About podcasts...

[seawasp]

I have a little Podcast studio that I've finally started playing with. I haven't a clue what I'm doing, but I have figured out how to get it all connected and get sound to go from the provided microphone into my computer (which has Audacity as the recording/editing app).

What I know NOTHING about is what to do with it afterwards, and what the expectations of people hearing podcasts ARE. I don't listen to them myself -- I never got into talk radio stuff and I can't listen to people reading books on tape  -- but I know a lot of people do, so I need to have some idea of what people expect.

My plan is to read my books, a chapter or two per podcast, and maybe intersperse with particular facts or anecdotes about each sequence in the book (for instance, in Grand Central Arena I would mention that the protagonist's full name, Ariane Stephanie Austin, is a reference to Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man).

Is this a reasonable general plan? Do people listening to podcasts expect to hear something other than voices (background music, etc.)?

What format do I have to save the final audio files in for use as a podcast?

Would it be a good idea to turn them into Youtube presentations with some relevant still images (for example, showing the map of Zarathan and zooming in on the location for the current chapter)?

Any advice?

Comments

[argonel.livejournal.com]

The podcasts I listen to are all distributed as MP3 files and pure talk recordings, the professional podcasts have intro and outro music at the ends but are otherwise a pure talk / talk radio format. Before diving into the project too far headfirst and wasting a bunch of time or money I would recommend listening to a few different podcasts to get a sense of style. I would recommend any of the twit.tv podcasts as an example of a pro podcast with most of them being a roundtable discussion format. I would also recommend the "The Sword and Laser" podcast as a pro/semi-pro podcast dedicated to SF & F books. (http://www.swordandlaser.com/ for the audio, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syoiGCYwTNc&feature=g-all-u for the video version) The audio and video versions are different as they ping pong between the two formats.

You may also want to contact Tom and Veronica to see if they would be interested in interviewing you for either of the podcasts. http://wiki.twit.tv/wiki/How_to_Be_a_Guest_on_the_TWiT_network also has a set of tips for being a guest on one of the TWiT network shows. Most of the tips would also be applicable to recording your own podcast as well.

[gary-jordan.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a fun project, and recording the first few chapters of one (some) of your books could be excellent advertising. What does this do to the possibility of one or more of said books being picked up by Audible to become audio books? For profit, I mean.

I've thought about recording some of my short stories as MP3s, but haven't any idea about hosting or bandwidth or whether anyone would even care at this late date.

[xander-opal.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you could get some advice from others who have done well by podcasting? The two that I consider paragons of professionalism are http://www.dragonpage.com and http://writingexcuses.com. Incidentally, all the people who do the voice work are also authors. Hope this helps!

[jcfiala.livejournal.com]

Spider Robinson's podcast (when I was listening to it before) was alternations between a music show and him reading a few chapters of one of his books. You might have a look at what he's done, or drop him a line for advice.

Really, as long as you're careful to keep background noise to a minimum (or remove it afterwards), take your time and speak clearly, you should do fine. I would probably assume that the first take is going to be practice - record it, listen to it - or have someone else listen to it as well - and take notes on what needs to improve, and go back for take 2, with the hope that that one will go live.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Forget the podcast term. That's distribution or listening, depending on who you ask, not recording.

What people expect depends on what you're delivering. A serious audiobook probably has little or no background noise or music, whereas a pulp story could have a complete foley section to accompany the reading.

Commentary inline with readings will be distracting to listeners. Save the footnotes for the end, or use them as part of the introduction for the next chapter. There are lots of ways you can do it, like straight-up commentary or letters from fans being read and answered by the cast.

Master with a lossless format for editing, and then downsample to monaural MP3 (MPEG-1 Layer III) at 128Kbps. MP3 at 64Kbps may be okay, but voices can sound tinny at low bit rates.

Youtube? I got nuthin'.

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

This is not really what you are looking for, but this summer I plan to use Audacity to record Feminist Effusion 2.0, which will focus on news and view of women from around the world as part of Womyn Making Waves which is a women's music show on the radio station I have been involved with since the 80's.

You have a good idea about reading books and relating stories but you will definitely need theme music. Spider does something called Spider on the Web, which is him reading and playing music and talking about life, the universe and everything. You can find it on itunes, I think, oron his website. MP3 is the way to go.

I'm not sure about YouTube...but if you throw everything together it might work.

[kpreid.livejournal.com]

Since you asked: Don't include background audio, or anything else that would impede listening in a noisy environment. (Example: Last summer I was listening to podcasts on walks which included a segment next to a busy highway.) Similarly, try to keep the volume level uniform — if you have intro/outro music segments don't blast my ears with them when I had the volume up to make the voice understandable.