How to make podcasting your full time job (in Canada).
Vol. 36 - Canadian Podcast Awards winners and Liv Albert on how "Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!" started paying her bills.
Hihi!! Happy Pod the North Tuesday!
In this issue:
Canadian Podcast Awards winners!
Liv Albert discusses making Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! her full time job.
Canadian Indie: Bunny Hugs & Mental Health
True North Podcast Feature: Native ChocTalk
Canada is kicking off 2024 with 29 long-term drinking water advisories in effect in 27 First Nations communities. 2023 started with 33 advisories in 29 communities.
Congratulations to the 2023 Canadian Podcast Awards Winners!
On the evening of December 19th, the Canadian Podcast Awards live-streamed their awards ceremony over YouTube, featuring plenty of incredible, indie podcasts!
The Canadian Podcast Awards received a record number of votes cast this year - over 2400 by over 1100 individuals.
It was particularly exciting to see winner from Canada’s northern territories. "The Yukon once again had 3 podcasts that took home awards,” said the CPA team, “[it’s] a great sign as we have been trying and reach more of the underrepresented northern provinces and territories.”
Here are the winners!
2023 People’s Choice: Canadian History Ehx
You Made Me Queer!
Outstanding Adult Series // Outstanding Main Title Theme Music for a Series
No Quest for the Wicked
Outstanding Fiction Series // Outstanding Production for a Series
Canadian History Ehx
People’s Choice // Outstanding News & Current Affairs Series
The Nerdy North
Outstanding Indigenous Series
CAPTIVES
Outstanding Francophone Series
Lullaby: The Fear Podcast
Outstanding True Crime Series
Kyah Green (The Fandom Show)
Best Host in a Series
Queer Legends: An Oral History Podcast
Outstanding Documentary
Yukon, North of Ordinary
Outstanding Branded Series
Semi-Qualified Queens with Juice Boxx and Synthia Kiss
Outstanding Television & Film Series
Doctor DC Podcast
Outstanding Leisure Series
Squirrel Talk!
Outstanding Arts Series
Geist
Outstanding Artwork for a Series
Savvy Social Podcast
Outstanding Business Series
30 Going On 13
Outstanding Comedy Series
It's Dangerous to Go Alone!
Outstanding Debut for a Series
The Chey and Pav Show: Teachers Talking Teaching
Outstanding Education Series
Big Brother Recaps & Live Feed Updates from Rob Has a Podcast
Outstanding Foreign Series
F*ck Buddies: A Sex and Dating Advice Podcast
Outstanding Health & Fitness Series
Sleep Tight Science – A Bedtime Science Show For Kids
Outstanding Kids & Family Series
Ongoing History of New Music
Outstanding Music Series
Dwarven Moss
Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for a Series
Remember This
Outstanding Personal Series
Rebelliously Curious UFOs, Science, Space and Futurism
Outstanding Science Series
Belief It Or Not
Outstanding Society & Culture Series
Her Love of Sports
Outstanding Sports Series
Info Matters
Outstanding Technology Series
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Thoughts from the ecosystem:
Liv Albert works when she wants, but also works all the time.
Ah yes, the ultimate dream of taking your indie podcast to the career level.
I know it well. But is it even possible? Especially with little to no known money for it Canada?
Liv Albert started Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! on a whim, after moving from Toronto to Vancouver. “I was sad and lonely, and working a job that was even worse, and I just listened to podcasts all day. One day I was like, ‘I feel like I can do this. That would maybe make me happier than I am now.’”
After literally Googling “how to start a podcast” Liv launched the show in 2017, honing into her obsession with Ancient Greece and combining it with her charm, whit, and feminist values. “Reminding myself of some myths that I hadn't read in a long time, [I realized] how ridiculous and absurd they are,” Liv told me, “also how horrific they are for women.” Within a year of it’s release, Myths, Baby! was at the top of the podcast charts and getting global recognition.
By the end of 2020, Liv was able to quit her job and take her podcast full time.
It’s a dream most indie podcasters hope to see for their show, and a dream that’s particulary tricky to achieve in Canada. I talked to Liv about why that is, and what it took to take her podcast from a side project to a full-blown career.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Kattie Laur: In the beginning, did you have any strategy to finding listeners as an indie podcaster with no established community?
Liv Albert: It's funny because I don't think that I really knew what I was doing.
I definitely fluctuated a lot at the beginning in terms of what my schedule was gonna be when it comes to releasing episodes, but I also think there's a level of neurodivergence that went into not wanting to stop.
[Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby!] started to pick up steam fairly early which really helped. Within the first year I was featured on Spotify and a lot of things happened in that way where it made it feel worth it. It's very hard to just put stuff out there and not get any kind of feedback.
I also got [into podcasting] at a really good time. I got in before the market was as saturated as it is now. I started [the podcast] in 2017. I got really into Gilmore Guys and My Favorite Murder (I can't say I listen to that much now). It was an incredibly different time when I started.
KL: Do you remember the episode that made you realize, “my podcast is actually pretty good!”
LA: I can recall the exact moment when something changed and things started blowing up really tangibly.
2018, somebody on Spotify, or their algorithm, put me in two suggested topics in podcasts: “Learn Something New” and “Podcasts that will make you smarter,” and they stuck me right next to Freakonomics. I watched my Instagram grow in a single day. I got like 3000 followers. I didn't do anything differently, but somebody found me, put me there, and then it just spiraled and kept growing.
Once I got featured in Canada in some way that I ended up number one in the Canadian podcast charts. These random things, whether they are algorithm driven or somebody liking me at Apple or Spotify, things happened in a way where that really contributed. And then once you have that momentum, more people find you and then it continues to grow organically.
I will very proudly say that I have the top rated Greek mythology, if not mythology, podcast out there, and I am a furious angry feminist all the time.
Liv Albert, Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby!
KL: How long were you working on the podcast until you decided that it was time to pursue it as a full time career?
LA: I didn't become full time until pretty late into 2020, and that was purely because enough things collided: I was making enough money that I could quit my job. I moved away from Vancouver, and was working a retail job and managing a store. It was hard to keep a podcast going – retail is hard, man.
I did three years of [Myths, Baby!] with my full time retail job.
In June 2020 alone, I kept the podcast two episodes a week, re-opened a store in a pandemic, understaffed, and wrote a book. It was a time, I don't miss that time.
Very shortly after that, I signed with Acast and at that time they were able to give me enough money that I could quit my job.
KL: Did Acast reach out to you?
LA: Acast signed me because they were launching in Canada and they found me. It was like a flagship.
KL: So what were your download numbers at that time?
LA: They were probably 100,000 a month.
KL: Holy shit.
LA: I do get 700,000 a month now. I'm looking back, I'm like, that was huge!
KL: It sounds to me like Acast swooped in offering you this really amazing deal and that was the prompt for you to quit your retail job?
LA: 100%. Without Acast I wouldn't have ever made enough money to quit my job for sure.
The craziest thing about podcasting, unlike so much other content online and making money online, no matter the size of your podcast, you don't make money unless somebody is selling ads on it.
Especially as somebody who's not American. Not being American is such an enormous struggle in the podcasting industry specifically because everything is built around the states.
I heard about Anchor for a while, but they couldn't pay anyone outside of the states. If your shit was great but you didn't live there, they couldn't pay you. I get that. But there's a lot of interesting and weird hurdles if you're just not American.
I am not particularly big in Canada. Like I'm big enough, but my downloads are so international that actually that often was a problem for me in terms of monetization. A lot of companies wanted me to be bigger in the States because their monetization was linked to the states — they would only monetize my American listeners which left a lot of my downloads unmonetized.
With Acast they could monetize outside of the states so that was huge. But I remember I got approached by a network one time, and I talked about my downloads and they were very honest and said “look, we can't monetize you well enough. You won't do well enough with us,” which I appreciated.
It was interesting because that almost seemed to hurt me for a while.
KL: So you're signed with iHeart now. Now that podcasting is your career, what does that look like?
LA: I get to do whatever I want basically, but it is still a ton of work.
I have an agent, Joy Fowlkes, and she is wonderful. She's American, which is why I have an American deal now and she was a total game changer for me.
I first hired a production assistant, now she's my assistant producer, Michaela Smith. I've now hired somebody else as well, Laura Smith, no relation. Both of them came to me out of just being like, “Hey, I listened to your show and you mentioned that you might need X”. It's wonderful.
I work when I want, but I also work all the time. My show is inherently my voice, the script writing is so my voice that I couldn’t never, would never, want to give that up.
Michaela runs my YouTube and I just pretend that it's not there because commenters on YouTube are mean and I don't have to look at them. She does a ton of other work, but the thing I'm most relieved that I don't have to do is see YouTube.
It's me trying to relinquish control of certain things. It's an interesting process and it's nice for me to be able to employ people and make their lives as easy as possible and use all my angry leftist energy to provide good working conditions for people.
KL: Okay, I'm really thinking about getting an agent right now.
Liv: Definitely getting an agent was huge for me. That said, I was approached by agents.
KL: I'll be honest with you, I honestly didn't expect that that was how you went full time!
I would ask you for advice but obviously going pro was a weird happenstance for you, so who do you think this is possible for? What do you think is the key to making a podcast career?
LA: Oh, I feel like it's so hard now because I really think that the market has been unfortunately saturated and, this is the leftist coming out of me, I think that it is so oversaturated by corporations and people who have pre existing careers and fame.
One of the greatest things about podcasting was that anyone could do it and anyone could make it into their career. I think it's so much harder now, but it's obviously not impossible.
I think it's just a matter of being more proactive. I probably could have been full time sooner if I had been the type of person who would reach out to companies that I could have worked with.
I never want to discount the fact that I worked obnoxiously hard on my show and I'm really proud of it, but at the same time you can be all of those things and still have stuff not work out.
My show got in at a time right before Greek mythology blew up, and I didn't see that coming. Right before Lore Olympus, which is like this enormous graphic novel that really exploded Greek myth. And then now, every second book coming out is a retelling.
I think it's my obsession with the topic, I am really knowledgeable, but I also I like to think I'm fun and funny. And the feminism aspect; values are a huge part of what I want my show to be. I made a topic that is often presented in a very dry manner and that was the reason I wanted to start the show in the first place, really, is that I was like, ‘this stuff is absolutely bananas’ and people are often like, ‘the Greeks are these brilliant people who invented philosophy and thus everything that it was serious.’ And I'm like, there is a myth about a major God being born and then immediately going and stealing cattle as a baby. Like these people were not serious and we don't have to pretend that they were.
I think a lot of things aligned in that way to make my show something that many people wanted to listen to, and I'm just so incredibly thankful because I absolutely love it and it's seriously cool that this is my job.
Podcasting generally, a lot of things have to work out for you or you have to force them to work out, and all the power in the world to people who can make it happen for themselves. I feel like you can't just sit down and be like, ‘I'm gonna become a full time podcaster!’ It requires a lot of different things to come together along with whatever you are bringing to the table yourself.
So many different kinds of things happened to make it possible for me that it's impossible to predict.
KL: Let's say somebody senses the momentum is happening for their podcast. What would recommend they do to jump on it and keep the momentum going?
LA: One thing I really enjoy doing, and I think probably helps a lot, is interacting with listeners as much as possible, but also sharing those moments.
Today is Spotify Wrapped Day, which means that my Instagram story is an utterly disastrous thing that I feel for anyone clicking through it, but nearly a hundred people have tagged me in their screenshots from their Spotify Wrapped. I love sharing those, and I think people love it too.
At the beginning, one thing I did make sure to do when it comes to harnessing the technology in whatever way that I could is keywords and episode titles. Every time I talk about Heracles, in the episode title it also says “Hercules” in brackets because it's the one people Google. Taking advantage of technology in whatever ways that you can.
Also as somebody who can determine the content I created in a given moment, when things were happening in the world that I could comment on in some way through Greek mythology, I make a point of doing it. I do pride episodes talking about LGBTQ characters from Greek myths.
If you sense that momentum, put out an episode that you are particularly proud of or something that can grab people.
What Liv Albert is loving:
Check out this Canadian Indie: Bunny Hugs & Mental Health
For anyone with emotions and a brain!
This is a free, safe space for people to share and learn from other's experiences with mental health and addictions. It provides understanding of various mental illnesses and mental health issues, perspective for loved ones who are struggling, and tips for coping with mental health challenges. Bunny Hugs and Mental Health features real life experiences of survivors, loved ones and professionals.
True North Podcast Feature: Native ChocTalk
Native Americans share ancestral stories, history, & culture.
What’s going on in Canada’s podcast ecosystem:
Last chance to submit a session for Podcamp Toronto this year! You have until January 15th to submit a session to the unconference.
Global Marketers are 10 Times More Likely to Increase Podcast Ad Spend Over Next Five Years, Acast Study Finds. A recent study of marketers based in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK and Singapore found that globally marketers are ten times more likely to predict an increase rather than a decrease in podcast ad spend over the next five years. 62% of global marketers projecting increased ad spend in the coming years. Check out the study here.
In other Acast-adjacent news, they’ve teamed up with CAMH Foundation on a “multi-part podcast advertising campaign” to amplify messages about mental health and addiction resources. The campaign features the voices of Marc Maron and Cat & Nat Unfiltered.
Jeremie, Brian and Taylor of SickBoy were recently featured on ! The chatted about making the podcast, and how its impacted their lives and the Cystic Fibrosis commuinty. Give it a read!
Halifax-based podcast production company, Podstarter, has a new Accounts Manager, Aminah Faubert!
PodSummit is coming to Calgary September 2024! Tim Truax, PodSummit CEO & Chief Podcaster, will be joining me soon to discuss what to expect from the two days of networking and learning, and the role of podcast conferences going forward!
Just Joe (ringing in the New Year with his BFF, Chili)…
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Kattie
@Podkatt (Twitter, Spotify, and Goodpods) | @ PodtheNorth (Bluesky)
