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So you want to start a podcast: a collection of resources

So @borinquenaqueer requested resources for podcasters, and I started collecting mine and typing up info about them and then it turned into a Whole Thing, so I decided to just make it its own post in case other people also find it helpful. Below the cut, we're gonna cover:

Microphones (what types are out there + personal recommendations)

Recording your show

Editing your show

Audio hosting (what is it + how much does it cost + personal recommendations)

Website hosting (why I recommend having a website + cost + recs)

Music

Cover art

Transcripts

Press kits (what are they + why you might want to have one + how to make one)

Other resources (a collection of articles about podcasting that people might find helpful)

(Quick note: this is all geared towards a general audience, so any “you” in this post should be taken to mean a vague “you, any podcaster reading this” rather than a particular person!)

Microphones

There are two types of microphones commonly used in podcasting: XLR and USB.

XLR microphones connect to an audio interface with an XLR cable; the audio interface then connects to your computer with a USB cable.

USB microphones connect directly to your computer with a USB cable.

Here's a quick rundown of how they compare:

XLR Microphones

Cost: Cost varies depending on what you get, but all of the pieces together will probably come out to around $100 minimum

Audio Quality: Reliably crisp and clear even on the lower end of the budget

Background Noise: Generally good at picking up only your voice and filtering out background noise

Components: You'll need a microphone, mic stand, audio interface, XLR cable, and USB cable

Replacing/Upgrading: While the whole kit and kaboodle will probably come out to around $100, each individual piece can be found in the $20-40 range, which makes them easier to replace if one of them breaks. You can also upgrade your equipment one piece at a time (e.g. I started with a $20 mic and later upgraded to a $100 mic without changing any of my other equipment)

Set-Up: Can take slightly longer to set up, especially when you're just getting used to it. None of the set up is particularly hard (it's really just plugging things into other things and fiddling with knobs), but it can take a few minutes

Portability: Can be taken out of the house if you get a portable audio interface

USB Microphones

Cost: Starts around $25, with most falling in the $50-100 range. Most don’t come with a pop filter, which will cost an extra $5-15 depending on the type you get

Audio Quality: The $25-40 range will probably be a little grainy/poppy, but that’s not a huge deal if you don’t mind that it might cost you some listeners (there are some people who are just picky about what quality of audio they listen to and others who have hearing issues that means they genuinely need high-quality audio to understand anything). You’ll get more reliable audio quality once you hit the $50-100 range

Background Noise: Can pick up a lot of background noise, which can be an issue if you live somewhere with a lot of ambient sounds (like near a highway or in an apartment with a toddler above you)

Components: You just need the microphone and a USB cable, which are generally sold together

Replacing/Upgrading: There’s really just one main component to this set-up (the microphone), so if it breaks, you’ll have to replace your whole set-up. Same with upgrading—if you want to upgrade to a better mic at some point, you’ll probably be looking at replacing your set-up entirely (though this can also be an upside if you’re able to sell your old mic, since that can offset the cost of getting a new one)

Set-Up: Very quick—you just plug in, adjust the knobs, and go

Portability: You can generally only use it if you have a computer to plug it into, so it’s about as portable as your computer happens to be (and, of course, is reliant on your computer’s battery life)

Bonus: Pop Filters

No matter which kind of microphone you use, you’ll probably want a pop filter. There are two kinds: one looks like a piece of very thin fabric stretched over a plastic hoop that’s attached to a long, flexible neck; you attach the neck to either your microphone or the table you’re recording on, then move the screen so it’s between your mouth and the microphone. The other kind looks like a foam ball with a hole cut through one side; you just put it over your microphone. The first kind usually runs around $15, the second around $2-5. You can use either or both, but I highly recommend using at least one.

This is because of plosives. A plosive is a kind of sound you make by stopping your airflow, followed by a sudden release of air—like the p or b sounds in English. When you record yourself saying those sounds (and you’ll be saying them a lot), the microphone picks up the burst of air as a sudden spike in noise, which can be really unpleasant and jarring to listen to. When you use a pop filter, it dampens the burst of air and stops the audio from spiking. If you don’t have the money to buy one, you can find tutorials for making your own online!

Microphone Recommendations

XLR: I started out using a Behringer Ultravoice XM8500 microphone ($25) connected to a Behringer U-Phoria UM2 Audio Interface ($50). After buying cords, a pop filter, and a mic stand, the set-up came out to a bit over $100.

USB: The Blue Yeti is considered somewhat of a gold standard for USB mics in podcasting (I believe Welcome to Night Vale is/was recorded on a Yeti, though I could be wrong). It’s about $100-140 depending on where you buy. For a more budget-friendly option, I know people who have gotten great results from the Blue Snowball, which can be found online for around $45-50.

Tip: Buy Extra Cords

Whatever kind of microphone you buy, I highly recommend getting an extra of each kind of cord you need. Cords have this habit of breaking right before (or in the middle of) recording sessions and that is much easier to deal with if you have an extra on hand!

Resources

30 of the Best Podcast Microphones (For Any Budget)

21 of the Best USB Microphones for Podcasts (That Won’t Break the Bank)

Recording Your Show

To record your show, you’ll need some kind of program on your computer that can record sound. My go-to is Audacity: it’s totally free, has a pretty robust toolset, and is (at least in my opinion) pretty user-friendly. It’s also been around for ages and is super popular, so it’s really easy to find how-to guides online (both general “how do I use this program at all?” and more specific questions like “how do I reduce noise?”). You can also just play around with whatever recording program came pre-installed on your computer.

If you have multiple people on your show and you’re recording together online (e.g. over a Discord call), I extremely extremely recommend having everyone record their audio individually and then stitching them together rather than just recording the call. It’s more work, but it will sound worlds better.

Editing Your Show

So, I have done editing before. I’m not going to pretend I’m particularly skilled at it, and I would feel bad passing on advice that could be bad, so instead I’m gonna skip right to the Resources part of this section and pass you on to people who know more than me.

Resources

Why I Edit Actual Play Podcasts on an iPad

A Massively Oversimplified Guide to Loudness

Podcast Problems: The Love and Fear of Silence

Audacity Tutorial for Podcasters: How to Setup, Record, and Edit a Podcast

That last one is obviously geared specifically towards Audacity, but if you use a different program, just Googling “how to edit a podcast in [program]” can usually get you some great in-depth tutorials.

Audio Hosting

To submit your podcast to podcatchers like Apple/Google Play/Spotify, you need to have an RSS feed. To get an RSS feed, you need to use a hosting service, like Libsyn or Pinecast. Many of these (though not all of them!) cost money, but they can be pretty cheap—I started out using Libsyn, which starts at $5/mo per podcast. As a heads up, at least with the paid services I’m familiar with, you don’t just pay for the service while you’re actively uploading your podcast; you’ll have to keep paying for as long as you want your feed to remain active (meaning that people can still listen to your show).

I currently use Pinecast, which I highly recommend if you’re going to do multiple shows, because you can have multiple shows on the same $10/mo plan (vs services like Libsyn which charge per show).

Resources

The 9 Best Free Podcast Hosting Services in 2022

The 10 Best Podcast Hosting Services (for new & experienced podcasters)

Website Hosting

I extremely recommend having a website. This will provide a handy dandy place for people who interested in your show to find out things like when/where your show releases, who makes it and where they can be found, and how people can contact you. If you have a Patreon/ko-fi/other way for people to pay you, you can also link it here. Same with transcripts. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy or even cost you any money—I’ve seen great websites that are just based on Tumblr or Carrd, which you can make totally for free.

Here are some examples of podcasting websites on a variety of different platforms:

Re: Dracula (Tumblr, free—I believe they do have another website, but this is a great example of a Tumblr blog for a podcast)

Starlight Audio Productions (Squarespace, $17/mo—this one is mine!)

Sidequesting (Carrd, free—though I believe you have to pay extra for a custom domain, like this website has)

Hug House Productions (Wordpress, which has a range of costs starting around $4/mo; this particular website plan is $25/mo, which allows them to have a store on their site)

Zebulon Podcasts (Wix, free—though you can pay money to remove the banner at the top and get a custom domain)

You may also consider getting a custom domain name, which is how the Starlight Audio website is starlightaudio.com instead of starlightaudio.squarespace.com. You can hook a custom domain up to a lot of different website builders, including Tumblr blogs, though some of them (like Wix) will charge extra for it. Custom domain names do cost money, though usually not a ton—I pay $10/year for the Starlight Audio domain and Hug House pays $20/year for theirs (thank you to Anne at Hug House for answering my questions!).

Music

For music, you have a few options:

Find music online that’s free to use—just make sure that it’s free to use, not just free to download; and if you plan on running ads at any point, make sure that it’s free to use for commercial rather than personal use. My old queer history podcast (RIP) used a Jonathan Coulton song because he, bless him, releases his music for free non-commercial use with attribution

Find music you like from an independent artist and ask their permission to use it—not every artist will let you use their stuff for free, but many will, especially if you credit them in every episode

Commission an artist to make a custom song for you—this will have a huge range of costs depending on who you get and how much they charge; in my experience it’ll usually be in the $100-400 range. If you plan on having ads on your show, make sure that the artist knows that and is okay with it!

If you’re a composer, you can also make your own song and use it however the heck you want. You make the rules now.

Whatever you do, I do recommend having some kind of opening music, because it’s a great way to set the tone for your show and make it more distinctive (think about how the light, bouncy Parks & Recreation theme song sets up the show as a lighthearted comedy while the dark, eerie Hannibal theme song sets up the show as a bloody horror show). If you can’t afford to pay any money for your opening song, that’s totally fine—you can find tons of music online that’s free to use and will sound great!

Resources

Where to Get Music for Podcasts Free of Royalty Issues

Cover Art

We’ve got two main options here:

Do it yourself. I tend to make my covers in Photoshop, but Canva is a very popular and user-friendly option. Canva is free to use and has tons of free assets available, though you can also pay $10/mo to have an expanded asset catalog. There are also tons of free tutorials on Youtube for how to make good art in Canva!

Commission someone to make it for you. Cost for this will vary wildly depending on who you go with (anywhere from $50-400 or more), and will also vary according to whether you plan to sell merch with your show art on it (if you plan on making a profit from it, you’ll probably need to pay more to the artist you commission it from, though some will also be open to you paying less upfront if you give them a cut of merchandise profits)

Resources

The Sound Barrier: Does Cover Art Matter?

Canva podcast templates

Fiverr and Upwork (websites for hiring freelancers)

Transcripts

Transcripts can be used to make your podcast accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, like me! I’m not going to spend tons of time in this post going into why you should have podcasts and how to edit/host/format them—I’ve already written a pretty extensive article that covers those things, which I’ll link under Resources below.

However, that article is geared mostly towards turning recording scripts for fiction podcasts into transcripts, which is a bit of a different process than getting transcripts for an unscripted show. If your show is unscripted and you want to provide transcripts, there are three main ways to do it:

Hire a transcriber. You can find transcribers on Fiverr and Upwork (linked above). Usual rates are around $0.30-2.00 per minute of audio

Transcribe it yourself. This is a huge amount of work and I don’t really recommend it if you’re not an experienced transcriber with a bunch of time on your hands. Instead, if you can’t afford someone to transcribe your show from scratch, try…

Generating an auto-transcript using a service like Otter.ai. This can be a great budget option if you can’t afford a transcriber. However, if you do this, please edit your transcripts. You know how Youtube autocaptions are infamously bad? Services like Otter have come a long way, but they’re still going to have those same issues. Most of them also only reference English dictionaries and will massively fuck up non-English words and names. Please edit your transcript to make sure it’s actually accurate

A lot of people will say that you absolutely have to have a transcript for your show—that if you don't, you're Evil and Personally Hate Accessibility. I actually disagree with that, because at the end of the day, having transcripts does take require either time or money, and I know a lot of podcasters just don’t have either of those. But if you’re able to have transcripts, it means your podcast is accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people (as well as people with audio processing issues), which is a really kind thing to do and helps make the world a more accessible place.

Resources

How to Make Your Podcast More Accessible Using Transcripts (written by me!)

I don’t currently know of any how-to guides for editing auto transcripts, but I’m asking around and will update if I find one

Press Kits

A press kit is essentially a handy little packet that people can view or download that includes a bunch of info about your show all in one easily-accessible place—think things like your cast/crew, what your show is about, how it started, when and how to listen to it, your cover art, that kind of thing. It’s called a “press kit” because it’s most commonly used by journalists (press) to make it easier for us to write about your show. This isn’t a requirement to have a podcast or anything, but it makes it easier for people to give your show free publicity, which is a very useful thing!

Here are some examples of podcast press kits:

Love and Luck (Squarespace)

Twilight Over Midgard (Squarespace, with a bit of a different format—this is my upcoming show)

Sidequesting (Carrd)

VALENCE (Wordpress)

Zebulon Podcasts (Wix; click on “Menu” then “Press Kit”)

I can’t explain how to make a press kit better than my friend Elena Fernández Collins already has, so I’ll just link that below—give it a look!

Resources

Press Play on a Podcast Press Kit

Other Resources

Finally, here are some general podcasting resources that didn’t fit into any of the above categories:

Discover Pods (disclaimer: I used to write for them)

How To Start A Podcast The Right Way (The Definitive Complete Guide for 2022)

Podcaster Resources

Simplecast blog (disclaimer: I currently write for them)

Less is More: Refining the Scope of your Audio Drama

How to Tumblr as a Fiction Podcaster

“As You Know, Bob…”: Creating Natural-Sounding Dialogue in Audio

Bello Collective

The blogs of Wil Williams and Elena Fernández Collins and the “Podcasting Resources” page of Tal Minear (disclaimer: I’m friends with these people, but I do genuinely think their writing is great and I’d be recommending it even if I didn’t love them as people)

I’ve also written several articles on podcasting; here’s links to a few of my favorites

I Have a Podcast—Now What the Heck Do I Call It?

Avoiding Podcasting Burnout When Your Love Your Work

Writing Mentally Ill Characters in Horror (Without the Ableism)

Thanks for reading this massive post! I hope at least a few people find it helpful. If you liked this post, reblogs are super appreciated. If you like how I write, you can find more in my writing portfolio and on the blog on my website, where I’m currently chronicling my journey trying to get a book published.

If anyone has questions, feel free to ask and I’ll respond as best as I can!

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