My goal for this episode is to give you a big picture roadmap for how to start a podcast. You give me 30 minutes of your time, I'll tell you everything I know about starting a podcast. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive guide that covers everything you’ll need to know (that would take awhile longer and I'd like to keep this pretty short), but my hope is that it gives you enough information to help you start making progress on starting your own podcast. If you’re listening to this in a podcast app, I’d recommend pausing it and switching over to my YouTube video. I’ll be showing some screenshots and other visual aids that I think you’ll find helpful. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/4zfglqqHHtA I also plan to publish a more detailed version of this episode as an affordable downloadable PDF and video and checklist, so I’ll include a link to that in the episode notes as well whenever it’s ready. A Few Pieces of Advice Before We Get Started: Anyone Can Start a Podcast Anyone can start a podcast! Yes, even you! To do it well does cost some money and a fair amount of time and effort, but it’s not extremely expensive, and you don't need anyone's permission to do it. The hardest part (from what I've seen) is growing an audience and getting people to listen to your podcast and share it with other people. Try to make a show that other people will find valuable and interesting A common mistake I see a lot of people make is starting a show where they just talk about whatever random subject they feel like talking about. It can be fun to do that for awhile, but it’ll be hard to convince strangers to listen to you unless you're already known for something. Everyone has an opinion, and most strangers probably aren't going to be interested in hearing yours. To stand out, you’ll need to figure out how to provide something valuable, useful, or interesting to them. Aim to make your show entertaining, educational, or inspirational. If you can make it be all three, even better. If you don’t feel like you have anything important or interesting to say, it’s ok to put off podcasting for awhile. Focus instead of becoming an interesting, experienced person who can talk about a topic or tell stories in a way that makes people notice and pay attention. Don't give up when the going gets tough. You’re going to encounter road blocks and get stuck sometimes. There are answers to every question out there on the internet in blog posts, YouTube videos, books, podcasts, etc. Be patient and learn to enjoy the process of learning. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t accomplish a task right away. Podcasting is a marathon, not a sprint. Success comes to those who stick with it for a long time, so don’t give up if you don’t achieve all your goals right away. Stay focused, keep working, keep iterating and getting better. If you have questions, please feel free to send them to me, or you can find more information out there on the internet if you search. The Ultimate Goal: End up with an awesome podcast you love My goal with this episode and show is to help you end up with a podcast you’re proud of and that other people love, listen to, and share with their friends. One of the best ways to do this is to learn from other people who have already created podcasts that people love. This is why I recommend checking out the top shows in Apple Podcasts and Spotify for inspiration. Pay close attention to their podcast cover artwork and their show descriptions. Look for shows that are similar to the show you want to make. Learn from them, get inspired by them. 4 Key Parts to Podcasting There are four main parts of making a great podcast. They are: 1. Planning & Pre-Production 2. Recording & Production 3. Editing & Post-Production 4. Launching & Promoting Let's go through each of these steps in more detail. 1: Pre-Production / Planning the Show The Goal: Come up a title, theme, short description, branding/visual style, and format for your show, and choose a time in your schedule to work on it. The first step is to decide: What your show is going to be called (the title) What it's going to be about (the theme) What your branding or visual style is going to be (the look of your artwork) What the format is going to be (Interviews? Fiction / Story telling?) When you're going to work on it (In the mornings before work? In the evenings after work? Weekends?) The Title: Check Apple Podcasts and social media to make sure the title you want isn’t already taken. The Theme/Format: Will you do interviews? Chat with a friend about a new topic every week? Tell a story in a narrative style? Do something weird and bizarre? There’s no rules here, so you have freedom to create the kind of show that you want. I’m guessing you have a few ideas based on shows you already listen to and enjoy. Make a show you’d love to listen to, and have fun! The Branding/Visual Style: Eventually you’ll need to create or hire someone to create cover art for your show. Your podcast cover art needs to be a square image, 3000x3000 pixels, a JPG or PNG file format. The Schedule: Decide what your recording and publishing schedule will be. Can you produce and publish new episodes every week? Every two weeks? Want to record a season of 12 episodes all at once and then release them? You’ll want to block off some time on your calendar to work on producing new episodes, but also time to promote your show and episodes and invest in your existing listeners and also on getting new listeners. (Podcasting can take a lot of time, so give yourself more time than you expect when you're just starting out.) Don’t worry about getting it perfect right away! Don’t worry about getting everything perfect, just make a plan and keep making progress. You can always change things later if you decide you really need to. For more information about planning a show, check out: So You Want to Start a Podcast How to Write a Podcast Description That Attracts New Listeners How to Design Stunning Podcast Cover Art That Stands Out 2: Recording & Production The goal: Get some recording gear and plan and record some episodes. Recording Gear There are ways to make a podcast using only your smartphone, or you could spend thousands of dollars on professional microphones, cameras, and accessories. There are good options for pretty much every budget. I recommend starting off with gear on the cheaper or affordable side, and then upgrading later if you decide the extra sound quality or utility is worth it to you. You want to avoid spending $2000 on gear only to decide a few months later that podcasting isn’t for you. Questions to consider: What is your budget? What gear do you need for the format you’ve chosen? How serious are you about podcasting? I keep a list of my favorite gear at kit.co/podcastingwithaaron. (Those are affiliate links, so I get a small cut of the sale if you buy something using the link on that site). Recording and Editing Software/Apps There’s software and apps for recording and editing audio (Garageband, Audacity, Reaper, Logic Pro, Audition), and also software and apps for recording interviews (Squadcast, Zoom, Zencastr, Descript, Cleanfeed, etc). I prefer the paid software, but there are plenty of people who record and publish using free software. For best results, you’ll want to get an individual audio track for each person that’s on the podcast. This is why I like and use Squadcast. You don’t want to start off with one single audio track that has everyone’s voice on it, it makes editing and balancing the volume levels of each voice much harder. Practice recording to get comfortable with your gear and software before you start trying to record episodes that you plan to publish. I recommend doing at least couple of test/practice episodes that you don’t plan to publish, just so you can learn how to use your gear and the software without pressure to get everything right. This is especially important if you plan to do interviews. Creating Episodes For each episode, you'll need: An episode title/theme A short description of the episode (What is the episode about? Why should someone listen to it?) An outline for the episode (What are you going to talk about in the episode?) Episode notes or a script (You can write this before, or after. It can be as short or long as you like) Episode artwork (optional, but can be a nice touch) At the very least, you’ll need to have a title for the episode, how you’re going to start the episode, what you’re going to talk about, and then how you’re going to end the episode. Create / gather all this information, and then start recording! Be sure to save your recording when you're done. 3: Editing & Post-Production The goal: Edit your episodes and get them ready for publishing, and choose a hosting platform for your show. Editing a Podcast Episode Editing a podcast episode is definitely a topic that deserves it’s own episode or video, but the goal is to get all the audio files for the episode together, and then cut out anything you don’t want in the episode. Add music, sound effects, whatever else you want. I definitely encourage creativity with editing, but be aware that many new podcasters I’ve talked to find editing to be the hardest and most time consuming part of podcasting. If you’re just starting out, you might want to keep it simple. Only edit out really noticeable/terrible mistakes, and try to get the volume levels of the audio tracks roughly the same (this is known as mixing). Editing and mixing can take years to master or get good at, so be patient with yourself while you learn! Watching YouTube videos of other people editing will help. Once you’re done editing your episode, export an MP3 audio file. This is what you’ll upload to your podcast hosting platform. Choose a Podcasting Hosting Platform for Your Show You don’t actually upload episodes to Apple Podcasts or Sp
