How To Pause Your Podcast Without Losing Listeners

Hitting the point where your podcast feels like a burden instead of fun can sneak up on even the most consistent creators. In this episode, we'll share tips for taking a real break without losing listener trust to avoid drifting into podfade.

If you have questions about taking a break from your podcast, reach out to us on the Podcaster Success team by emailing support@buzzsprout.com

Keep podcasting!

Transcript

Welcome to Podcasting Q&A

Cara Pacetti 0:00

Welcome to Podcasting Q&A, brought to you by the people at BuzzSprout. I'm your host, Cara Pacetti, and I'm bringing you the best tips and strategies to keep you podcasting with confidence. Last week we focused on ways to keep podcasting during a busy season of life. And that got me thinking: while that's super helpful for someone who's excited and eager to continue pouring into their podcast, it's not super helpful for someone who has been at this for a long time and is just ready to take a break. Doubling the work ahead of time just to afford a break doesn't sound productive. It actually sounds exhausting. And I don't want your podcast to feel exhausting. I want to help. It's common for us as creators to feel an increased pressure to continuously offer new content. The good news is that there are effective and creative ways to take the break you need. And I believe your listeners will be a lot more understanding than you think.

Break your podcast up into seasons

Cara Pacetti 1:01

If you've been podcasting for a long time and you're finding that producing your podcast year-round tends to push you towards pod fade, try breaking up your podcast into seasons. First, you'll need to determine how long you want each season to be. So this could be based on the number of episodes you want to publish or a time frame based on weeks or months that you want to devote to your podcast before taking a break. You want to make sure you are planning ahead and being intentional about breaking up your podcast. So you can make a schedule that'll allow you to record and produce new content for 20 weeks and then go ahead and take six weeks off. Once your six weeks are completed, your listeners will know that when you return, they can expect brand new episodes over the course of the next 20 weeks. During the six weeks that you're not producing new content, you can spend that time disconnecting and maybe that disconnect will breed some inspiration for when you return. When you produce your podcast in a way that is super sustainable, you are not the only one that benefits here. So do your listeners. The quality of your content you're able to put out for your listeners will not dwindle because you're knocking on the door of PodFade.

Decide on a return date and commit to it

Cara Pacetti 2:10

So if you've made the decision that it's time for a break and you're ready to go ahead and make that leap, I want you to decide ahead of time when your return date will be. You know how it goes. We stop doing something consistently for whatever reason. And when it comes time to jump back in, it becomes really easy to push it off. Kind of like that familiar snooze button on your alarm clock. It keeps ringing, you know you need to get after it, but it's just easy to delay and procrastinate jumping back in. So I want you to really think about how much time would be beneficial and then commit to that return date. Decide before you ever stop production when you're coming back and then stick to it. Another benefit of deciding the date ahead of time before actually going on break is that you can plan while you're still in work mode. So if you wait until you are disconnected and you're taking a break from your podcast, you could really overthink your return. Choosing a date and even coming up with a tentative plan of action for when you return can really help when motivation just isn't

Don't ghost your listeners, let them know about the break

Cara Pacetti 3:15

there. So once you've decided on a date, don't just ghost your listeners. Don't just disappear. Let them know what your plan is and when you'll be gone. And you can even share why you're doing it. When you publicly communicate your return date with your listeners, you're now being held accountable. You could also use some dynamic content to add a pre or post role to your existing episodes. And you can let your listeners know that you're on a break and that the content that they're hearing might be a little different than what they would normally expect, but that you have handpicked this for them while you take some time away. Then when you return, you can easily remove that content from your episodes. Since this might be somewhat of an urgent break and you don't have the time to pre-record all of those episodes that you want to release during your time away, this is a perfect opportunity to highlight some other podcasts in your niche. I'm taking this idea from Jordan's playbook, but I remember her mentioning that when she needs to pause her podcasts, she will actually vet some podcasts in her niche through social media and her podcast communities and ask if they wouldn't mind featuring their episodes on her show while she's taking a break. You can even spin this as a great promotional opportunity for these podcasters. Honestly, what podcaster would say no to that? When another podcaster sends you their audio file, you will want to make sure that you are adding a short introduction to the episode so your listeners are not caught off guard by hearing a new voice on their favorite podcast. You can let them know why you've handpicked this episode for your audience, why it's special to you, And then you can even add their podcast information into the descriptions for your listeners. I know that friends of mine have had great experiences with this and they've even discovered new podcasts they love when a podcaster switches episodes in their time away. This is also a great opportunity to make a connection in your niche and a possible new friend. Who knows? Maybe next time they're ready to take a break, they will ask you for one of your episodes and hopefully get you some brand new followers as well. I do want to share a pro tip for anybody who is hosted on BuzzSprout. If you know you're going on a break and you want to pause your podcast, but you still want the episodes to be live and available for your listeners, go ahead and move your podcast to our archive plan. The archive plan doesn't give you a monthly upload allowance, but it will allow you to pay for hosting and keep those episodes live and available for your listeners. If you have a specific question about pausing your podcast, share it with us by clicking the send us fan mail link in the show notes. I'd love to feature your question on our next Podcasting Q&A episode. You can also reach out to us on the Podcaster Success Team anytime by emailing support at buzzsprout.com. I hope these tips are helpful and I hope you take the time away so that you can get re-inspired and re energized to keep podcasting. Be sure to join us every Monday to kickstart your week. Thank you so much for listening. And of course, keep podcasting.