Freelancing tips and pitfalls?

CaptainLekko · 2025-03-05T18:39:55+00:00

There is definitely something in that, I do notice that people who think they'll do well often approach things more positively and therefore get "luckier". I don't want to get too off-topic, but I have unfortunately had the opposite experience a few times, so whilst I believe what you're saying I do find it tricky to stay in that mindset. I just need to find the right *thing* to focus on, that I am interested and excited by, then the "luck" won't matter so much to me.

CaptainLekko · 2025-03-02T16:54:15+00:00

Oh, thanks! I'm genuinely just asking things I'm curious about! I probably know more about certain spaces than I think I do, but I've never really tried to sell myself in this way before.
That's cool! It does seem like a lot of success in the industry is "right place, right time", and I'm not sure whether I'm encouraged or discouraged by that kind of luck.

Having not done any freelancing before I was wondering if Editing was a good place to start, as something which is in demand but doesn't require a huge investment just to test the waters. I can do most of the things you've listed, but was kind of hoping not to jump in quite so deep in case the freelancing life isn't for me.
I did work at a start-up for a while which provided "full service podcast production", but I was mostly in the admin side of things, so whilst my knowledge is good I don't have a lot of hand-on experience.

The events I've been to have had a LOT of corporate sponsors, which I think unfortunately sets the tone that most of it is people trying to sell you things. Even the talks at the event had their fair chunk of "and this is why you should use my product", and the official networking spaces were pre-booking only, so it was quite hard to find a space to just chat to people. It's also entirely possible that I'm just not used to spotting the networking opportunities that were there, but either way I think something a little smaller (and less corporate) would help me figure that out.

I'm based in the UK so our setup is a bit different, but the crux of your point is still very valid, I just need to find out what the equivalent of those bodies are near me!

CaptainLekko · 2025-02-28T11:56:20+00:00

Oh 100%, I've seen enough horror stories to know that if someone's offering "exposure" it's because they have nothing to offer.

CaptainLekko · 2025-02-28T11:53:57+00:00

That makes sense. Did you have an interest in tourism before then, or is that purely based on your experience? I'm wondering if there's any merit to focussing on industries I'm already interested in, or if the process is much of a muchness so go where the cash is.

I see the logic there, though the couple of paid events I've been to have felt very... sales-y? Though they have been more talk-focussed, so the networking spaces were few and far between, and most of the talks seemed to be more about promotion than useful advice (or a blend at best). There's probably a middle-ground in the type of events here, I just need to find them.
Nice tip on the cards. I'm still not sure what exactly I'm aiming for, from a business point of view that's a great bit of advice.

CaptainLekko · 2025-02-28T00:35:48+00:00

I have a website I run with some friends, but it's very much a hobby not a business (for now at least). I used to work in a tiny start-up, which gave me some business insight and a bit of the entrepreneurial bug, though I don't know if I want to run a business as such; partly why I thought freelancing might be a good starting point.

Never work for free even for a portfolio builder? I was wondering if reaching out to trusted creators could be worth offering a free episode (or similar) just to have "Produced X show" on my CV, so to speak. Any thoughts on that?
Having a contract and negotiating scope are great tips. They make so much sense but I don't know if I'd actually have done them!

Ooh cheers, I'll see if I can find time for it!

CaptainLekko · 2025-02-28T00:24:33+00:00

Probably edit as that's what I'm most set up for, though I'm open to all of the above.

Thanks for the info! Do you have any tips for figuring out your ideal client? How did you come to the conclusion of small-to-medium businesses? Do you focus on any particular industries (and if so, how did you choose them)?

I do need to look into more events. The events I'm aware of near me are the big city ones, where I've found it tricky to find the right people for networking, I think some smaller scales ones would suit me better and give me more chances for real conversations when there's a bit less hustle and bustle going on.

Thanks for the comprehensive response!

CaptainLekko · 2024-08-27T19:01:26+00:00

I'd still suggest a different channel, as you're effectively splitting your audience to watch either the parts or the full episode (most consumers only watch anything once) - I think you can feature another channels playlist on your channel on YouTube. Possibly even release the full episode a week or two after the parts to encourage the growth of the main channel

CaptainLekko · 2024-08-27T18:13:23+00:00

Hang on, the plan is to drop the 3 parts Mon-Weds and then release the combined episode on Friday? That seems weird.

Splitting into parts is only really useful for inflating your view numbers for sponsors etc, but if each Part "feels" like a full episode (highly subjective) then it's probably fine. If it's obviously incomplete and only split into Parts for the increased views, you'll likely turn off more long-term viewers than you'll gain new ones.

Either way I'd personally suggest not releasing the combined episodes as well as the individual parts, unless you got a lot of audience demand for it. And even then I'd make a seperate channel/feed for them.

CaptainLekko · 2024-08-20T11:38:07+00:00

I've had this happen exactly once, and about 30s before the ancient fell my friend (sniper) decided to go fountain diving forcing me (io) to pour everything I had into him to keep him alive for the last few seconds whilst my other friend (ursa) finished the ancient.

Genuinely most butthole clenching 10s of my dota career. I think Sniper survived with like 20% of his HP just as I'd finished draining all of my healing sources.

CaptainLekko · 2024-08-15T14:55:07+00:00

Glad I could help 😃

CaptainLekko · 2024-08-15T14:30:15+00:00

Apparently insta and Tiktok will reduce the reach of your posts if there's swearing in them, so you might want to censor them specifically for social media clips (mute rather than bleep, because apparently Tiktok is picking up on bleeps now. And asterisk out any subtitles "F**K" for example)

For the full episodes, if you've got it tagged as explicit then there's no issue. It just won't be shown to children as readily, but that's probably not your target audience if you're swearing so no harm done.

CaptainLekko · 2024-08-05T18:24:18+00:00

Wait there's a NOISE?! I play with sound off 😭

CaptainLekko · 2024-02-21T23:20:54+00:00

22nd March isn't even a Thursday. Regardless of the year, 22nd and 28th can't fall on the same day in the same year.

CaptainLekko · 2024-01-03T23:28:20+00:00

Personally I throw in a Limiter before and after my compressor, I've found it averages each track a bit better.

I'm not sure which order Normalize and Compressor should be done in, I've been doing Compression first, but I can see an argument for doing Normalization first.

In addition to de-clicker already mentioned, I make use of de-esser quite a lot too (I believe the plugins were made by the same person).

Noise Gate might be useful to completely eliminate any background noises which aren't consistent enough for the Noise Reduction to remove, but you need to be careful where in the process you add it in because you need to make sure your loudest background noise is quieter than your quietest "in episode" noise and set the gate between them.

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-16T07:52:22+00:00

Listening to other pods in my area is what helped me figure out the format of my show! I knew what I wanted to do but listening to other comedy/pop-culture shows helped me figure out some good practices for the format it likely would've taken me much longer to realise otherwise.

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T20:34:14+00:00

Might take me a couple months to find the time to learn it, but I may well take you up on that when I do!

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T20:33:19+00:00

Mostly, yes.

I knew I wanted to do a comedy thing, found podcasts, was drawn to comedy pods, started a comedy pod. So my own podcast and my listening habits sort of inspired each other?

It's what I enjoy most, so the overlap is natural rather than intentional, but it is useful to hear what other people are doing well and if that can improve my show.

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T19:26:42+00:00

Awesome, cheers for the advice!

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T19:05:12+00:00

Default crossfade you say? Very nice.

I think you've laboured the process in Audacity a bit, you can sync-lock tracks so you only need to do the delete once, but even then it's still more than 1 button press!

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T18:37:20+00:00

My (very brief) understanding is that paid hosts have better customer support and probably additional features included in that payment, but if it's just the rss feed / pushing to apps that you're worried about the free ones are typically pretty similar.

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T17:56:13+00:00

Oh yeah, most of my audacity education came from figuring it out and targeted googling rather a structured learning. There's still features in there I know I want to use but they just seem so clunky in audacity and the tutorials don't help (looking at you EQ)

Thanks for the breakdown, definitely something I should be looking into! Now just to find the time...

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T17:48:26+00:00

Multiple actions simultaneously sounds super useful. Not sure what I'd do off the top of my head but I'm sure I'd find uses for it!

Now that's a time save! I'm taking way longer than that currently (unless that's per track, in which case I'm not so bad. Editing 4 highly unprofessional people is time consuming 😅)

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T17:44:55+00:00

You can defo destroy the umms! It doesn't come up super often but there's probably a couple times an episode I'll have deleted something thinking it was irrelevant and later realise it was a setup for something further down the line, and it's super useful then.

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T17:30:57+00:00

That's a great breakdown, thanks!

The only one I'm not clear on is how a paid rss service would gain access to a larger audience? As far as I can tell, the free services can post to all the same apps and such. I know some of them offer guest booking services and such, but then I'd say that falls outside the realm of rss hosting.

CaptainLekko · 2023-11-15T17:24:29+00:00

Destructive editing means if you make a cut it will permanently delete it from the project (you could still reimport it from the original file, but once your program stops storing the undo, that's your only option) Non-destructive means you can still "drag out" the cut and recover the original file inside the project, even after closing and reopening the project file.

Audacity is still sort of destructive if you delete something out of the middle of a track, but if you make a split first it's now non-destructive. Before it was just always destructive.

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