Amelia [00:00:04] [Twinkling, airy music begins to play, overlapping with the introduction to the episode] Welcome to The Softer Cast, a podcast for small business owners and creatives who want tender podcast advice without any tech bro bullshit.

Amelia [00:00:12] I'm Amelia Hruby and I'm the founder of Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for women and non-binary entrepreneurs. On this show, I answer your questions about podcasting.

Amelia [00:00:23] Things like:

Amelia [00:00:23] Should I put my show on YouTube?

Amelia [00:00:25] Can I just record it on Zoom?

Amelia [00:00:26] How much do editors really cost?

Amelia [00:00:29] And how many downloads should my podcast be getting?

Amelia [00:00:32] Yeah, I'll even answer that question. Every episode of The Softer Cast is really practical, a little magical, and less than 10 minutes long. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show and share it with your podcast bestie. Then, head to the show notes to check out our free resources.

Amelia [00:00:51] [Music quiets but continues to play] No matter where you're at in your podcasting journey, we're here to support you. Join us on the softer side of podcasting.

Amelia [00:01:05] Hello and welcome to The Softer Cast, a podcast [music fades out] about podcasting for women and non-binary entrepreneurs and everyone else who wants thoughtful, strategic support without any tech bro bullshit.

Amelia [00:01:18] I'm Amelia Hruby. I am the host of this podcast and the founder of Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and creatives who want to create and grow heartfelt, soulful podcasts.

Amelia [00:01:34] On this show, I answer your questions. Yes, yours [chuckles]— about podcasting. So, submit them. I would love to hear from you and know what questions do you have about launching or growing a podcast.

Amelia [00:01:49] Today's question comes from me, myself, and I, y'all [chuckles]. Yes, I am answering my own question. Let's just, you know, own it. Why not?

Amelia [00:01:59] As I've been winding down the year, I have been helping myself and all my clients figure out if we're going to do episodes over the holidays and when our shows will return in the new year.

Amelia [00:02:09] So, if you're listening live, you know it's December, it's the end of the year. And basically, we all want to take a break [laughs gently]. Everybody wants to take a break from work, from projects, from podcasts. We all want to take a break from our shows, but nobody wants to see our stats drop because our show was offline for a few weeks or months.

Amelia [00:02:31] So, I thought I'd bring this conversation— this query to The Softer Cast.

Amelia [00:02:36] How do you take a podcast break without losing listeners? Great question. Let's get into it.

Amelia [00:02:44] So, for this question, how do you take a podcast break without losing listeners? The first thing I want to say is good for you for recognizing that you need or want a break.

Amelia [00:02:56] In our society, it can be really hard and so scary to rest, but rest is crucial for our creative process.

Amelia [00:03:04] So, I'm so glad that you're thinking about it and trying to make a break work for you.

Amelia [00:03:10] Your first step:

Amelia [00:03:11] How to take a podcast break without losing listeners? The first step is deciding what type of break you want to take and for how long.

Amelia [00:03:20] There are different types of podcast breaks so you can take a break where your feed goes quiet, right? No new episodes, nothing new is happening.

Amelia [00:03:28] You can take a break where you're— you are resharing episodes from your back catalog. You're not making new episodes but there are still things going on on your feed. You're still sharing your episodes from the past.

Amelia [00:03:40] You can also take a break where you're not sharing any of your stuff, but you're doing what's called a feed drop. You're dropping episodes of other shows on your feed. Of course, those are shows that you think your audience would be interested in, you know, that are relevant to your listeners, but there are different— what I'm trying to show here is there are different types of breaks.

Amelia [00:04:00] So, there are breaks where your feed goes quiet, there are breaks where you're sharing your past episodes, and there are breaks where you're sharing other people's episodes.

Amelia [00:04:09] And there are different reasons to take different types of breaks. But your first step is to decide what type of break you want to take and then how long your break is going to be. So, how long it should be— "should" in air quotes there? It really depends on your needs.

Amelia [00:04:25] So, you'll need to consider how you want to use your break and what prep time you'll need to return from your break. So, often when my clients will come to me, they're like, "I want to take, you know, a two-week break or a one-month break from the show." And normally what I tell them is, "You should double that. If you want a month off, you should take a month off and then plan a month to spend bringing your show back."

Amelia [00:04:49] So, that's the month where we're going to be recording episodes, you know, getting a little bit ahead. So, we've got some things ready to go when the show actually returns to— for listeners.

Amelia [00:05:00] So, again, I like to make sure my break time includes actual rest time when I am not working on my show and time to prepare for the return because too often I see podcasters take breaks where like the public feed is on a break, like listeners aren't getting anything new, but the podcaster themself is working really hard behind the scenes.

Amelia [00:05:20] And that means you're not getting a break [laughs lightly]. So, I just want to emphasize, like, if you want a break, you need to make it a break so that you get a break and your listeners get a break. Not just them. Like, take care of yourself too, babe. You deserve that. So, that's your first step— deciding what type of break you want to take and how long that break is going to be.

Amelia [00:05:40] There's only one more step here [chuckles] and that step is to tell your listeners about it. When you want to take a podcast break, I think the most important thing is communication. Do not ghost your listeners. Don't, like, get overwhelmed and just, like, stop showing up for a long period of time. You know, I'm not judging you if you've done that— we've— it happens to all of us. But I just want to say, if you're listening to this episode, my best advice [laughs lightly] is to notice the signs that you need a break a little earlier so that you still have some energy to plan your break and communicate it to your listeners.

Amelia [00:06:17] So, you'll want to let your listeners know that you are taking a break and when they can expect you to return.

Amelia [00:06:24] So, you can do this, you know, you can mention it in the intro of your final pre-break episode. You can put a short audio announcement on your feed while you're away. You know, just like drop a little mini-sode even if it's only three or five minutes about taking a break, here's how long, you know, here's when I'll return. And you can be super specific about when you'll return, like, "I'm going to return on this date and you'll have a new episode. I'm going to return on this date with three new episodes or one new episode. Or a trailer for the next season, whatever."

Amelia [00:06:55] Or you can be more general, "I'm going to return in the spring. I'm going to return next year [chuckles]." I tend to go with a slightly more general approach in case, you know, something happens on break that shifts plans and means you're not going to come back on a specific date. But it's totally up to you. It's going— that's going to depend on what type of break you're taking, why you're taking it, you know, sometimes we take breaks because we really, really need them and we need to give ourselves a lot of spaciousness to recover. And sometimes we take breaks because we know that we need to— like we're going to be busy over the holidays and so let's just not make the podcast for a couple weeks. And we can definitely count on returning after the new year. You know, there's lots of different factors there.

Amelia [00:07:36] But that's really it. I guess it's only like a two-step process here. So, easy, breezy [chuckles].

Amelia [00:07:42] How do you take a podcast break without losing listeners?

Amelia [00:07:45] First, you decide what type of break you want to take and for how long. And second, you tell your listeners about it, communicate what type of break it is, and how long it will last.

Amelia [00:07:56] Now, can I promise you that you will not lose a single listener by taking a break? No, but that doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Like, if you need or desire a break from your show, you need to take those breaks so you can keep making your show over time.

Amelia [00:08:12] It— breaks are necessary and I know there's a lot of, kind of, fear-mongering and podcasting around. If you've got a show, it needs to be consistently released so that your listeners put it in their routine and keep you in that routine and keep going.

Amelia [00:08:26] And I hear tons of podcast listeners say like, "Oh, my favorite Wednesday show is off right now and I hate it." And like, yes, they might have that sentiment, but I think as podcasters we can't take that personally. Like that sentiment is actually a great thing for us. We need to take it as a compliment and not as a sort of, like, complaint that we took a break to take care of ourselves.

Amelia [00:08:47] So, if you need to take the break, take the break. If you want to take the break, take the break and communicate about it so that your listeners know what's happening and you maintain that trust with them. I will also say, something else I have noticed that I didn't consider before I ran a podcast studio and looked at the stats of a lot of podcasts for a long time— is that the episode that's at the top of your feed when you go on break will get a lot more listens.

Amelia [00:09:14] So, I always tell my clients too, like, if they're ending a season and there's going to be a break between seasons, it's really important to think about what that last episode on your feed is going to be, because anybody who subscribes while you're on break, that's the first episode that they're going to see or download, most likely the first one they're going to listen to.

Amelia [00:09:32] And so, you want that final episode before your break to be a really good one. Go out with a bang, not a whimper, as they say [chuckles].

Amelia [00:09:41] So, I guess that's my last tidbit. We've got this two-step process for taking a break without losing listeners and a little piece of secret advice. Make your last episode before your break a really good one.

Amelia [00:09:53] And that's officially it my friends. We are going to wrap up today in under 10 minutes for once— I'm finally doing it and I think this is the perfect time to announce, of course, that we will be on break until next year.

Amelia [00:10:06] So, The Softer Cast is going to go on a holiday break, a seasonal break, and we will be back in 2023. My current plan as I'm recording this is to shift the show to once a month in 2023.

Amelia [00:10:18] I have realized that twice-a-month episodes is awesome, but it's not giving me the time that I need to promote the episodes as much as I would like to.

Amelia [00:10:27] So, I am planning to shift to once a month in 2023, but we'll see if a ton of you submit questions and I've just got a bunch of stuff I want to respond to, maybe we'll do more.

Amelia [00:10:38] I'm so excited to see you, hear you, speak to you [laughs]. I guess that's what I'm doing here.

Amelia [00:10:44] [Outro music begins to play, overlapping with the episode] I'm so excited to speak to you in the New Year. And until then, friends, I hope to see you on the softer side of podcasting. Bye!

Amelia [00:11:00] Thanks so much for listening to The Softer Cast. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to your podcast bestie and after you do that, go ahead and drop us five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Amelia [00:11:12] If you'd like to submit a question, head to speakpipe.com/softercast to record a message or email us at hi@softersounds.studio.

Amelia [00:11:21] And last but not least, we made some awesome free things for you. Head to the show notes to download our free Podcast Launch Toolkit or our 3-step Podcast Audit.

Amelia [00:11:32] No matter where you're at in your podcasting journey, we're here to support you.

Amelia [00:11:36] Thanks again for tuning in and joining us on the softer side of podcasting [twinkling, airy music closes out the show].