Podcasts

A big Ack! because yesterday was a holiday and I didn’t give you a Guilty Pleasures Monday! I hope this Tuesday Tip will be useful for those of you who wish to start making podcasts.

Actually making a recording is amazingly easy thanks to freeware software called Audacity! You can download it here (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) and it really is a very simple program to use.

Once you download Audacity you plug your mike into your PC and just click record. That simple. Just remember to speak evenly and not too close to the mike. Don’t rush your words and have a script of some kind to follow. It’ll make things easier. Also, make sure there isn’t a lot of room noise so that the recording is nice and clean.

When you are done with your recording, Audacity lets you save your recording as a WAV file. If you need to save your recording as an MP3, you will need to add a small piece of code to your computer which you will add to Audacity. Links to the pages where you can get the code and detailed instructions are available at Wikipedia. Just click on this link! I know this part of it sounds difficult, but it’s really a lot easier than it looks.

Why an MP3 file instead of a WAV? Some sites require that you have your recordings in this format.

What do you do once you have a recording? The simplest thing is to just load the recording to your own site and offer it so visitors can listen to it. Another thing to do is list your recording with Itunes. Here’s a podcast I did for the South Beach Chicas and posted to Itunes – click here.

How do you get your recording into Itunes? A little more difficult. Itunes requires you to create an XML file to send to them which contains information on the contest of the recording and the location of the MP3 file. You can click here for more information on creating the XML file specifically for Itunes.

Hope this Tuesday Tip was helpful and good luck with your podcasts!

Also — I’ll be chatting with Romance Novel Television tomorrow from 4 to 6! Be sure to drop by!