zHEIGHTgeist

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► Tell us about you and your podcast

My podcast is about the rising mainstream interest in macrophilia and Size Fantasy. I've been writing Size Fantasy and Size Erotica for 30 years, published seven books, and hosted a Size Fantasy writing contest for four years. I create photocollages and illustrations in Daz Studio to supplement my work, and I even recorded a song. I've always been interested in macrophilia, but sometimes it's painful or insulting to see how it's represented in mainstream media, so I thought I'd step up and explain a few things, dispel some myths, as well as promote artists, writers, and producers in the community.

► Why & how did you start this podcast? 

I listen to a lot of podcasts, mainly around comedy, creative writing, and North Korea. I've been planning zHeightgeist for several years but never made the jump to actually producing anything until recently. I took a community education course on Star Your Own Podcast, found it influential and inspiring, taught myself Audacity for recording, and now I've got two episodes published. It took about a week to get organized, pull all the materials together, and refine my first episode, but the future episodes will be much less labor. If I had a day entirely to myself, I could complete an episode.

► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?

My episodes will come out every two weeks. That seems like a lot of time, but I need that time for planning and research, since I do everything myself. In the daytime I'm a copyeditor and web developer for a university, and we've been working from home since the pandemic broke out. I break down the components of each episode into a checklist, so I can usually compose an episode systematically in a few days. Recording and mastering the sound takes the least work; the most work is the research, editing, and revising my script. I produce everything and pay for everything myself. I'd love it if fans chipped in, but I have to give them something worthwhile for that first.

► What do you gain from podcasting?        

I can't imagine who in the world would want to sponsor a podcast about a sexual fetish! I think the topic is too strange for respectable businesses to consider; society has a long way to go before we accept the diversity of the human experience. What I'm hoping the podcast will do is find people who think they're the only ones with this kink and show them how it's normal and acceptable, how it's healthy to accept who they are, as well as to strengthen the Size community. The experience of production has called all my skills as a writer and editor to bear, and I was excited to learn sound engineering as well, because I love learning things.

► How does your podcasting process look like? 

I host my podcast on WordPress, I master the recordings on Audacity, I store the scripts on Google Drive, and I got a condenser mic and a dozen sound-absorbing panels from Temu. I outline what I think I'm going to talk about, and knock out the rough draft. This will inform the references I want to pull from and allude to in the episode, so I can organize links in the show notes. Then I read it aloud to my wife and leave her with a copy, and when she provides her edits I revise and record in an afternoon. After that, I schedule the post in WordPress, and when it drops it disseminates to a dozen other platforms, but I have to add it manually to Spotify because it doesn't cooperate with WordPress.

► How do you market your show?

I promote the episodes on social media: WordPress will post to Facebook, Tumblr, and Mastodon, but I have to add it to Twitter, BlueSky, and Instagram. I'm really unhappy about having to return to Facebook and Twitter, but that's where the audience is. It's like, Amazon commits crimes against humanity through its practices and services, but if you want to sell a book, you have to seriously consider them as a marketplace. My podcast is brand-new, and the topic is so niche, I don't think I should concern myself with how popular it's going to be, only how much I enjoy doing it.

► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?

Take stock of the resources you already have, before you go buying fancy equipment. I got a condenser mic that's far too sensitive for recording in my office at home, especially since I live under the flight paths of an international airport. A directional mic would've been better, but what works great is the microphone on my phone. I paid for a Personal account with WordPress to store my podcasts, but another path would have been a free account with Spotify links in the posts. Talk with other amateur podcasters and learn from their experiences. If you have community education in your area, definitely look for a course on podcasting.

► Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?

My personal website is https://aborigen-gts.org/ with my stories and illustrations, as well as complaints about the writing process.
My podcast website (https://zheightgeist.com/) has all the links to my social media presence, which only serves to point to the website.