Hang out with your two favorite lesbians to discuss queer life, experiences, and media representation

When Ellie and I first met at an a cappella conference, we knew we shared a love for music, but we soon discovered we also loved queer media, and discussing some of the shared experiences that help queer people form instant connections and relationships when in queer spaces. We wanted to create a joyful queer space where we could discuss those topics, as well as the landscape of queer representation in the media, and provide a "gay oasis" for anyone who needed one.

Lez Hang Out is *hosted* by two lesbians, but is a space for any queer folks, regardless of identity!
 

We got lucky since Ellie is an audio engineer by trade, and I had a base-level knowledge or recording from running an a cappella group. We realized that we had a number of tools/equipment at our disposal to create our own podcast, and decided to put together a real pitch for ourselves of what we would call it, gathered topic ideas to make sure we felt confident about having enough material, and started learning what we could about producing and releasing a podcast.

We launched in October 2017 and are about to launch our fifth season of the show this fall!
 

When we started, we were releasing every other week, as we were still learning and figuring out how to find time to record, edit, etc. We also wanted to see if the show gained any traction and seemed like we should continue. We found an initial sponsor, who gave us $100 for an ad in our first four episodes, which helped us cover the initial hosting fees to get off the ground.

That first winter, we realized that we were getting great feedback and our numbers were continuing to grow. We also were getting a better handle on the process behind the scenes, and feeling more confident, so we decided to introduce a new segment every other week so that we could release weekly, with a short segment called "Should've Been Gay", which we could record a few at a time. As we've continued to grow, those episodes have grown as well, and we now release full-length episodes every week.

As our numbers have grown, we've found good success with a Patreon, which helps cover most of our costs for paying for editing and some marketing. We have a dedicated recording time each week, after my day job, and have been able to make it work through life events, kids, etc. One thing we have maintained is a "summer hiatus", where we take a summer break to kind of reset, reorganize, plan ahead, and also have an opportunity to get a jump on our next season so that when the inevitable conflict comes up, we are a little ahead of ourselves in the season. This also helps give some buffer for episode editing and scheduling around guest availibility.
 

Financially, not a ton, although we've hit a comfortable place where we're able to cover our needs for the podcast itself, instead of having to pay for things out of pocket. We also usually make enough to pay for some travel costs to attend a convention each year to help market ourselves more. We've also turned some of the profits into the foundation of forming our own production company where we just released our first original podcast musical The Flame this past year.

We found our first sponsor before our launch, by reaching out to independent queer companies and asking if any of them would provide a small sponsorship in advance for a guaranteed ad spot in our first four episodes and on our website. Nowadays we are hosted on Acast, who negotiates most of our sponsorships for us.

The main thing we get from the show is the ability to meet chat with so many amazing guests, share our own interests and stories with the world, and know that we're providing a space that means so much to so many queer people.
 

We live on opposite coasts, so we both record independently over a Zoom call and Ellie edits the independent tracks together when she works on the episodes. All of our guests join via Zoom as well, which allows us to be really flexible about who we invite and their availability. Some guests we reach out to ourselves (or to their agents), and others contact us because they're familiar with the show and think they'd be a good fit.
 

We run a pretty consistent ad on FB, but mostly we feel we've had good luck with either word of mouth, being involved in the community, or through the guests we have on or our guest spots on other shows. The queer community is a pretty niche market to begin with, and most social media apps don't allow for paid promotions that feature specific queer words (even "LGBT" can get an ad flagged and removed most of the time), so it can make it really difficult to target our show to people who would really be interested listeners.
 

Be clear about your goals and your bandwidth. If you've never done any audio recording or editing, record a test episode and see how long it really takes you to edit and how comfortable you feel doing that for every episode you release. This can help determine your release frequency, especially to start while you learn and grow. Learn about what your target listener group would be, and how large it actually is. This will help you decide how much you can really hope to bring in financially in a best-case scenario, and set realistic goals for yourself. It will also help you have an idea pre-launch about where to find your listeners and how to start spreading the word.

And for the show itself, have an answer in mind for what makes *your* show unique, or what distinguishes you from the rest. There is almost no podcasting space that isn't somewhat saturated, these days, but people go to different shows for different things. Find your *own* niche, and that's what will bring in and keep your loyal listeners.
 

Our website can be found at lezhangoutpod.com. This is a good hub with info about the show, our projects including our musical The Flame, our live events (we also host regular trivia events and can be hired for private trivia parties), and everything else.

If you like what we do and want to help us continue, you can join us at bit.ly/lezpatreon to get access to our perks including our Discord chat for our patrons. We're on all the socials (fb, twitter, insta) @lezhangoutpod , and you can email us at lezhangoutpod@gmail.com!