How A Thrice Weekly Podcast About Nintendo Continues To Grow And Thrive

My name is Bill, host of Nintendo Switch Craft, which you can find at runjumpstomp.com. It's a podcast all about Nintendo. New episodes come out Every Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. I went with this format mainly because I hated it when a podcast would produce a new episode only to have relevant news happen the next day and I'd have to wait a week to hear what the hosts thought about the new revelations. I figured if I do my show three times a week and keep it shorter than other podcasts I can always have the latest news, without making my podcast much longer than others.

The people that listen to Switch Craft are people that love loving things. We get excited for every little detail Nintendo can throw at us, but we also try not to take things too seriously.

When I was a kid I always wanted to be a radio host. Back in the early 2000's I was listening to a podcast before they were called podcasts, on the All Games Network. I was invited to submit a segment to the weekly show called RPG news.

I tried a few times to get my own podcast off the ground, but I would say the first time it really worked was when I started Switch Craft. My main motivation for doing the podcast was just to give myself an outlet for my thoughts on what was happening in the gaming industry. I decided to go with Nintendo focused content to avoid being too general and thus not niche enough. Plus I've always been a huge Nintendo fan, from my first time playing Donkey Kong in my grandmother's bar, to when the Nintendo Switch was announced.

I started Switch Craft the day the Nintendo Switch was announced. I released an episode that day, though after 10 episodes I wasn't sure if I was going to continue. After the Switch actually came out I decided to go with the three a week schedule and its been fun ever since. I'm nearing episode 200 very soon!

I release 3 episodes every week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I put the show notes together throughout the day when I have time, or when I see a news story that interests me. When I get home I start up the Twitch stream and I record live with the audience right there. The podcast doesn't require much prep other than reading the news stories ahead of time. It is non-scripted and everything is done off the cuff live.

Editing takes me about a 30 to 45 minutes and then I set up the show notes for the next episode, push the video to YouTube and chat with people in the discord. I fund the podcast myself, though I do have support from my community. I run a Patreon which brings in almost enough to pay for hosting, but I definitely went into the red in order to get the proper equpiment to have high quality audio/video.

It's so surprising how much I get back out of podcasting. Number one is the friends that I've made. We've got a small but active Discord community I call the Nerd Nest. We're constantly in communication with each other, and even have a chance to game together from time to time. I feel like podcasting has made me better at my day job, I feel far more confident in front of people than I ever did before.

Something else I get from podcasting that I never thought would happen is review copies of games. Now that my audience is growing I've had multiple developers reach out to me to try their games. This is like a dream come true as when I was a kid reading Nintendo Power or Electronic Gaming Monthly, I always aspired to be someone that gets to try games early and tell people about my experience with them.

My first sponsor was actually a listener that reached out asking if I was interested. I checked out their stuff and I liked what they were doing, so I said yes. This happened right around when I was getting a little over 7,000 downloads per month. This increased over the last year to 30,000 per month which is something I can't believe I'm saying right now. I currently have the same sponsors most podcasts do, though I'm looking for more.

I use the Heil PR40 Microphone along with a Behringer Xenyx Q802 USB Mixer, as well as a pair of Steel Series Arctis Pro Wireless Headphones. I record live on Twitch using OBS Studio, I record the audio separately using Audacity.

When looking for guests to interview, I'll often reach out to developers that have made games that I've enjoyed. I've interviewed developers that have worked on games like Mutant Mudds, Cat Quest, and Darkest Dungeon, just to name a few. When I record an interview, I tend to use whatever the guest is most familiar with. Sometimes it's Skype, sometimes Google Hangouts, sometimes Discord (my preference). I record myself and my guest on separate tracks and edit them individually for audio quality.

You can find my show pretty much everywhere that you can find podcasts. A vast majority of my listeners are on iOS, with Android trailing pretty far behind. As far as marketing goes, I'm incredibly bad at it. I would guess most people found my show by accident, and just decided to stay. This is something I really need to be better at.

Most important advice I can give to new podcatsers: 

1. Have a schedule. Stick to it!
2. Stream your podcast Live. It takes a lot of the stress out of getting everything perfect. Doing it live everyone can see the mistakes, warts and all, and I think it feels more organic.
3. You don't have to have the best equipment to start off. I didn't start with the best microphone, I started with what I could afford and as the support from listeners / advertisers grew I reinvested it into improving my equipment.

• runjumpstomp.com