Bernie, I want to start a podcast got any tips?
I get asked every week about how to start a podcast, I’m not about to start a podcast production business but here is my take.
At the end of this post is a list of websites and people I trust to teach you about podcasting, I know them, I love them and have learnt from them.
You can also join our monthly Podcast Meet Up in London here
One thing to note is that I’ve never ever got my head around editing or that end of the tech.
I’ve worked on client projects with full editing team and dynamic everything, but my skill is in the interview and getting to air fast.
In fact, the learning curve on editing was so steep for me that I gave up and threw all my energy in learning how to interview and avoid any editing.
I watched both Frost Nixon, directed by Ron Howard and Alex Blumberg’s Power Your Podcast with Storytelling about 100 times.
Is a podcast like a blog?
There is a lot of crossover between making a podcast and making a blog, of course, one is written and one needs a whole load of audio stuff but the essence is the same.
You are creating or capturing information or an interview and sharing it with the world.
At the time of writing, it has never been easier to record something and stick it online, even ten years ago it was easier to be an astronaut that it was to make a podcast.
These days I am a heavy user of both Otter and Zoom which allows me to record every online conversation I have and turn it into text, scroll down to read more about these apps.
How can I start recording a podcast today?
So before you run off an invest 1000's of £’s, $’s or whatever you buy you stuff in slow down and pick up your phone.
Look for an app called Auphonic, download it and create your free account.
This app will record your interview on your phone, then you can upload the audio where it will do some magic engineering on the audio to balance it out, it won’t edit it though.
From here you can send it to your Dropbox, Google Drive or publish to Spreaker and Youtube.
You have to connect these up in Auphonic but that is easy.
But we are not concerned with the other levels of sophistication in Auphonic, we are only looking to record something and post it. Read on for more details and action.
How do you plan your first podcast?
Lock yourself in a room and interview ANYONE or even just read something back to yourself to get used to talking and recording.
Write out the order of what you are going to ask questions, talk about or anything like that.
This is one place where a blog post and podcast look the same, you are mapping out the order. Which is simply the beginning, middle and end.
You can do this on one bit of paper and you only need a few prompts.
It is worth noting that I always do this and hardly ever look at it, proof that just the act of writing it helps you organise your head.
So you have had a practice run, you have felt stupid, embarrassed and the other odd feeling you get when you to talk yourself, alone with a phone.
At this point, you'll be looking at all the podcasting greats in Apple and Spotify, you’ll be thinking of NPR, BBC and Netflix wondering how you are going to make the leap from where you are with your phone to world domination.
Stop it, this is sophisticated procrastination and you have not even hit publish yet.
A well-known reality check for imposter syndrome and people like me who like polishing things too much rather than hitting publish is this segment called ‘The Gap, by Ira Glass’
