Takeaways
- Abbey explains why right after Labor Day, heading into Q4, is the time to start building a holiday best-of episode, not December when everyone is scrambling.
- She walks through her process for using Riverside's magic clips and magic moments feature to pull the strongest 5 to 10 minute moments from a season of episodes and mash them into one best-of show.
- She shares the two-week structure she uses for clients: one week of best crew or solo moments, one week of best interview moments, so hosts get two full weeks off at the end of the year.
Summary of the Episode
Recording from her parents' lake place on what might be the last pontoon episode of the summer, Abbey Graves uses the beautiful weather as an odd but perfect excuse to talk about something totally out of season: holiday best-of episodes. With Q4 underway, she makes the case that now, not December, is the time to start pulling together the standout moments from your year so you have a polished best-of episode ready to go when the holidays actually arrive.
Abbey breaks down her go-to process using Riverside, the online recording platform she recommends for video interviews. Once an episode is fully edited, she uploads it and lets Riverside's co-creator function generate magic clips and magic moments, AI-selected highlights between 5 and 10 minutes long pulled straight from the transcript. She shares her rule of thumb of at least five clips and no more than ten, then mashes one strong moment from each episode into a single best-of show, complete with a short new intro recapping the year.
She also explains why this is not just a lazy rerun. Recycled clips remind listeners what a show accomplished that year, drive traffic back to episodes people missed the first time, and give hosts a built-in library of unused social content to promote the best-of episode with. For clients on a biweekly interview and solo schedule, Abbey builds two full weeks of best-of content at year's end, best crew moments one week and best interviews the next, so they get a genuine two-week break.
She closes with a simple, low-lift action step: start a "Best of 2026" folder right now, and every time a moment stands out while editing, drop it in. By the time December rolls around, the best-of episode is already halfway built.
Try Out Riverside Today
Bet on Your Podcast Course: https://www.skool.com/abbey-the-podcast-lady-5733/classroom
Work with Abbey: https://abbeygravesproductions.com/podcast-production/
Podcast Planning Journal: https://amzn.to/4gd1Vxs
Build a podcast website with PodPage https://www.podpage.com/?via=abbey
Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.
