💬 How I write Podcast the Newsletter 💬
🍭 👂you will see notes that no longer make sense to me 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, April 7, 2025. This is not a normal issue of Podcast the Newsletter. Next week will be normal.
I’m used to people asking me how it’s possible I listen to everything I listen to. Recently I received a pitch letter from a publicist who was under the assumption that I write about mostly Tink clients and I thought, whoa! Maybe I should clear things up.
I have a podcast growth company, Tink, but that is not what all of this is about. I started Podcast the Newsletter years before that, as a podcast listener. I was in line for lunch at my job at a publishing house, listening to an episode of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, and the guest taking one of the quizzes casually mentioned that the show Roseanne was “too middle class” for him to be able to watch it as a kid and I stopped in my tracks. I was like, “wild things are flying through podcasts at all times, we have to talk about them!” I also started it because I thought I could convince my non-podcast listening friends and family to start listening. That’s not how things have worked out, most of my friends do not read this. ButI feel like a lot of readers have become friends.
Below I explain how I listen to so much, what I never miss, and how I write this newsletter.
I think you will see how much work goes into this thing. It’s a part-time job. I was hesitant to turn the payment options on but was encouraged to do so, and I did. If you’d like to become a paid subscriber you can click below. I never, ever would expect it of you and just love you for being a reader. So actually, maybe don’t. But! For the people who have chosen to pay………oh my god. I could cry. I really could. Thank you. That is helpful and means the absolute world.
xoxo
lauren
but first!!!
🚨🚨🚨If you have talked to me about podcast events you know how much I love The Podcast Show in London. It’s bursting with energy, joy, and beauty. I will be there May 21 & 22 this year, speaking and hanging out. You can be there, too! If you want a chance to win a free Platinum Pass please respond to this email and let me know. I’ll pick someone randomly. (Ends 4/14/25.)🚨🚨🚨
✨I love love love working with Castbox on these themed lists, this month it's shows for Earth Day. Discover them in the Castbox app and let me know what you think!
✨My next Radio Bootcamp: Podcast PR 101, sign up here! It’s the first time I’m doing it, I have so much stuff I want to share.
✨ALSO one of my favorite creators, Eric Molinsky, (of Imaginary Worlds) is teaching How To Sound Like Yourself on Mic for Radio Bootcamp Monday, April 21. Sign up here.
✨Arielle spotlighted Climbing the Walls in EarBuds.
✨From Rephonic: Podcasts With a YouTube Channel Attract Bigger Sponsors
~sponsored~
Rewind to the 1990s with None Of The Above, a new limited series from the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group. We dive into the decade’s most pivotal geopolitical events: failed democracy in Russia, the rise of the Taliban, the end of apartheid in South Africa, China’s economic rise, and much more. To catch all 10 episodes, make sure you subscribe to None Of The Above wherever you listen to podcasts... you don’t want to miss it!
P.S - If you’d like to see an ad for your podcast here or in Podcast Marketing Magic, fill out this form.
🤷♀️ Who / What / Why / Where / When
When I launched Podcast the Newsletter on June 7, 2019, my dad was the first person to sign up and I’d say he is still my number one supporter. I also talk a lot of shit about him in that first issue and he is in a photo up top:
In case you’re wondering, sometimes I will include a Tink client but that’s identified as a “Podcast Tink Loves,” or sometimes I genuinely will write about a client and indicate that it’s a client. Maybe I need to be more clear about this in the future.
⁉️ Some questions I get:
My app? Pocket Casts
My speed? 1.7x or 1.8x feels comfortable but some shows that are nicely made or include music, I’ll slow to 1x, or see below when I listen with my husband.
How many hours a day? It depends but anywhere from five to seven hours a day.
How do I fit it in? Well, I wake up at 4am. I have always been an early riser but ever since I had my daughter I need even more time to myself. I use this time to go through emails, work, organize or clean, workout, do Duolingo and read. With the exception of those last two activities, I’m listening to podcasts. When my daughter wakes up around 7:30 I usually take a pause, but sometimes we listen together. (I ALSO always take a pause at 6:30am every Friday when I have my standing phone call with my childhood best friend, Patty.) If I don’t have childcare that day, we might listen all day (we listen to a lot of Sharon, Lois, and Bram too). If I have childcare I usually dig into work and it’s pretty head’s down. I learned what true efficiency was the moment I had a kid.
What about the weekends? I still wake up at 4 and listen at 1.8x until around 7 when I call my dad. We’ve been talking every Saturday and Sunday morning, sometimes for three hours which means I’m talking to him while I’m getting my daughter ready, cooking, etc.
During the week I make a Spotify playlist of things I collect that I think my husband will enjoy. Then on the weekends, when we are running around the house or commuting or something, Justin will use our Sonos to chose podcasts from my curated list to pump through the house. At 1x speed! Justin listens at 1x and I let him take the lead. The stuff I do for love. Stuff I usually save for him: Endless Thread, My Momma Told Me, Straightiolab.
Oh: we listen to The Daily Zeitgeist at 1x together most mornings, sometimes also in the evening, too, when there are two episodes in a day.
🙅♀️ Shows I never miss:
The Daily Zeitgeist (Every day, sometimes twice)
The Best One Yet (M-F)
The Journal. (M-F)
Crime Writers On… (M, Th)
Straightiolab (Dunno when it releases, I listen on the weekend)
All Songs Considered (Friday the moment it releases, and oddly this was my #1 show of the last two years)
Who? Weekly (It comes out T and F but I save for the weekend)
All Fantasy Everything (Dunno when it releases I listen on the weekend)
Imaginary Advice (I drop everything the second I see an episode)
The Town (This is a show not only about the film industry but about power and media and I know a TON of podcast people who listen to it)
🧠 Definition Time 🧠
pod·seg·gia·ta
/ˌpodsəˈjädə/: Justin and I often go on walks together outside and will choose a special podcast to listen to. We do a “3-2-1 press play!” at the same time and then listen in our own devices holding hands, strolling. Example: Hey Justin, what should we listen to on our Podseggiata today?
I was telling Normal Jean Belenky, who lives in Italy, about this. Podseggiata is a play on the Italian word passeggiata, which means stroll. It’s something Italians often do in their neighborhoods, often I have noticed after a meal to let things digest. Normal Jean was like, “trademark that shit!” So here you go, this is as official as it gets.
👂 While I’m listening:
I have a big Podcast the Newsletter note in my phone that is, for some reason, titled “Lyn.” If you scroll down you will see notes that no longer make sense to me:
I text myself voice notes because my phone will transcribe them for me.
I screenshot certain parts of episodes that I just need to go back and listening to (instead of just…writing this down? I never said ANY OF THIS has to make sense.)
Repeat repeat repeat for as many shows that are good enough to inspire any sort of reaction.
MEANWHILE I am setting up interviews with people I like. I usually do not take pitches for interviews, I am hunting creators down. (Still hunting down Caroline O'Donoghue of Sentimental Garbage—SOMEONE PLEASE INTRODUCE US.)
If you’d like to help me make Podcast the Newsletter better…
…10 questions, all optional!
🔨 Making the newsletter:
Building and writing the newsletter starts the second I send out the last one. I immediately make a copy of the old one and delete everything I don’t need anymore. Then I go to my Squarespace and build an interview article and send it to the person being interviewed so they have time to approve it.
I try to do my write ups for shows during the day, after I put Stella to bed, or when I get up the next day at four. Even if it’s a terrible write up with tons of TKs. So many TKS.
🧠 Definition Time 🧠
This goes back to my publishing days. TK is a placeholder that stands for "to come." It’s not TC because TK is that the letter combination rarely used in English words and even just visually really stands out from the crowd. (Just like the one and only TK Dutes. TK is not named for her technically but I do think of her fondly when I use it.) Plus, when I write TK Substack makes a little TK on the side which I like, so I don’t miss.
As the week goes on I continue to finesse the write ups I’ve made and start new ones.
Sometimes I write about things I love, sometimes there is a good story about my listening experience and I’ll share that. I am constantly wondering how much of myself I should insert into these write-ups.
The “podcasts i texted to friends” section is quite literally stuff I text to people (I do that a lot) or at least tell people about.
I love pitches, I read them all. But it’s rare that a cold pitch works unless there is a super personal note. If I get an email from the person who made it telling me how hard they work on it, I will give it a listen.
I used to spend lots of free time on the weekend writing the newsletter but now that I’m a mom my free time is so not there so by Friday morning, by the time my daughter wakes up, I’d better have 90% of this done. (I have her to myself on Fridays and Mondays and it’s hard enough to get my real work done!)
Final adjustments are made the second before I send it on Monday afternoon. Last minute things, usually…
adding the ad if there is one
deciding which show should be the “If U Only Have Time for 1 Thing”
adding the podcast recommendation from Arielle’s newsletter, which comes out Sunday night
making the “artwork”
making subject line and adding emoji
finalizing “if this newsletter is too long…” and the “notes” sections
re-reading one final time, asking myself “Lauren are you saying what you mean? are you being yourself or are you being full of shit?” and sometimes I have to change things based on the answer
at this point, I am usually over my word limit and I have to delete things. That usually means I’m stripping words of their links or taking things out of the notes section
send
After sending I used to make a huge Twitter post but now I don’t post anywhere unless it’s LinkedIn, which is rare. Then it’s back to starting the next one.
That’s it. What did I leave out? Do you have any questions, comments, concerns? (My swim teacher used to ask the class that…WHEN I WAS FIVE…and I always thought it was so hilarious to ask kids that.)
OH YEAH, I LOVE YOU
If you’d like to help me make Podcast the Newsletter better…
…10 questions, all optional!
LOVE SEEING YOUR PROCESS! What time to do go to bed though???
We love this newsletter and read every one - have gotten recs from here many times. It's very clear you don't simply write about Tink clients, though frankly everyone should work with y'all b/c you're wonderful! Thank you for the hard work on this. We need more folks like y'all in this world.