I jump around from project to project and I think that’s the same for any indie author in charge of their own destiny, so I wanted to start tracking all the things I work on and to capture the learnings I stumble across along the way, and today’s Writing Life is focused on some of the tools I’m using to record my self-publishing podcast.

It was raining in Los Angeles this week, so I stayed inside to record two new Birds of a Feather podcast episodes. Find out about the technology I use and the process I follow to record and edit each show.

My Technology

I record my podcast in GarageBand, which is a Mac application, and then upload each episode to Podbean, and then it’s syndicated to iTunes podcasts.

Using GarageBand for Podcast recording and editing

GarageBand is pretty intuitive to use, and I’m sure I only make use of a small percentage of it’s capabilities. Each 20 minute episodes takes about 3 hours from beginning to end. I’m using existing ideas and content to use as my topics, and I record in segments.

If you’re thinking of starting a podcast, here’s the process I use to record each podcast:

1. Identify the scope of the topic I want to cover.
2. Record a few minutes of the podcast.
3. Review the recording and edit or re-record any segments, and then continue with more content.
4. I continue this under I’ve covered my topic, and almost filled up the ten or twenty minute time slot. I like going a little bit over the time limit so that I have to edit out segments to make the podcast fit. There are always bits that are worthy of being cut!
5. I listen to the entire podcast beginning to end, and make any additional edits.
6. Then I record my introduction, to summarize all the key points I’ve covered.

I found a fabulous voice over artist who recorded my intro and outro, and I chose a short piece of unobtrusive background music to help with the transition between the voice over and my content.

Podcast Hosting via Podbean

Podbean is a great podcasting alternative for beginning podcasters. It has a free account option that provides you with 100MB of upload data per month. To put that in perspective, I can upload 3×20 minute podcasts and 1×10 minute podcast and be a couple of MB’s under my monthly 100MB limit.

Originally when I planned my self-publishing podcast I was just going to do three episodes a month, published on the 10th 20th and 30th of each month. But, then I realized I had enough bandwidth left to host a 10 minute podcast as well. I love the shorter formats shows I’ve chosen to produce.

Recording a 60 minute podcast can be overwhelming, and the editing process can be a laborious task, but a 20 minute podcast is much more efficient and easier to produce.

I also think this shorter time commitment attracts listeners who don’t have an hour in that day to listen on a regular basis but definitely got 20 minutes that they can listen on the bus of the car, on the way to work, lunch times, or at the gym.

My Podcast episodes are scheduled out for January and I’ve just started recording the February podcast, so my requirement is to use up my monthly allocation of upload bandwidth, which is keeping me on track to record these four shows every month.

Podcasting set up

As I’m nomadic at the moment, I don’t have the rest of my podcasting set up here and available with me in Los Angeles. But we’ll be going back to Turkey later in the year, and I have a professional microphone and stand I’ll use when I’m back there. We have a basement room (it’s a funky set up, which has a window on one wall so it’s not dark or dingy). It’s been tiled and is ready to be used as my office and studio, and the desk is already in situ, so I’m excited to get back there to get my podcasting equipment set up.

You may be tempted to put off your podcasting adventure until the conditions are perfect, or just right. But if I did this, I’d never have started my podcast. So if you’re enthusiastic about starting a podcast, but worry that the conditions aren’t perfect for starting… think again. The time to start a podcast, is NOW!.

Are you ready to establish your subject matter expertise and earn passive income by transitioning from travel blogger to author of your own travel book, but don’t know where to start?

To subscribe to my podcast you can click on this RSS link: https://birdsofafeather.podbean.com/feed.xml

You can also visit my podcasting page on this website to listen to the episodes.

Let me know if you have any questions about podcasting for beginners. Happy to help you with tips and ideas for getting your own podcast up and running.