How To Start A Podcast in 4 Days — Day 4
Here we are folks! The 4th and final day (again all this can really be done in 1 day but whatever) and you are ready to ACTUALLY start a podcast.
You’ve got your USB mic, you’ve got your logo. All that is left is 3 things:
1) Recording
2) Hosting
3) Submitting to iTunes
Recording
You’ve got a Mac right? Please tell me you’ve got a Mac. It makes everything SO MUCH EASIER. but ok, if you don’t, don’t let that hold you back. Use your piece of garbage PC and download Audacity as I’ve said previously.
Plug in your USB mic. Open a new recording in either GarageBand or Audacity. Check to make sure your mic is picking up your voice. You can do this in GarageBand in settings very easily. It’s probably the same in Audacity.
The next step is wild: Talk. Talk into your microphone. Talk until your heart’s content. When you are done, press stop!
You did it! You recorded a podcast! Export that bad boy and let’s talk hosting (I recommend exporting in MP3 format so the file is a manageable size, WAV is great but files are huge)
Hosting
Here is what a lot of people don’t get about podcasts:
You don’t “put you podcast on iTunes”
iTunes is a directory. It points everyone with an iPhone in the right direction to you show. You need a place to put your show so that iTunes can point to it.
Hosts cost money. Not a lot, but some money. Like, $20 a month. If you’ve got this far and you don’t want to spend $20/mo on hosting,,, that sucks. Maybe I should have put that in Day 1. (I might go back and edited that actually)
I recommend Libsyn.com as a host. It’s where I got KFC Radio started. There are a lot of options nowadays, but I recommend Libsyn. Things to look for in a host:
-affordability. Again, $20/mo should get you enough to post once a week. Some people charge per mB of data, some charge by the minute. An hour long episode should be less the 100 mB. So for $20 you should either get 400 mB or 4 hours per month. Soundcloud is free, but only for a small amount of time. Then you have to pay.
-RSS feed. Every host should provide an RSS feed. If they don’t, they literally are not performing the duty of the host. Or they are submitting you feed directly to iTunes, which is nice, but gives you less control. When researching google “(host name) RSS feed) if it looks like it’s easy, then proceed. If it looks hard, go with Libsyn.
- support. Does you host have an FAQ? Does it have a help desk to torubleshoot problems? Or are you going to rely on DMing @BrendanClancy on twitter and expect me to fix everything? Libsyn has great support. Use them. I am no getting paid by Libsyn. But I should be.
- Upload your file to your host. Name it, write a description for it, post it. Upload your logo to your host. Find your RSS feed, it’s in there, it shouldn’t be hard to find.
Submitting to iTunes
Google “podcat connect” and click the first Apple link, should be the 1st result overall. Login with the same ID/password you use for iTUnes and the App Store (get a Mac)
From here it’s cut-n-paste. You copy your RSS feed from your host and submit it to iTunes. It will ask you to “validate” it first. Click the validate button. If something is wrong it will give you an error. Google that error and most likely someone has already had, and solved, that problem. This is where your host’s help desk will be invaluable.
You have a podcast
And it only took you 4 days! You could do this all in 1 Minute but same difference. Send me a link, tell me you used my Medium tutorial and I will give it a listen.
