Publishing a podcast to the iTunes store?
I wonder if this is a way to eventually generate revenue from my incredible discoveries which reveal the hidden history of 911.
How does this work?
Do people pay a subscription fee? Or maybe a couple of bucks per audio?
I would start for free for a long while, at least.
I will be covering history, but only as it relates to the hidden history of 911.
Does this include the ability to show pictures? Or is it just audio?
Does Apple have "Thought Police" that pull my account if I use a non-sanctioned word?
How do I find these things on iTunes? I'd love to see this.
Is it my job to promote the podcast? Or, does iTunes allow me to use search words, etc. to get SEO traffic?
Thanks
Being free and then going pay is always a risky business. You will loose a lot of listeners. The question is will you keep enough to make money?
Typically, podcasts build up an audience, and then sell advertisements which they insert into the podcast. But you need a big audience to make any real money, or you have to have more ads, which can be annoying to listeners.
Esquire has a list of the their top 55 Podcasts (both paid and free) and maybe what they have done will give you some clues. There are also tons of things to search on the net on how to make money with a Podcast because there are tons of people are doing Podcasts.
But then, that is the problem, tons of people are doing podcasts.
I used to teach iOS programming, and everyone who took the class was going to make a lot of money with their app in the app store. Except, millions of other people have apps too, and they are all there in the store too. It was very disappointing to so many to work so hard on something only to have it disappear into the store and so few people even know about it.
So how do you get yourself above the noise? It is the same with podcasts. You will indeed need to promote it. Be prepared to spend a lot of money on marketing your product (podcast) to get the word out. Just putting it in the Apple Podcast library will do very little as you share the library with a lot of other people. As of 2013 (yea, back that far), Apple says one billion iTunes podcast subscriptions and counting:
Very easy to get lost in the noise there, and that was back in 2013. I suspect it is double that by now.
I am not trying to be a downer, but it is as difficult to make a successful podcast these days as it is t make a winning iPhone app. It is a very crowded market. You have to differentiate yourself from the others. People need a reason to care. They also need a reason to pay to listen if you want to go that way. Why should they pay for you when there is so much other stuff? When you know that answer, you are ahead of the game. And you need to get the word out far and wide. I know podcasts who hire PR firms to spread the word.
Sorry if I burst that bubble, but I wanted to be realistic.
I also recommend Podcast Insights: https://www.podcastinsights.com/podcast-statistics/
They have more up to date statistics and info.