Podcast Tips + Backyard Horse Blog’s Pod + Podcast: Willow Croft

Posted on by da-AL
Photo of Ira Glass recording an episode of his radio show, "This American Life," in his small closet.
Thinking about starting your own podcast but don’t know where you’d record it? Here’s Ira Glass, narrating his ultra successful radio show and podcast, “This American Life,” in his closet…

Willow Croft on Writing and Animals – Happiness Between Tails

#Animals #Writing #Authors Poet/blogger/speculative and horror fiction author Willow Croft tells how her writing and love of animals merge. How do animals figure into your love of reading and/or writing? Record your thoughts on my podcast page on my Anchor by Spotify page — or comment at HappinessBetweenTails.com — or email me. Like what you hear? Buy Me a Coffee. buymeacoffee.com/SupportHBT Visit this show’s original blog post for links and photos of Willow Croft’s book and cat. Time Stamps (where segments begin): Happiness Between Tails introduction da-AL discusses today’s guest 2:00 Willow Croft on writing and animals 2:20 A question for you 14:00 — This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/depe9/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/depe9/support

Click H-E-R-E & you’ll find my brand new podcast page! It’s on AnchorFM, where in addition to a teaser and a reading of Willow Croft’s post (her corresponding guest blog post is here), you’ll find my podcast’s links to subscribe, hear, and share it wherever else you prefer, from Spotify and Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, to Pocket Casts and RadioPublic and Castbox and Stitcher, plus many more and an RSS feed. The full list of 50+ places is H-E-R-E.

Hurrah!!! Picture me jumping up and down with as much glee as panting with relief after laboring over the ins and outs of producing The Happiness Between Tails Podcast. The HBT podcast is really an experiment — a hands-on classroom where I make most of my mistakes before I serialize my novels (“Flamenco & the Sitting Cat,” and “Tango & the Sitting Cat”) into audio fiction series. For the record, the fiction shows won’t use the automated readers. I’ve already posted a bit about podcasting H-E-R-E and H-E-R-E.

My podcast dream was kicked into higher gear when WordPress announced its link with Anchor, one where WordPress bloggers can convert posts into podcasts.

It’s not your imagination that the video transcriptions below for teasers are all the same. What differentiates them is that they’re made using the free features within AnchorFM and Audiogram and Headliner. So far I’ve only made them for my YouTube channel, but they can also be to accommodate the size requirements for other social media.

Anchor did this video of my teaser that’s on my YouTube…

Audiogram did this video version at my YouTube…

Headliner produced did teaser uploaded to my YouTube…

The Backyard Horse Blog

Look how fun The Backyard Horse Blog’s Mary Lynne Carpenter’s first podcast is, which corresponds to the post on her blog HERE! (Btw, she generously guest posted at Happiness Between Tails HERE.) Regarding her experience, she emailed:

“For any bloggers out there who would like to try to use the Anchor program (I found it to be very straightforward, not complicated), I would recommend starting off with a short introduction about your blog that would help set the stage for what you are about to read. I did not do that. I even forgot to read the essay title. It would make the whole thing seem more warm and inviting. The hardest part of the experience for me was reading the essay without making any mistakes. I ended up recording about six times and finally gave up. Not really sure podcasting is my gig, but for those of you who are curious and want to give it a try, I found the Anchor program quite user friendly.”

Curious about experimenting with a podcast of your own?

Given my frazzled state, here’s some un-organized dribs and drabs about what I’ve learned to date. Feel free to add your own or point out any errors I’ve made.

Random hard-won notes regarding setting something up on Anchor:

For the sake of not risking messing up this site, I set up an alternate WordPress blog. That’s because when Anchor’s automated voices (there’s a female and a male version) “audio-ize” posts, they’re not completely tidy. For instance, they don’t read the post’s headline. Also, my posts need massaging to sound good as podcast episodes. My voice as well as both of the automated ones are used in this first full episode.

Don’t like the background on your Anchor page? Change it by typing in a different HEX code. To find codes for colors, google stuff like, “HEX code for light green.”

The tangled road to figuring things out includes how to make money. Sites such as Patreon take a percentage of one’s profits in exchange for taking some of the bother out of setting up incentives for potential sponsors. Somewhere along the way I came across “Buy Me a Coffee,” as in: Like what you hear? Buy me a coffee.

When emailing a question to Anchor, it helps to include your anchor url.

Distribution: Anchor can automatically distribute your show to a bunch of places, such as Spotify, Stitcher, etc. As for their sending it to Apple, I waited and waited and waited for Anchor or Apple to let me know I’d been added to Apple Podcasts — months of agonizing later, I checked Apple myself (duh!), and it was there! This is a h-u-g-e deal, as to get on Apple’s “New and Interesting” list, one must get a lot of listeners within the first couple of weeks.

Falalalala!!! Here’s where you can find my show on Apple Podcasts.

Anchor title pages: they need an intro paragraph and whatever links you’d like to include. They can also have a list of time stamps (a list of where on the show different things happen), and a list of what folks are missing if they don’t check out your corresponding blog post, i.e., links and photos.

Any show needs an intro, and middle, and an outro — and it’s helpful to throw in what you’d like your listener to do, i.e., subscribe to the show, tell others about it, and to visit your site.

Advertising: once 50 people have listened to your show, Anchor lets you start placing ads they submit to you and then they’ll give you some sort of a cut.

Editing: Anchor has an editing feature that isn’t too hard to learn, though it can be a bit clunky. Many podcasters edit with Audacity or Garageband. I like using iMovie, because all I need is something simple and visual.

Music and sound effects: Anchor offers a bunch, which is nice given what a headache it can be to figure out all the legalities of those.

General wisdom advises one start with several shows already in the can, so new listeners can “binge” a bit when they find you.

Also, “they” say it’s good to podcast on a regular basis, same as blogging. For now, I’m not putting that sort of pressure on myself, particularly since I’m still learning and experimenting.

Episode title: Don’t put name of show in each episode, since it automatically appears next to episodes in podcast directories.

Publicize, publicize, publicize: it you’ve blogged for more than a little while, you know the rigmarole on that…

Got an idea for a podcast? Do you listen to them?

Published by da-AL

Happiness Between Tails blog/podcast speaks to and from the heart. It connects lovers — of pets, authors, reading — and of my still-unreleased novels. “Flamenco + the Sitting Cat” and “Tango + the Sitting Cat,” are my love letters to all who fear they're too odd, too damaged, too old, too whatever to find love and happiness with or without a partner. HappinessBetweenTails.com • ContactdaAL@gmail.com • BuyMeACoffee.com/SupportHBT

67 thoughts on “Podcast Tips + Backyard Horse Blog’s Pod + Podcast: Willow Croft”

  1. Thank you for sharing your new adventure!!.. I wish you total success!!.. in the background it appears that a certain tail wagging member of the family were trying to get a podcast of their own… 🙂

    Until we meet again..
    May love and laughter light your days,
    and warm your heart and home.
    May good and faithful friends be yours,
    wherever you may roam.
    May peace and plenty bless your world
    with joy that long endures.
    May all life’s passing seasons
    bring the best to you and yours!
    (Irish Saying)

    Liked by 1 person

  2. I have it a bit like capost2k, I rather read. Reading one can do anywhere without disturbing people (I don’t like headphones or these earplug thingies), but I understand that podcasting is the new thing and very popular. I listened to your first one and liked it very much. I will listen to this one tonight. One thing I don’t understand, is the voice on this new podcast your own or is it automated?
    I read the story with the flashlight on “The backyard horse blog”, hilarious. Horses definitely have a sense of humour! And they are very inventive finding new ways to get rid of their riders …
    catch you later, have a great day!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. ah, yes, books are the best! & I worry that I’ll ruin my hearing with excessive use of earbuds, so I listen to audiobooks by just setting my phone to speaker. a little hack to make it louder is to set it inside of something like a shallow mug.

      The teaser/trailer, the one that’s in the videos, is all my voice. Then, since HBT podcast is for me to learn from rather than spend endless hours trying to read aloud as well as I’d want, I recorded an intro & an outro with my voice to use on the episodes. The middles of the actual shows, with the posts being read aloud by the automated readers – for me & women guests, ‘Remy’ reads — for audio-ized guest blog posts by men, there’s a male voice whose name I forget — he actually has better inflections lol. next time I’ll publish one with his voice so people can hear

      Liked by 1 person

      1. That’s a very interesting process, and for professionals it is very important to be in on this wave, I guess.
        I never liked earphones and such; my ears are very sensitive and don’t like to have any sound too close.
        I didn’t listen to the pod yet, I fell asleep in
        front of my laptop … 😀 😀

        Liked by 1 person

  6. Well, da-Al, Congrats on getting your podcast up and running. Afraid this old man is about maxed-out with technology just keeping up with my blog. 😌 And being an old geezer, I’ve never been into talk radio, even when it was a big thing when I was a kid; surprisingly, it’s back big-time and some friends seem addicted, but I very much prefer reading, on paper, even better than on computer. We dinosaurs have to keep plugging away until the next meteor takes us out! 😂
    love and prayers,
    c.a.

    Liked by 2 people

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