Posts by James Newcomb

I think in the last 60 days or so I’ve seen at least 3-4 posts on LinkedIn from people who’ve just been laid off their jobs. Now I’m not a huge fan of social media, and don’t rely on it to any degree to build nor sustain my business. When it comes to client work,…

“Start a podcast,” they said. “It will be fun!” they said. “You’ll make lots of money!” they said. Yes, there is lots of money to be made in the podcasting craft – and it’s also a terrible reason to get into the craft. Because podcasting ain’t a bed of roses. It’s hard work. You feel…

Sharing the information I’m about to share runs the risk of some of my podcast editing clients becoming somewhat disillusioned with the service I provide, but I believe there is a valuable lesson in it, so here goes. Editing a podcast is rather simple. You “give the audio a haircut” as I like to say:…

Whenever I tell someone in casual conversation I produce podcasts for a living, a lot of questions invariably arise. And for good reason because it’s still kind of an unknown entity in our culture. I’ve also met many people who say they’re interested in starting a podcast and want to pick my brain about it. The enthusiasm is…

In the last 30 days I’ve had a crash course in sales, namely closing the deal. Spoiler alert: it ended in disappointment, sorrow and a never-ending list of questions of what could have been. A former podcast production (aka PodProd) client reached out to me around October of last year saying she wanted to get…

I had an interesting conversation with the manager of the apartment Sana and I moved into last month (January 2023). This is a place I’ve lived before, so at the time it seemed like a good idea to move into a place where I have a bit of a history after being itinerant for 3+…

I came across an interesting article shared by Steve Baker, who I have featured on the Gone Newclearpodcast. The emphasis of the article was on how artificial intelligence is being utilized by pastors, rabbis, etc. to write sermons for them. You can read the article here, it’s an interesting read. The consensus among men and…

One of my commanders in the Army band once told a story about a fellow he was serving with playing a solo in a concert. I guess this person had been around the block a few times, judging by how he described this scene. Apparently this guy played the solo well enough, but made a…

**This email was originally written and sent in the summer of 2021, while I was residing in Vietnam with my wife Sana. I liked it so much I wanted to share it again. One of the unforeseen benefits of living in Vietnam is the TV coverage of the major tennis events. Tennis is one of…