I received this email today:

Hey Dude,

The names james i have had a few choice words with you on twitter @Jimbotheledge :)

I need your help ... hehe

Me and My good buddy have just uploaded our first podcast onto the site

http://beyondthepages.podbean.com/

I was hoping for two things actually a cheap plug and twitter or better yet on one of your many podcasts :)

and if you have any advice on how we should get our podcast out there and how we can improve :)

Sorry for all the questions...

Cheers dude ... Peace...

I wanted to share my response here, first to see if you guys thought I was being a jerk and second because I thought it would make a good blog post. Here it is:

I will definitely listen to your podcast when I get the chance but I can't plug it and I hope you understand. It's nothing against you, I'm sure your podcast is great, but I get many requests to plug people's podcasts and if I plugged yours I would have to plug everyone else's and then all I would be doing was plugging podcasts. I hope you understand. As far as tips go, I would get a good logo and put yourself in as specific of a category as possible so you can rise to the top of the charts in that specific category. You should be on all the social media sites - twitter, facebook, tumblr. Don't be a total whore but it's ok to be a little slutty (lol). Tweet about your show once a day or so, try and get some friends to RT it. Make sure you get listed in every podcast directory possible. Make sure you're in the iTunes music store. If you haven't already, submit your feed ASAP and make sure it's configured properly. Podbean makes this VERY easy. Again, make sure your category is as specific as possible. It's much easier to get into the top 100 that way. The biggest thing I can tell you though is to not worry about the numbers. If you're doing this for the numbers, you're doing it for the wrong reason. The reason why I do podcasts is because they are fun to do. If I was a wealthy billionaire living in my BrendoMansion, I would still be doing Pop Sickles and a variety of other podcasts. Quality is king, so work on making your podcast the best possible podcast you can make it. Research stories, write down notes (I use Evernote religiously. Highly recommended), try out new things, come up with original ideas. You can do it!

Yes, I realize that by publishing these emails I have now plugged his podcast. That being said, I am sorry if you have sent me a link to your podcast and I did not plug it. I get sent a lot of links. Maybe it's because James was the first person to ask for some advice along with the plug. Yeah, that's it.