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Podcasting 101



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Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:04 pm
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Mageheart says...



Podcasting 101


I've been debating making this thread for a little while, but I decided to go through with making it after seeing a few posts over in the People's Tab asking for podcasting advice. I'm nowhere near an expert and can't guarantee your podcast will be a big hit. But I've written, acted in and produced episodes of my own podcast, so I can run through the basics of the process and answer any questions you have on podcasting.

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mage

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roleplaying is my platonic love language.

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Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:17 pm
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Mageheart says...



Picking Your Topic/Story


The first step in creating a podcast is deciding what it'll about. You have a few different options for this, and each option has different steps involved when it comes to creating the basic content you'll be editing later on.

Nonfiction

The first option is holding interviews with other people on a topic you feel really passionate about. You can also mix this one with a more scripted narrative approach, but ultimately you're asking other people about their experiences with a given topic. If you've ever listened to NPR segments before, your podcast would basically be doing that. The first podcast I regularly listened to that followed this structure was WNYC's Nancy podcast. It had a mix of narratives and interviews with people from different backgrounds.

I haven't written this kind of podcast myself, so I can't give too much advice with it. But it's definitely important to figure out how you want to convey information if you chose a nonfiction topic to talk about.

If you really like nonfiction but also want to do some storytelling, a completely scripted podcast is probably more your approach. Think of it like preparing for a presentation on your favorite topic, or a rant you give one of your friends when you've just discovered this awesome new subject. A good example of this kind of podcast is @Elinor's About A Girl podcast. It tells historical information, but it does it in a way that's entirely scripted and doesn't rely on interviewing people about that information.

Fiction

I'm a fiction writer through-and-through, so this is where my podcasting experience comes in. The podcast I wrote was completely fictional. I grounded it with references to certain real world events - like Roswell - but it's ultimately something I came up with on my own. A fiction/narrative podcast is basically like a regular old short story or novel. You want your characters to undergo development, and you also want a somewhat clear plot to follow throughout the story.

But there's a twist with this kind of storytelling: you need to come up with a reason for why the story is being told as a recording. It's part of the fun of the genre! Some great examples of fiction podcasts that incorporate the medium into the storytelling are Welcome to Night Vale, The Bright Sessions, The White Vault and Alice Isn't Dead. Each take a completely different approach to how the story is being recorded. WTNV is supposed to be a collection of radio segments NPR, but the newsman is incredibly opinionated and also lives in a abstract, horror-filled town. The Bright Sessions is a therapist recording her sessions with a group of superpower-ed individuals. The White Vault involves logs from people on an expedition, as well as the audio recordings from someone's home videos on the trip. Alice Isn't Dead is a truck driver telling her story to her missing lover through her truck comms.

(In my podcast, it's a combination of an audio diary and ship logs. Another idea I've toyed with for a different podcast is someone explaining her story after being accused of a crime.)

Once you figure out what your approach to your topic is, you'll be able to start writing your script - or hitting up the people you need for your interviews.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  





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Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:26 pm
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Mageheart says...



Writing a Script


Now that you've picked a story, it's time to move onto the script!

Like I mentioned in my last post, I don't have any experience with a more improvised style of podcasting. My knowledge comes solely from writing a narrative/fiction podcast.

(I do know someone who has a podcast that's more interview-based, though, so let me know if you have any questions on the topic! I'll send them her way.)

When I wrote my script, I had to remind myself that I was basically just writing the dialogue. I needed to get the voice for my character. While it's important to do that in any story, it's especially important to do them in a story where dialogue is the only way the audience gets to know your characters. You also need to be aware that you'll have to write a lot to get an episode that's twenty minutes long, especially if you're sticking with one character and not jumping back-and-forth between different ones. My episodes have clocked out around fifteen minutes with about 2,000 words per episode, but that word count also includes any extra actions done by the characters - which wouldn't be read during the actual episode.

The best thing you can do when writing the script is write in a way that feels natural. I wrote mine on a word doc in the font I was the most comfortable with from my other prose stories. It's admittedly a good idea to have some kind of plan for each episode so you can reach the minimum episode length you have in mind, but you can also improvise a bit as well.

(I'm definitely a big fan of planning, though! I usually improvise with my other stories, but having a plan for my podcast's ten episodes really helped me out when I was struggling to have long episodes.)

Once you have your script all written, the next - and very much optional step - is making it look like a professional podcasting script. It's not really necessary if you're the one acting and producing the story, but it feels really cool to see the script afterwards. Some podcasts are nice enough to have transcripts posted along with their episodes, so you can refer to those if you want help with the formatting or even just writing the story itself. The one I referred to when writing my podcast was The White Vault's scripts, which they were kind enough to post for free over on their Patreon.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  





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Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:49 pm
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Mageheart says...



Producing the Podcast


There's a few steps involved with this part of podcasting, but I group them all together in my head. If you need more clarification on any of them, definitely let me know!

Prepping Your Script

This probably could have gone in the last post, but the next thing you need to do prep your script for recording episode lines. You'll want to have all of the episodes in any easy to access place; I keep mine on a Google doc in a master script. It's also good to have them on some kind of program that lets you add comments to the document. I think only Google docs and Word allow you to do that, but I'm not entirely sure.

(I'll get to why this is helpful in the next section.)

Besides prepping the script for reading/recording, you'll want to do a practice read of the podcast. Even if there are multiple characters in your episodes, you can read their lines to see if you hit the minimum time you wanted for your episode. It's not the perfect way of telling how long the episode will be, but it's a good way to check. If your episode is shorter than you want, you should probably go back and revise it.

Last, you'll want to make sure you have some kind of introduction and conclusion. The introduction isn't something you technically need, but it makes your podcast seem more polished. It also doesn't have to be the same thing every single episode.

Here's an example from The White Vault; its introductions also include a quick recap of the last episode:

The following documents and recordings are the second installment in a compilation detailing the events of the repair team sent to Outpost Fristed, consisting of Dr. Rosa De La Torre, Walter Heath, Graham Casner, Dr. Karina Schumacher-Weiß, and Jónas Þórirsson.

In the winter months, gale storms in Svalbard can reach wind speeds of 130 km/h. Accompanied by,or following,snowfall, such storms can reduce visibility dramatically, more so in the frigid months of the polar night. During these storms, travel is not advised.


On the other hand, Welcome to Night Vale has something random at the beginning of the introduction, with the title dropped in the last part of the introduction:

A friendly desert community, where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale.


The desert seems vast, even endless, and yet scientists tell us that somewhere, even now, there is snow. Welcome to Night Vale.


The conclusion of your podcast doesn't need to necessarily be a conclusion for the actual story. If anything, you want to make sure to step out of character quickly and acknowledge who was involved in the creation of the podcast. You'll want to give a shout-out to any actors, writers, producers, and musicians involved in the episode. You can reuse the conclusion and switch up the people credited depending on who is in the episode. You also want to give a shout-out to any other sources you used in the episode's creation - like free audio sites - to make sure everything is properly credited. Think of it like a works cited page of a paper.

Recording Your Lines

Now you're all set with the written part of your podcast - congratulations! You're onto the next step of the podcast now: recording your actual lines. Remember how I said you should use a word processor with the ability to comment on lines? That's because I use something called Vocaroo. You've probably seen it floating around the site before. Vocaroo's the perfect way to record audio for free, as well as a great way to get around not being able to record in the same place as other actors thanks to social distancing. With Vocaroo, any recording you make can be accessed with a link the site provides for up to six months. You can also download the audio onto your computer, which is what I do when I'm working on my podcast.

Once you record your lines on Vocaroo, you can comment on the section you recorded and leave a link to Vocaroo.

Of course, there's also a more technical side to recording: you need a mic. You can always use your phone mic if it's high quality, but I really recommend getting your hands on an actual microphone. I ended up getting two (one for Christmas last year and one more recently) for my podcast because I needed to lend one out to the other actors, but you should be good with one. The newer mic - which I haven't really used myself - is a Vegue USB mic. I don't have the first one on me right now because my brother borrowed it the other day, but I can update this post with the brand later on. The Vegue one was the cheaper one, though, so you might want to look into it! I think it only ended up costing thirty to forty dollars, which really isn't a lot compared to some of the more expensive ones.

Editing Your Audio

Once you have your lines recorded, you'll want to download them from Vocaroo and start putting the episode together. I use a free program called Audacity for mine. There was a fancy program that I tried using that also allowed for video editing, but my computer wasn't able to run that program because it was too big. I won't go into the specifics of using Audacity here, but I'd be happy to explain it in a later post if you're having issues putting together your episode!

If you haven't already done this, you'll want to get your hands on some kind of music for your podcast. If you don't have a friend who you can ask for help or money to pay a musician, you can try what I did and use a program like Musescore to come up with an opening and ending song. Like with your introduction, this isn't really a required part of podcasting. But it sounds really cool afterwards, so I highly recommend doing it! Alice Isn't Dead has one of my favorite theme songs after the introduction in each episode. Even though it's been a few years since I last listened to it, I can still remember exactly what the song sounded like.

(It's even playing in my head now as I'm writing this post.)

Besides music, the last thing you'll need with audio editing is extra sounds you can't record yourself. Luckily, there's some great free sites you can use! You'll want to check what you need to do to credit their audio, but chances are you'll have to say the site name and the creator of said audio. I personally use ZapSplat. They do have a premium account option, but I don't have it and haven't had any problems.

Once you have your audio all polished, it's time for the final steps!
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  





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Sun Dec 13, 2020 3:03 pm
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Mageheart says...



Publishing & Marketing


The last, universal step is actually getting your podcast out on the Internet for the world to see. You don't have to market your podcast if you don't want to, but I'll go over how I've been doing my marketing with my podcast. My podcast is something I'm really passionate about, so I want to make sure as many people as physically possible actually get to listen to it.

Publishing Your Podcast

The most important thing you need when publishing a podcast is a RSS feed. This allows you to get your podcast posted on different sites. You can theoretically get away with just posting it on YouTube without ever needing a RSS feed, but it's good to have a RSS feed if you want to expand your audience. I use Buzzsorout to host my podcast. It also has the added bonus of letting me post my podcast on other platforms like Spotify and PodcastAddict - but the steps for doing that really depends on the audio service (called a directory) that you're trying to get your podcast up on.

The one downside to Buzzsprout is that it's very much a business, so they remove your episodes three months after they've been posted. I recently got the cheapest paid tier so I can keep my podcast up after the three months, but I waited until the last few days before my first published episode was supposed to go down. I don't know of any other alternatives to Buzzsprout that are completely free, so I'd definitely appreciate any suggestions other podcasters on YWS can provide here in this thread!

Like with Audacity, I won't go into the specifics of Buzzsprout now. But if you're interested in publishing a podcast and need help working through Buzzsprout's ins-and-outs, I'd be happy to go into more depth in a later post.

Marketing

My podcast is very much an indie podcast, so I'm pretty much learning as I go along. I currently have a Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter for my podcast. The Twitter doesn't have any posts yet, and the Tumblr doesn't have much activity. My Instagram's activity is also pretty questionable. But I make sure to post my episodes on a scheduled date (the first Saturday of every month) and also make sure to post about it over on my Instagram's story and actual feed. You can also change an Instagram account to a business account, so I did that with my podcast's Instagram. Business accounts let you promote specific posts that Instagram will show to interested audiences. I haven't done it yet, but I'll definitely update this thread when I do.

Another trick I've heard of is using an app called Canva. It might be a website as well, but I was able to download it on my phone. It has free templates that you can use to create more professional posts. One of my classmates recommended it after using it for a now popular club's Instagram and being told the Instagram looked professional, so I'm hopeful that it will help me out with my marketing.

Overall, the trick with marketing is to make your podcast look professional. You want a neat, professional cover for your podcast, as well as a memorable title that keeps people engaged. You want someone to look at any social media you're running for the podcast and think that it's run by an experienced expert - even if it's just run by you.

Having a regular update schedule also helps. That's not something I picked up from podcasting, but it is something that I picked up back when I was a regular fanfiction writer. You either need to produce a lot of content in a short period of time so your audience knows they can always find new content, or have a schedule that people can remember when they're waiting for that new episode. The bonus of a schedule is that you're never really rushing to get the latest episode done. You also don't need to worry about having a lull in the story because you got burnt out/overwhelmed with other things outside of the podcast.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  





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Sun Dec 13, 2020 3:07 pm
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Mageheart says...



If you have any questions about the previous post or things not mentioned in the thread, feel free to ask them now!
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.
  








This is a message to all you out there. You don't have to be the fastest writer. You don't have to write 2000 words in one sitting. But if you put your mind to it and really love your project, you can and will get further along than you ever thought possible.
— FireEyes