► Tell us about you and your podcast
We are Londoners who met through a mutual friend at Pat's engagement party- and the rest is history! We come from very different backgrounds and we enjoyed learning about each other, discussing our points of view and discovering we share a lot in common- including our interest in true crime!
Pod of Terror is a passion project where we try to discuss the less known true crime cases from around the world. Darsi often focuses on crimes against women and Pat likes to delve into obscure serial killers.
We strive to be your weird friend who enjoys true crime chat a little bit too much after a glass or two of wine- with a sprinkle of cynicism, dry humour and silliness.
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
Whilst Pat is a podcast junkie, Darsi enjoys what YouTube creators have to offer which enabled us to discuss different types of true crime content.
We often joked we should start a podcast to get all the true crime chat out of our system-
we joked and joked and joked for a year... Until we decided it was no joke anymore!
We realised we were both passionate about it and started recording in Pat's bedroom using one USB microphone. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?
We started in December 2023 and so far we've learnt loads, had a great time seeing each other more regularly than we would have without the podcast and got to make great connections with other podcasters!
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
We release episodes weekly. It took us a while to get going- we are still learning and slowly upgrading our gear and editing has been (and still is) a learning curve- we try to improve the quality of our work every week. Each episode takes many hours to produce- starting with research and editing, it's become a part time job! Staying on top of things, particularly the schedule, can be tricky as both of us have full time jobs and Pat does shift work so we pre-record as much as possible. So far we haven't missed an episode but it does get stressful when life gets in the way. What helps is our different personalities- Darsi has a more relaxed, laissez faire approach whilst Pat can get in her own head about timelines and schedules- we try to accommodate each other which makes it work!
Pod of Terror is a passion project, not a business venture- we fund everything ourselves. We are planning on improving our set up later this year once we've attended London CrimeCon, and we must admit our marketing leaves a lot to be desired-but it's something we will focus on. Nevertheless, we've enjoyed dipping our toes into podcasting and already met fantastic people who are in this industry, and we can't wait to keep on improving and engaging with new audiences.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
We currently don't have any sponsorship- nor do we expect it. We understand there are thousands of podcasts out there and all we hope for is to reach an audience that enjoys our content, our personalities and our points of view.
We've already gained lots from our podcasting journey- we are learning new skills, improving our research, making connections and believe it or not- speaking into a microphone, even from the comfort of your own house, can be daunting, not to mention hearing yourself speak outside of your own head! It's been a great experience so far and having listeners waiting for us every Thursday is the ultimate reward.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
We use Audacity to record and Acast to publish- we keep it simple.
We do, however, spend hours researching, preparing scripts and editing episodes- we never knew how much work casual podcasting would be!
► How do you market your show?
We use social media to promote our show- mainly X (formerly known as Twitter lol) and Instagram. We try to interact with other indie podcasts in our niche as much as possible and cross promote, which is great. Turns out podcasters are quite a nice bunch!
We find Spotify and Apple Podcasts to be our main sources of discovery.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
All we can say is- we wish we'd started sooner rather than overthink and overplan. As long as you don't expect podcasting to become your day job in 3 months- go for it! It's great fun, it's wonderful to see progress, however slow, and it's extremely rewarding to see that there are people out there- whether it's 3, 300 or 3000, who are interested in what you have to say. Done is better than perfect!