm a podcaster who is in the religion and spirituality space. Do you have anybody who's covering that particular category? You know, it's like, no, I mean, we haven't even thought about categories or anything of that nature.

And then we made the decision to say, look, why don't we have a category director who is responsible for each of the top level categories, right? Like society and culture, health and fitness, fiction, news, sports, right? All the top level categories for Apple. And before long, we had 23 people who became influencers in their own right by really being able to represent and own that category for us.

And so those were the first steps of getting the writers, getting the mock and then eventually putting it together and having the first design. That's amazing. I mean, it just seems like you just pulled an idea out of thin air and then boom, there it was. But I think it's fascinating that you got like the whisper of the idea from from Brenda Bouchard because I actually do follow him and he's like a really prolific marketer. I mean, I read his book Golden Ticket and I thought it was fascinating.

He actually put a golden ticket in the book. But so tell me a little bit about like how you chose your first people to be on the cover. Did you have people clamoring for it? Was there like, you know, a fight for it or you just kind of knew who you wanted to put on there? I wouldn't say that there was a fight for it necessarily because nobody knew that we

existed. OK. But as we started to get the word out and I started talking to my team, it just it seemed to me like, you know, we need to do something that was a little bit unexpected. I don't want to just put, you know, and by the way, I actually wanted to sit down with these people like I didn't want this to be a magazine where we we featured podcasters that we didn't actually sit down and interview.

So like if you did if you did a piece about podcast magazine and we never talked, you know, that wouldn't be quite the same as they're doing what we're doing, you know, right here, right now. Right. So. So as I started thinking about some of the people and some of the shows that I've enjoyed over the years and people that have had influence on me, I just kind of kept coming back to Glenn Washington and he does Spooked and he does Snap Judgment.

And I just always really liked his style and his demeanor and just kind of came across as, you know, kind of cool dude you want to hang out with. And he wasn't like this hugely popular podcaster, but 250 million downloads at the time that I interviewed him. So wow. And so we just made the decision, you know, let's let's put Glenn on the cover of our inaugural issue. And he was he was thrilled to do it. That's awesome. And you've had some pretty amazing people on your cover as well.

Like, I mean, you've had John Lee Dumas, you had Bethany Frankel and didn't you have Jillian Michaels as well? Jillian Michaels. I think, you know, just in terms of your popularity or notoriety, I think Paris Hilton is probably the biggest coup for us. Well, what's fascinating to me is that some people don't even realize that these celebrities

have podcasts and some of them are actually really good. Yeah. Yeah. What what Paris, you know, has done, obviously, she's done a lot of stuff in the podcast space, but it was it was specific to her. She had a show where she was basically revealing a lot of the atrocities that take place in some of these boarding schools. You know, it's kind of the rich, insane, this dirty little secret.

Yeah. And so it was it was a subject that was very near and dear to her heart because she actually was a victim of some of that abuse. And so Trapped in Treatment was was was her show there that she was releasing. So it was really good timing because they wanted more publicity for for the show. And, you know, it wasn't just like this basic kind of interview where, you know, tell me about the latest trends in being an influencer.

Like there was an actual cause that she was very vocal about and very supportive of. And so it gave us an opportunity to support that mission, which we were happy to do. What's amazing about podcasting and her story, I watched her documentary and it's just horrible. Some of the stuff that not just celebrities, but any of these kids that were in these treatments, like what they went through.

What's amazing to me is that podcasting gives people such a platform to to get the word out about important messages. And I think that's one of the cool things about your your magazine is that you have covered the gamut, I mean, of of everything. What would you say? I didn't ask you this beforehand, but I'm kind of curious. Is there anybody that you have spoken to or that you've written about or covered or whatever that just really sticks out in your mind?

It's like, I'm so glad I started this magazine. Yeah. You know, part of part of our goal, you know, really going in was to not only, of course, cover the shows that the world. And, you know, the people who host those shows in the world knows, but to really give a voice to those that maybe you haven't heard of, but really should consider listening to. Yeah. And so every month we have multiple under the radar features. Every month we have multiple off the charts selections.

And then every month we have our our hot 50. Basically it's like if you think about like, you know, Billboard and sort of the top 40 shows or whatever, it's the podcast magazine Hot 50, which are shows that aren't the list one through 50 isn't based on downloads, isn't based on subscribes, isn't based on influencer count. Like it's not based on anything other than and fan voting.

And so that, you know, between those three pieces of the puzzle under the radar off the charts and the podcast magazine, Hot 50 chart, you know, it's really exposed folks to shows that normally they wouldn't have an opportunity to even know about. Yeah. And so and a lot of the features, you know, a lot of the features on the monthly where we go more in depth with folks and the actual written pieces there, you know, the more in depth written pieces.

So many of those shows I just I just didn't even know existed. I mean, shows about autism, you know, shows about baking show. I mean, like you name it. We covered it. And it's just it's so incredible to me to see that there are so many amazing shows out there and for us to be able to shed some light on those shows. And even like you said, I mean, some of the bigger influencers, a lot of people don't even realize they have podcasts.

Yeah. But to be able to shed some light on what's going on here in the space, it's pretty cool.

Well, with these Hot 50 shows, is it all nomination based or do you guys like just put out a list? How does it how does that work? Yeah, it's strictly fan voting. And you know, I mean, it's it's what gives everybody a chance to get onto the list. Right. So we have podcastmagazine.com slash hot 50. And we encourage podcasters, of course, to encourage their audience to vote for their shows if they want to see them on the chart. And and a lot of you know, a lot of people do. That's awesome.

But what I also love is that you don't just have the hot 50. You also have pretty inexpensive advertising for podcasters. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, we between you know, our social on our web and our digital edition of the magazine, the print edition of the magazine. We're reaching well over 50,000 folks every single month. And yeah, I mean, there are ways to get advertising and exposure in the magazine for as little as 250 bucks.

And even nowadays, we've tried to keep it pretty accessible for folks who want really nice, nice visibility in the magazine. You know, our full page at the moment is I think it's twenty five hundred dollars. So yeah, it's it's tough to find a more competitive outlet really to reach people who obviously have their hand up and love podcasts and and those sort of numbers for for such a reasonable cost. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome.

Now, other than the advertising and the hot 50, is there any way that someone could get featured in the magazine? I'm sure.

Yeah. I mean, we're always looking for awesome shows and people to profile. So the best way to make that happen is just simply reach out for the appropriate category director. So if you've got a society and culture show, reach out for the society and culture category director. If you've got a business show, reach out for the business category director. And you know, or just email Kelly at podcast magazine dot com. And she can point you in the right direction, too.

To you, though, what is it that makes something newsworthy? What makes it worth it to even be considered for a feature? Yeah, you know, it's really more about the person and the mission than it is about anything else. Right. Because, you know, like, I'm not I'm not saying that there are folks out there who are using podcasting as a money grab. But you know, I mean, you can kind of get a sense of when someone really just cares about a particular topic.

Like, we would much rather sit down with someone who has a relatively small audience, but is just crazy passionate about what it is that they're that they're doing than an influencer who's just simply doing a show because that's what you're supposed to do. And, you know, just kind of schedule it and just really doesn't doesn't care. Honestly, that's so refreshing to hear.

Yeah. And, you know, looking, we're pretty selective, you know? I mean, if you can look at the people that we feature on the cover. Yeah, you know, we we obviously want to it's it's the game you play in media. You know, there are there are certainly, you know, some rules you have to kind of play by and, you know, having Paris Hilton on the cover just carries certain cache. It carries certain weight. Right. I mean, it's just part of just part of that game.

But, you know, look, the but the reality is when you start thinking about, you know, who can we feature and what, you know, what opportunities are there? I mean, we've featured folks that, you know, don't necessarily have these huge reputations, but are doing some some pretty cool things, you know, in their respective space.

So so just again, if the passion is there, if the fire is there and if this is something that, you know, we we feel like we can really help someone get the word out about something cool that they're up to, we'll certainly do our best. I love that. I absolutely love that. Well, what do you see for the future of podcast magazine?

It's an interesting question, you know, because right now we're kind of between a little bit of a rock and a hard place because the publishing industry, I mean, it's a it's a tough industry, right, especially when most people are zinging and we decided to zag, you know, how many people release a magazine when everything else is who does magazines right anymore, which I want to end a super cool and, you know, we're happy to kind of carve our own path and whatnot.

But the reality is, if we're going in this direction, which we are, we probably need to have more of a physical presence because right now we, you know, the majority of our subscribers are digital. And so we need to push more physical and the way that it's designed, the way that it looks, you know, we really obviously were biased, but we really think it stands up nicely against a lot of the publications that are on the rack.

So, you know, maybe a partnership with Pond & Nast or partnership with someone who can help us get more distribution and maybe a strategic investment for someone who sees the vision of what we're doing here and understands that the podcast industry offers a lot of opportunity. So, yeah, we're maybe open to a strategic investment or even an outright sale, you know, to someone that this would be complimentary to. But we just really want to see this thing live and get some wings.

So we're open to a number of different options. So, you know, reality is it's been a labor of love. It's been a pretty huge investment for us. We certainly haven't been able to get into the black yet, still operating in the red. So we're open, you know, we're open to ideas and structures. And I welcome folks to reach out if this is not, you know, the way you want to play in.

Well, from a business standpoint, I mean, how does it feel to still be in the red and working towards the black? I mean, is it still just an experiment for you or is it becoming a passion project? I'm very curious about that. Oh, yeah. No, it's not being an experiment about two and a half years ago. Okay. At this point, it is purely a passion project. And you know, passion projects can only take, can only go so long.

Yeah. And still it's like, all right, we got to be smart about this from a business decision, you know, from a business standpoint. Yeah. So, yeah, we've got to start operating in the black. We got to turn the corner on that. Otherwise, you know, as much as we'd like to carry the torch here for the industry, you know, it's, I'll put it to this, but the industry needs us.

Yeah. And so we need the Spotify's and the A-Casts and the I-Hearts and, you know, the Cast, the Crooked Media's and the Wanderies and the Crooked Media's. And you know, we need these people to support what we're doing. And frankly, we can't break down those doors right now. And it's disappointing because they know we exist and they're more than happy for us to feature their podcast, but they're not throwing any money at us. And so that's a hurdle we have to have to surmount there.

But you know, at the end of the day, I think the industry needs us to survive. I think it's important that the magazine exists because like you said, it was the first two actually feature our space. You know, Podcast Movement was the first like podcast only huge conference and yours is the first podcast only magazine. So I completely agree with you. Yeah.

I mean, it really legitimizes the industry. When I first started preaching about launching your own podcast and I've been in this space, as I said, you know, for a long time. But when I started preaching about launching podcasts, being a guest on shows, that sort of thing back in 2017, about 425,000 shows that would show up on the general feed and maybe 25% of those were still active and had 10 or more episodes. So now, you know, numbers well over 2.4 million, right?

Yeah. So you take the same 25%. You know, there's still some pretty substantial growth 6X since I started preaching this. And so, you know, how in my way of thinking for this industry to grow, you need to have a publication like ours that really puts that stamp of approval on it, so to speak, and legitimizes what we're all doing here. Otherwise, it's just like this sort of closeted little hobby industry.

And we've got to stop being a hobby and really start being a professional business and certainly in terms of the industry itself. Absolutely. I can't disagree with any of that. So what do you see for the future of podcasting? I mean, we've already covered the future of the magazine, but what do you see for the platform itself, the medium itself?

Yeah, I think you're going to continue to see growth, certainly from an ad standpoint, although I will say that people are going to have to get a lot smarter and more strategic in terms of their approach to advertising as a show host, as a show owner, because you're starting to already see a lot of ad burn. Most folks are kicking back pretty hard on that.

So I think the advertising rates will go up pretty substantially, especially on the larger shows because the number of ads that run will have to be reduced pretty significantly. You just can't keep the run rate that we've been at. There's just too much resistance there. And so to that end, I think you'll continue to see the growth of ad-free opportunities. So networks that charge a premium for ad-free access to their shows.

No doubt that you'll continue to see subscribers growing in that paid weight in the same way that Disney, you know, just, I mean, there are over 230 million subscribers now just past Netflix. We'll get a little date stamp on this interview. But they were smart about it because they understand the consumer is willing to pay a little bit more to have access to the content that they want. And ad-free content is something that people clearly want.

But the third thing I would say here is not great, which is that you're going to see the rich get richer and the poor disappear. And there just will be very little middle ground. And so the bigger shows will continue to get bigger and the smaller shows will ultimately disappear because it's not sustainable unless you just absolutely love what you're doing and you're doing it absolutely because you don't care about the money.

You know, you'll have some longevity, but your growth is going to be pretty minimal. So it's scary in terms of what's happening there. But to break into the charts, the Apple charts, not our chart, you know, because vote and you can get on our chart there. But to break into a top 10 of Apple, top 100 of Apple, almost impossible.

Yeah. Especially with the big names taking over the charts in that respect. So what would your advice be for the little guy that's trying to fight to keep their podcast going? I mean, the main message would be you have to figure out, number one, why you're doing it. You have to be really clear on why you have this podcast and what your intention is for it. Because if it's to replace your current income and to, you know, quit your day job or that sort of thing, it's entirely possible.

But you're going to have to leverage the audience that you're building in ways outside of CPM. You're just not going to get there on a cost per thousand basis. You're just not going to make enough money. So really begin to think about, let's just say, complimentary products, programs and services that you can offer in conjunction with the show. And I'm not talking about coffee mugs. Coffee mugs aren't going to do it.

Yeah. You know, you're going to have to come up with some higher value items that the audience looks at and goes, oh, yeah, I need that. Because that's what's going to keep the lights on. That's what's going to actually put some money in your pocket. And ultimately, you have to think about it not in terms of your podcast, the business, because again, for most shows, you're not going to get to ten thousand downloads a month. Yeah. Well, that's just that's just the harsh reality.

Most shows won't get there. And so it doesn't mean, however, that you can't leverage the business of podcasting. Right. So if you get out of the mindset of looking at your podcast as a business and really think more about it holistically in terms of the business of podcasting and what that includes and what that entails, then you may stand a better chance of having some sustainability here.

Do you almost mean like making your podcast like complementary to your business that you already own, like you using it as a marketing arm?

Potentially. That is one way to do it, depending. So the other thing is, you know, if you just have a lunch, lunch, if you just have to sell them, tell them hungry, if you just have an interest in launching a show about, I don't know, maybe you're maybe you're a DJ and you just love DJing and you just love music and that sort of thing, then maybe what you can do is you can get tickets to to an event and, you know, maybe you can give those tickets away in exchange for something at the event.

So you get visibility at that event or maybe you can get discounted tickets for something and then you can make a margin on that. Maybe you can teach people how to DJ or maybe you can get discounts on, you know, on songs from certain producers and then resell those. You know, just think about products, programs, services and, you know, ultimately the best thing to do is to get people in a room.

So if you had a podcast about DJing and you love a particular genre of music, put together an event, you know, and get other people who love that sort of music and get everybody together and get everybody promoting this thing and get people there to the event, because then you can get ticket sales, you can get sponsors, you know, you can potentially build your mailing list and just give you an opportunity to really grow, you know, grow that business.

But you have to think holistically about it and you got to get pretty creative. But there just aren't a lot of options in the ad space right now for really making enough money to make a difference for most shows. So you're going to have to find other revenue sources. I love that you're being so raw and real rather than just like, you know, pushing the old adage of, well, just put out more content, just put out more content.

Instead, you're giving real advice that's actually tangible that you could chew on. Yeah. And you know, look, I'm not against launching a podcast. I think you should consider launching a podcast. I think everybody should consider launching a podcast. But you know, at the same token, we don't need another person interviewing X, Y, Z, you know, business person.

Like you're just, you're not going to compete with the, with the shows that are already sitting down with, you know, with business people or something of that nature.

But you know, if you're an accountant and you have, you know, these, these particular strategies for saving people, you know, a lot of money on their taxes, then make your show all about that, you know, and just every week have a tax saving strategy that you introduce, bring on experts who help, you know, share their strategies around how you can save money on your taxes and just go super knit.

And then ultimately a show like that can drive, I would think some pretty good leads for you in terms of folks who may want to use your services that you actually help them save money on their taxes. So, you know, again, just really depends on why you're doing the show, what business you're in and is it a passion project or is this something you actually want to make money from? That's good advice. This was so good. I mean, everything that you've said, it's just, it's brilliant.

And I can't remember the name of the show. I'll have to look it up and put it in the show notes. But at podcast movement evolutions, there was a group of doctors and they had like a doctor podcast and their podcast was literally just questions that most people are afraid to ask their doctor.

And so it really ties into just what you were just talking about, about if you go super niche and you actually help people, then it's more than just, oh, I'm starting a podcast because I want to be internet famous. Yeah, for sure. And that's, and I guarantee you that's a perfect example of a show where they're actually driving people to their practice as well from that show.

You know, there's just, there's, again, I can make the argument that everyone should have a show and I can make the argument that absolutely no one should launch a show. So it's, you know, you can say, you could have been a lawyer, but it's been a lawyer. So are you still doing a lot of podcasting on your own or are you, are your hands full with the magazine? You know, it's funny. I did my, my show where you mentioned radio for a number of years.

And then, I don't know, about a year ago or so, I just decided I had nothing left to say. So I just stopped talking. Although clearly I have something to say, but I haven't, I haven't done an episode of where you mentioned radio in probably about a year now. And then my other show, which was called Beyond 8 Figures, actually sold that in 2020. So that was, that was kind of cool to sell, sell the show.

And that's, that's a whole other opportunity for revenue, but that's probably a conversation for another day. Wow. I mean, I can't wait to see what else you come up with. Because I mean, I'm sure that with the innovations that you've come up with so far for the magazine that we're, we're going to see a lot more come from it. Well, before I let you go, I have to ask you the one question I ask everyone before I let them off my interview platform.

And that is what's one question I didn't ask that you wish I had. Where can people get a free lifetime subscription to the magazine? Great. Podcastmagazine.com slash free. That's the, that's the private backdoor link. That's fantastic. Well, we will definitely leave that in the show notes. And where else can people find you online?

Just Google Steve Ulster and a whole bunch of stuff that you probably shouldn't see will come up and then let me know what was your favorite. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it. Sounds good. Thanks for having me. Well, my fellow podcasters, we hope you enjoyed the insights, tips and ideas shared in this episode. To learn more about launching and growing your own show, head over to RSS.com backslash blog.

And if you're ready to launch a podcast of your own, you can get started for free with your first episode on us. Thanks for tuning in.