Not so long ago, it was possible to talk about the future of podcasting in relevant terms for every podcaster. But podcasting has evolved beyond those simpler times. So what do we do in these more complex times?

I'm not gonna beat around the bush. What you are listening to or reading right now is the very last episode of Podcast Pontifications that I will make. This is it.

I wrote out this long and detailed outline of a script that dug deep into why I'm making this decision and what I'm doing next... but I threw it out because it was a little—OK, a lot—self-serving. Brevity is better. Episodes should be as short as you can possibly make them, right? That's something you've heard me say before. So I might as well eat my own dog food.

I'm choosing to shut down production of future episodes of Podcast Pontifications for a lot of reasons, but they all trace back to a single reality: Podcasting has outgrown my ability to keep up with all the changes.

That's something that's likely not going to slow down anytime soon. So I'm doing the only logical thing to do when an industry gets this fractured, and you're just one person. I'm niching down. You know. That course of action I've suggested you do with your own podcast for years now?

The niche I'm picking is fiction podcasting. No, not as a maker of fiction podcasts, which also precludes me from being a pundit. I'm simply not qualified to tell fiction podcasters what they should be thinking about.

No, my role in fiction podcasting starts with curation and enabling. A couple of weekends ago, I sent out a special edition of this newsletter. If you skipped that, here's what you missed:

I'm helping people who love fiction audio—audiobooks, audio drama, radio theater, etc.—to discover great fiction podcasts. Not when those productions start, but when they have reached the (or at least a) conclusion, providing an excellent listening experience.

I'm doing this with a newsletter I call The End, which you can—and I hope you will—sign up for free!

If you like watching fiction TV or movies and you haven't yet dipped your toes into the amazing world of fiction podcasting, you are missing out on some amazing stories. Stories that just might let you cancel one or more of those expensive streaming video services!

So, yes, this is the end of Podcast Pontifications. I've genuinely enjoyed meeting so many amazing people and podcasters, and I'm humbled to know that I've played a small part in helping those podcasters make their own podcasts, and therefore all of podcasting, better.

And I don't see that behavior stopping anytime soon. So please reach out to me if you ever need any sort of help whatsoever. My general email account thisisevo@gmail.com will probably reach me forever. The website for this show will stay up for a little while longer, but not forever. I plan on keeping all of the mirrored posts up on Medium for as long as Medium exists. The audio episodes will stay up as long as Captivate doesn't kick me off. So if you feel like archiving close to 600 episodes of Podcast Pontifications for posterity, now is your time.

Again, thank you. Please subscribe to The End, and I'll see you around

Cheers!

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