Make Noise

“An interestingly idiosyncratic and personal vision of how to make podcasts.”—Ira Glass Veteran podcast creator and strategist Eric Nuzum distills a career’s worth of wisdom, advice, practical information, and big-picture thinking to help podcasters “make noise”—to stand out in this fastest of fastest-growing media universes.   Nuzum identifies core principles, including what he considers the key to successful audio storytelling: learning to think the way your audience listens. He delivers essential how-tos, from conducting an effective interview to marketing your podcast, developing your audience, and managing a creative team. He also taps into his deep network to offer advice from audio stars like Ira Glass, Terry Gross, and Anna Sale.   The book’s insights and guidance will help readers successfully express themselves as effective audio storytellers, whether for business or pleasure, or a mixture of both.  

Eric Nuzum is considered a leading “go-to” expert in audio, podcasting, radio, and spoken word entertainment. He led NPR’s podcasting efforts in 2005 and remained its leading creative and strategic force for a decade. He brought programs like Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Snap Judgment, and Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me into the podcasting ecosystem and helped them become iconic hits. As a creator, he developed some of NPR’s most successful podcasts, including TED Radio Hour and Invisibilia. He continued his track record of success during his tenure as Audible’s leader for short-form content and podcasting, creating such recognized podcasts as Sincerely X (another co-production with TED), The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson, and Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel. Eric is based in the New York City metro area.  

Table of Contents   Introduction                                                                                                 Chapter 1 • Story. Character. Voice.                                                                          Chapter 2 • The Only Ten Words That Matter                                                                Chapter 3 • Function and Form                                                                                 Chapter 4 • The Myths of Podcasting                                                                        Chapter 5 • Asking Questions                                                                                   Chapter 6 • How to Tell a Story aka Don’t Be Boring                                       Chapter 7 • The History of Podcasting                                                                  Chapter 8 • Leading Creative Teams                                                                      Chapter 9 • Audience Building                                                                        Chapter 10 • Time to Go Forward                                                                         Acknowledgments                                                                                              Recommended Reading                                                                                         About the Author