Mignon Fogarty: 0:12

I'm Mignon Fogarty and later I will be talking about 18 years in podcasting.

James Cridland: 0:17

So Mignon, Grammar Girl is celebrating its 18th anniversary this week. Firstly, many congratulations. And what is gram a girl for people who don't know.

Mignon Fogarty: 0:27

Thank you. Yeah, It's a show with a. Well, it started as a quick tip about writing a quick and dirty tip to help you write better. Today, it's about language and everything that is exciting and fun about language as well as the quick tips.

James Cridland: 0:41

And I notice I was listening to a recent episode all about accents and singing and why Adele sings in a in an English accent, or rather an American accent when she speaks in a very English accent and all of that.

Mignon Fogarty: 0:55

Wasn't that fascinating?

James Cridland: 0:56

Yeah, which is really, really interesting, which I really enjoyed. And one of the things that I found fascinating and, you know, having been in podcasting for eight years, the first thing that I heard was a, uh, an advertisement for the Gold Coast University, which is just down the road from me here in Australia.

Mignon Fogarty: 1:17

Wow.

James Cridland: 1:17

And I was and I was there thinking, you must have seen an awful lot of change in podcasting in the last 18 years. Um, what's the biggest changes that you've seen?

Mignon Fogarty: 1:30

Yeah, it's funny that you would mention that because I do think dynamic ad insertion is one of the biggest changes that at least has had. The biggest effect on my business and what I do. You know, the meat of what I do, producing the podcast hasn't changed that much really. But yeah, but with dynamic ad insertion, you know, I'm also the founder of the Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast Network. And the nature of our shows, like, like what I do with language and we have parenting and health tips and nutrition tips. It's all evergreen. And so we have a massive archive of episodes that are still live and get a lot of traffic. And so our ability to monetize that backlist, you know, has just made all the difference in in being a going concern, you know, having a business.

James Cridland: 2:22

Yeah. So how has advertising changed for you in the last 18 years? Can you remember who your first advertiser was?

Mignon Fogarty: 2:28

Oh, my gosh. You know, I know in the early days, Audible was there in the beginning, very early on. I don't know if they were the first, but they were with I mean, they probably advertised on the show for ten years at least. They were a huge early supporter. And that I remember very early on we had a couple of movies advertising. Um, oh, I should be able to remember Stomp the Yard. Stomp The Yard was a movie that advertised in Grammar Girl way back in the very early days.

James Cridland: 2:58

Wow. Why don't why don't movies advertise in podcasts anymore? Or maybe they do in the U.S.? I don't know.

Mignon Fogarty: 3:04

I haven't had one in. Yeah, I can. That was. That was probably the last one.

James Cridland: 3:09

Yeah. Wow. And so advertising back then, I'm guessing, was, um, with a with a supply to you as a spot or would you host read or how did advertising work.

Mignon Fogarty: 3:21

Oh, they were all host red. In fact, that was for a long time. I mean, I would say it's only oh, gosh, I lose track of time, but maybe the last six or seven years where we've had prerecorded ads. I mean, in the it feels like not that long ago that I had to record ads every week. And I don't have a single ad to record myself. I don't think this month it's all pre-recorded and dynamically inserted.

James Cridland: 3:47

Mm hmm.

Mignon Fogarty: 3:48

Which actually saves me a huge amount of time.

James Cridland: 3:51

So you say that the way that you make your show hasn't changed that much. You're not using A.I. or any of these new fancy tools.

Mignon Fogarty: 4:01

Well, you know, the tools have gotten better, but, you know, I still research the topic, write a script, record that script, and then we produce it in an audio program. Like the meat

James Cridland: 4:13

Mm

Mignon Fogarty: 4:13

of it hasn't changed, but all the technology around it has. I was thinking about that. You know, it is so much easier to do an interview than it used to be. You know, we have squad cars and riverside and all the very clean feed, all the various tools to record interviews. None of that existed when I started. It was much harder to do an interview. You know, I used to transcribe my interviews by hand

James Cridland: 4:38

hmm.

Mignon Fogarty: 4:39

that took hours, you know, and now that is I we you know, we used a script and it just pops out a transcript and it's not perfect. And, you know, because my show is Grammar Girl, I still have to edit it, but, you know, it saves hours of time.

James Cridland: 4:56

Yeah. And of course, spoken word grammar is very different to written word grammar, isn't it?

Mignon Fogarty: 5:02

It is. I'm always you know, I do scripted shows and I do non-scripted shows. And I I'm always very aware with the scripted shows, even though I'm writing a script, I'm trying to make them sound natural. So, you know, it's a balance. And then, you know, I have guest writers now, you know, the the singing accents that was written by a linguist,

James Cridland: 5:21

Hmm.

Mignon Fogarty: 5:22

Susan Hermann. You know, I hired a couple of years ago as a freelancer. So, you know, I work with linguists who help me cover topics that are sort of outside my area of expertise. And so I always notice when someone else writes for me, I have to go in and change tiny little bits of wording all through the script to make it sound more like something I would say. And sometimes when people start, they feel prickly, like, Why are you making so many edits to my script? You know?

James Cridland: 5:51

Mm

Mignon Fogarty: 5:52

And

James Cridland: 5:52

hmm.

Mignon Fogarty: 5:52

then I explain it. So it sounds like I'm saying.

James Cridland: 5:55

Yes. It sounds like it's really me. It's really me. So what are the big changes I mentioned? I mentioned advertising. But what are the big changes that you've seen over the over the past 18 years and has podcasting. I guess the question, has podcasting changed for the better?

Mignon Fogarty: 6:12

Hmm. I think it has. I mean, I think the fact that it's easier to make a show and it's easier to financially support a show. You know, it's not just advertising, it's listener support. Like through, you know, Patreon and Apple Podcasts subscriptions. And, you know, I do something called subtext where people subscribe and I send them a text message a couple times a week with a fun language tip. You know, there are just so many more ways to support a show, whether you're a big show or a small show. You know, I think that's a huge plus for the industry because it means that more people can produce podcasts. You know, we also have to compete more with other people. Certainly there are many more celebrities in podcasting than when I started and there were a couple back then. There was, you know, Penn Jillette and Kevin Smith were pretty early. But today, you know, is there a celebrity who doesn't have a podcast today? I'm not sure there is. So.

James Cridland: 7:12

I think you're right. And you use you use an awful lot of social media. I notice that you're quite active on Mastodon these days on Diverse, as one has to say. How much how important is social media to getting people to find your podcast and listen to your podcasts?

Mignon Fogarty: 7:32

You know, it's funny because I am incredibly active on social media. I always have been. And that's that's a new that is a new thing in podcasting. It didn't exist when I started. You know, we heard from listeners through email or voicemail or sometimes on forums, but, you know, it's a great, great to be able to interact with listeners on social media. I am not so sure it does much to drive people to listen to your show. When I promote, when I don't promote, I don't notice a huge difference

James Cridland: 8:03

Mm

Mignon Fogarty: 8:03

in the traffic. You know, for the 15th anniversary, I did a massive social media push. I posted every day for a month about the podcast and. And when we did that, I did see an increase. I think it was, I don't know, maybe a 15, 20% increase in traffic during that time,

James Cridland: 8:23

hmm.

Mignon Fogarty: 8:24

but it was completely unsustainable. I mean, one, it nearly killed me. And two, like there was the anniversary excitement. You know, there was something that I was talking about every day. It was my favorite show from this year. My favorite show from that year. This highlighted writer, this highlighted editor.

James Cridland: 8:42

Mm

Mignon Fogarty: 8:43

But

James Cridland: 8:43

hmm.

Mignon Fogarty: 8:43

you run out of things that are truly exciting

James Cridland: 8:46

Mm hmm.

Mignon Fogarty: 8:46

to your your listeners. And, you know, we've over the years, we've played around, we've posted audio grams and video clips and, you know, I, I, I enjoy doing it and I enjoy interacting with the fans, but I am hard pressed to say it moves the needle.

James Cridland: 9:02

Yeah. And you mentioned video of of course, you know, video. I was going to say it's one of the things that's changed. I'm not sure it is. I mean, I was watching Leo Laporte maybe not 18 years ago, but certainly quite some quite some time ago doing that show in video in Apple Podcasts. And Apple Podcasts still supports video, but are you doing much more video now than you used to?

Mignon Fogarty: 9:26

Yeah. Again? Yeah. I messed around with video in the very early days too, so it's not brand new. But again, it is a lot easier to do than it used to be. You know, now we have iPhones and everyone knows how to do video because of Tik Tok and reels and YouTube. And it's just easier. And it is you know, it's interesting. It's I feel like it's expected now to have a video component to your podcast first. And that's a lot of extra work. It's also fun. You know, I love technology, so it's been really fun learning how to do video and buying the equipment and setting up my studio and, you know, all the fun tech stuff. But yeah, I don't know if it I don't know if that drives people to the audio podcast either, which is what I consider my I don't know, it's my home base. It's it's the primary, the primary outlet.

James Cridland: 10:19

Do you think the video kind of gets in the way of making a podcast, or is it just sort of something that we have to do these days?

Mignon Fogarty: 10:27

Hmm. I don't think it gets in the way. And I and I do think it's nice for when you're interviewing someone to be able to see their face and, you know, get the reaction and maybe know when you can jump in more safely or something like that. But I don't think it takes away from it. I think, you know, I think the the biggest negative would probably be that people feel intimidated by it. So maybe they don't start podcasting because they think they have to do video. And you don't have. Do you know?

James Cridland: 10:58

Yeah, well, you know, I keep on resisting it. I mean, you know, we spoke on video for a couple of minutes, and then. And then we, uh. And then we changed rapidly to the to the video less, uh, clean feeds because, you know, that that just sort of works better. And I do.

Mignon Fogarty: 11:18

Actually fine. If you had told me, I wouldn't have put on makeup.

James Cridland: 11:22

Oh, well, there you go. I could have saved you a little bit of time. But, yeah, I do wonder how many new podcasters are there, You know, buying cameras and buying lighting and, you know, dressing up their their offices and everything else or their or that they're recording spaces for the video side. Given how little video for most podcasts, how you know, how little video actually changes the the amount of people who consume it.

Mignon Fogarty: 11:53

Yeah, it really doesn't. I mean, I feel really pressured to do it, but I can't tell you why

James Cridland: 11:57

Yeah.

Mignon Fogarty: 11:58

it doesn't. I don't feel like it changes anything. And if you're out there listening and you're worried about it to start, it's true. You absolutely don't have to do it.

James Cridland: 12:06

Yeah. So looking forward, how do you think that the industry is going to change in the next 18 years? And what do you hope that the industry will change to?

Mignon Fogarty: 12:16

Oh, my gosh. You know, I. I really wonder what role I was going to play. It's I think that's the biggest new technology on the horizon. You know, I remember when the Internet was new and that that changed everything. And I remember when podcasting is new. And for the for me, that changed everything. I feel like I is at least at that level of a new technology. And it's going to be really hard to predict how it's going to change things. You know, I'm watching the voice. Voice I really close. You know, I haven't used it on my show, but I play with it because I think it's important to understand what it can and can't do. And, you know, I, I read about it, listen to things all the time. And I think that it probably will play a role. I mean, eight years, I think for sure it's going to play a role. I just can't really predict what it's going to be.

James Cridland: 13:12

I mean, I did. I did a little bit of experimenting with the one day craft platform the other week, changing the Pod News Daily podcast, which I do into. I think there was a Japanese version one day and a Greek version the next day and so on and so forth.

Mignon Fogarty: 13:29

I listen to the.

James Cridland: 13:30

Yeah. I mean, you know, translation is a really interesting use case for that sort of for that sort of tool. And the Japanese person who I was just who I happened to meet on the very day that I was doing the Japanese version, he was saying actually it wasn't bad. You know, the audio quality wasn't bad. So I wonder how much of that we're going to see in the next 18 years.

Mignon Fogarty: 13:52

It makes a lot of sense, especially if it gets better. You know, I had thought I'm very interested. I have a lot of international listeners who are learning English, and I'm very interested in creating the show in other languages. You know, it's interesting for mine, it kind of doesn't work right now, at least, because you have to keep so many of the words in English. You know, if you're you're instructing people who speak

James Cridland: 14:15

Yeah.

Mignon Fogarty: 14:15

Spanish on how to speak English, it has to be a mix.

James Cridland: 14:18

Mm hmm.

Mignon Fogarty: 14:19

I think it works better if it is.

James Cridland: 14:21

Difficult. Yeah, that would be a use case that nobody would have thought about. Yeah.

Mignon Fogarty: 14:27

But. But you know, I had. Thought about it. We have thought about translating the show, and I just hate to put some. I'm a perfectionist, so I hate to put things out that are 95% fine. Like I won't just let the transcript stand, for example, you know. And so and I had thought about what we could do it and then, then if we have an audience, then I could hire a Spanish speaker to like to do it right. You know, but.

James Cridland: 14:55

It's that catch 22, isn't it, of. Getting an audience first so that you can actually pay for the thing. Yeah, yeah,

Mignon Fogarty: 15:01

Yeah, but if it's not good, you're not going to get the audience.

James Cridland: 15:03

yeah,

Mignon Fogarty: 15:03

So

James Cridland: 15:04

indeed.

Mignon Fogarty: 15:04

I don't know.

James Cridland: 15:05

Indeed. And the Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast Network. Tell me more about that. How long is that? Bingo.

Mignon Fogarty: 15:13

Oh, that's been going 18 years too. I started

James Cridland: 15:15

Oh,

Mignon Fogarty: 15:16

it

James Cridland: 15:16

right.

Mignon Fogarty: 15:16

almost at the same time as Grammar Girl.

James Cridland: 15:17

Mm

Mignon Fogarty: 15:18

When Grammar Girl took off, You know, I launched Grammar Girl and it was, you know, number one at iTunes within like six weeks. It was nuts. And, and so and I had spent time in Silicon Valley at startups. And so I knew when you had an audience that big, you had a business.

James Cridland: 15:36

hmm.

Mignon Fogarty: 15:36

I didn't know. I didn't know what that business was at that time because there wasn't really advertising back then yet, but. So but I launched a network and hired some of my friends to do shows in the network. We had six or seven shows before I partnered with Macmillan, and they really took over, especially in 2009. They fully took over and they managed the whole network now and have grown into what it is today.

James Cridland: 16:02

So how did they how did the Macmillan Partnership start then?

Mignon Fogarty: 16:09

Yeah. They approached me about a book.

James Cridland: 16:11

Now you go.

Mignon Fogarty: 16:12

Yeah. Yeah. Grammar Girl is the Web Pick of the day in the Wall Street Journal. And multiple publishers approached me about book deals. And I was at the time the the network had grown beyond really what I could handle. And I was looking for a partner. So I pitched them back and said, Well, how about we form a partnership to grow this network? And and they loved the idea.

James Cridland: 16:35

Makes her makes such a load of sense. A load of sense. How do you find in terms of we're always told that podcast discovery is one of the most difficult things for podcasters and people finding new shows and people finding adjacent shows. Is there anything that you've seen recently that you know that you can actually say, Oh, this is a different way for podcast discovery, This is a different way for people to find out about podcasts that they might be interested in, or is this always going to be, you know, something which is always a long, long way away?

Mignon Fogarty: 17:13

I think it's always something that's a long, long ways away. I mean, it's the problem with all kinds of content. I mean, with with books, you know, there are, you know, I don't know, 200,000 books a year published or something. Ridiculous like that. Like who are anybody who is creating a product that requires people's time and attention to consume? You know, we're competing with books and video games and TV, and it's I think it's always a struggle. And we're all, you know, vying for the same ears or eyeballs or, you know, attention.

James Cridland: 17:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's interesting seeing, for example, Amazon a couple of weeks ago launched something that they called topics. So what they're basically doing is they're pulling individual topics that one podcaster is talking about and linking to other podcasts, talking about those particular topics. I'm wondering if there is a you know, if there is a technological answer to this or whether it's a little bit less, you know, techie, I don't know.

Mignon Fogarty: 18:20

Yeah. I mean, I don't typically try a podcast because I've seen it somewhere on some platform. You know, I try a podcast because a friend told me about it or someone clever that I follow on. Social media suddenly has a podcast and then I listen. Not necessarily because I am. It's the most it's the topic I am most interested in of everything I could be interested in. But because the host is fun and engaging and someone that I, I feel like I'm, you know, having a conversation with and, and enjoying it. So I listen to podcasts when I go to sleep at night. And more than once I have had dreams that I'm in the podcast talking to the people like it's playing while I fall asleep.

James Cridland: 19:09

Yes. My, my, my, my. It was exactly the same. And and so I'm they're just drifting off to to sleep. And the BBC is telling her pillow very, very softly that that that this podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK as a worrying thing. Well so many congratulations. 18 years ago today, the 30th of August. So if someone wants to learn more about you and Grammar Girl and the Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast Network, where would they go?

Mignon Fogarty: 19:45

Yeah, I would say probably just go to Google and search Grammar Girl and you will get to all the things you would want to know. Or you can find me on social media. I am. I am on, as you said, mastered on the grammar girl circuit U.S. I'm on threads as be grammar girl I'm on blue sky is grammar girl. I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn as a grammar girl. So I'm very findable.

James Cridland: 20:08

You've got all the badges for all of the social networks.

Mignon Fogarty: 20:12

I do own YouTube. I forgot YouTube.

James Cridland: 20:16

Is probably important as well. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Mignon Fogarty: 20:20

Thank you, James.