Media hosts vs. web hosts, what you should look out for when hooking up with a web host and how to painlessly switch hosts when necessary.

Don’t be fooled by web hosts that offer you unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage. While it’s true that you’ll get both of those, you will still be restricted in other ways that can get a popular podcaster’s account shut down. Don’t let that happen to you.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

It’s a normal-length show this week as I cover the basics of using Skype to bring in a guest or co-host for a show.

I began with an announcement: on Thursday, November 10th at 4pm I will be hosting a live webinar presented by Affiliate Summit. The title is Podcasting for Affiliates: Using Audio to Drive Sales. Sign-up isn’t available yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as it is.

Skype is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to voice communication. It’s used by podcasters far and wide, and while it has its share of issues, it’s generally very reliable and the quality is generally very high. In this episode, I run down the basic options for using Skype in a hardware configuration and a software configuration on both Mac and PC.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

In what turned out to be a much longer episode than I had planned, I covered the proper mounting of microphone booms and two exceptional soundboard programs for getting music into a show.

One of the best things you can do to make your show sound more professional and engaging is to use music and sound to good effect. In this episode I describe two programs that are used to queue up and play audio clips for your show. With the click of the mouse or push of a hotkey, you can trigger your show’s opening music, advertisements or sound effects. If you ever wanted to know how to get music into a podcast, this is what you’re looking for.

I’ve been trying to keep episodes down to about ten minutes with one topic, but this one ran very long and I was six minutes in before I started the segment about the soundboards. Which format do you prefer? Would you rather I plan the shows and stick to one topic in ten minutes? Or would you rather I cover more than one thing and let it run 30-40 minutes? Contact information is just below, please let me know!

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

If this episode is about having quality show notes for a podcast, I guess I’d better make sure the show notes for it are good!

Now, okay, maybe that title is a little link-baity. But I chose it because statistically, it’s probably true. I’m not going to name names other than myself – I have to admit that despite knowing what makes show notes effective, I’m too often too lazy to do them properly. What is the right way to do show notes? Although it varies by the needs of the podcaster, there are some general guidelines that should be followed.

First, text. Generally, two to five paragraphs of good, keyword-rich text are a great start. Second, links. Again, generally, two to five links to related resources when appropriate. If you need more links than that, that’s fine, but be careful that you’re not overloading to the detriment of your search engine rankings. Lastly, give your visitors a reason to listen to your show. If you write so much text in your show notes that listening becomes pointless, well, you’re just a blogger, aren’t you? I explain the hows and whys behind these three concepts on the podcast today. Thanks for listening!

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

Two ways to promote one company. Which should you choose?

I promote Audible.com fairly heavily at the moment. I run a very short ad at the beginning of all my QAQN shows and I have a large graphic in a very prominent position on the home page. Many podcasters like to promote Audible because the service is a natural fit for almost any podcaster regardless of topic: if someone likes to listen to a podcast, the reasoning goes, they are very likely to enjoy listening to an audiobook.

It makes sense then, for podcasters to investigate a relationship with Audible, but… what kind of relationship? That’s what this episode aims to answer. There are at least two separate programs for podcasters to join to promote Audible, and I’m here to explain the differences between the two. Should you take a $15 commission per trial signup or $17.50 for every 1,000 downloads of your show? Listen up to hear my thoughts on it.

Thanks to listener Jim Beeghley of Teaching the Civil War with Technology for calling in the question about promoting Audible this week! For his efforts, Jim has earned himself a free hour of consulting with me – congratulations, Jim!

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

A comparison of Mixlr and other streaming services, using background music and working alone. Good show this week!

Using background music in your podcast or live broadcast can be very beneficial. I went over a few of the reasons why and mentioned my favorite place for getting free “podsafe” music, Music Alley.

Next, a comparison of Mixlr.com, Spreaker.com and Ustream. Which to use for audio-only streaming? (Hint: look at QAQN Live and see which player is embedded in the page).

Lastly, how working alone can affect your podcasting schedule. There are a lot of great reasons for working alone, but it can be a tough road sometimes.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

If you produce a live show, are you a podcaster? Or are you more?

I’m not so sure. Now that I’m doing all my QAQN shows live, I’ve started thinking about what I am. Am I still a podcaster? If a podcast is a non-streamed webcast, as defined by Wikipedia (a definition I agree with) then clearly doing my shows live isn’t podcasting. The shows are still available as podcasts after the fact – as evidenced by this very thing you’re reading right now. But am I a podcaster just because I release a show as a podcast that had been recorded live?

I’d love your opinion about this. Please head to the comments and chime in!

On the second segment, I decided to tie the show into today’s QAQN Live: Affiliate Summit Day after all – I wasn’t going to because I’d been planning on talking about the podcaster vs. broadcaster label topic, but I thought I’d throw a few things out there related to Summit anyway. Specifically, how I’m going to be producing shows while at Affiliate Summit East 2011 – I may not be bringing my full recording rig this time. Can an iPad and a Tascam DR-07 cut it? I just might find out.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

Nervous about starting a show? Jittery about doing one by yourself? I used to be that way, too.

I got over it. It took me a while, but I got over the nerves and the jitters and I got comfortable with the sound of my own voice and confident in my talents. In this episode, I talk about how that all came about – how I went from someone who had to start over ten times to get a show done to someone who can do a show live without a net. Just to prove the point, I did this episode with only a broad idea of the topic – no outline, no bullet points, nothing. Just me and you, talking about getting over the jitters. It gets easier.

This week’s episode was broadcast live through Mixlr.com. All QAQN productions are now being broadcast live and you can join the party on the QAQN Live! page. There you’ll find a show schedule and (soon) a chat room so we can interact during the show.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

Live, Baby, Live! This episode was broadcast live on Ustream as I recorded it.

Incidentally, Live, Baby, Live! was the name of an INXS live concert released on VHS back in 1991. I’ve got it. Yeah, that’s right, I dig INXS. Wanna make somethin’ of it?

The first segment of this episode is devoted to the trials and tribulations of getting up and running on Ustream. I’m never happy with “just good enough” with my stuff – I try to make it as good as possible, so simply plugging in a webcam and turning it on wasn’t an option. I need to have titles, transitions, graphics, spinning things, the works. After a few days of research, I settled on a combination of BoinxTV Home ($50), CamTwist (free) and Ustream Producer (free). I’m very, very happy with the results so far.

The second segment was set up by a question from Jim Beeghley. Jim wrote in and asked, “You mentioned stats with Powerpress on your last show. How do you set that up?” Three services were mentioned: Podtrac, Libsyn and Blubrry. I talked about a couple of pros and cons for each. One thing I didn’t mention? They’re all either free (Podtrac), cheap ($5/month, Blubrry) or included with your media hosting (Libsyn).

I wrapped the show with a bit of exposition on the virtues of podcast automation using scripts. When I free up some time I will finish my blog series about the podcast automation process and update the scripts that I posted for people to use. In the meantime, you can see the direction I was heading by checking out the two parts I already published.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

This week I’m talking about ways to handle long breaks between episodes, media hosting options and getting into iTunes.

I open the show with an explanation of QAQN: Rebirth, which is a method I’m using to reboot my podcasts and bring in new listeners. It coincides with a long gap between episodes, and when you’re looking at a gap of weeks between shows, there are a few ways you can get back into the groove.

My first voicemail this week comes from Jim Beeghley. Jim is curious about using Libsyn.com vs. GeekCast.fm for hosting, and I offer my thoughts on those two services. Each has strengths and drawbacks, and I’m very happy and content to use both.

The second call-in is from Nick Chertock, who would like some advice for getting into (and getting noticed in) iTunes. I explain the basics of the PowerPress plugin for WordPress and stress the importance of a properly-formatted feed. Your feed can carry a lot of information, not all of which is necessary (or used at all) by iTunes.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

In this episode I’m talking about when and why to edit your podcast (and my editing goals) as well as creation tools for your show’s artwork.

The first question comes from Doug G. via email, and Doug asks, “How much do you edit your shows? Do you go back and take out every minor thing or just really major things? What about ums and ahs? Thanks and keep up the good work.”

I don’t do a lot of editing anymore; I used to edit quite a lot when I was first getting started, but I learned to live with minor imperfections and to even enjoy them. I think that if you over-edit yourself, you run the risk of losing your unique voice. If you’re concerned about the “um’s” and “ah’s”, then work on eliminating them from your speech, but try not to over-edit. Unless something grinds the show to a halt, I generally don’t edit at all. In fact, this episode wasn’t edited – I ran it through Adobe Audition to add a Hard Limit to the track, then exported to MP3. You may have heard of “Inbox Zero”? This is “Edit Zero”.

The second question this week came in via email, this one from Amy, who asks, very simply, “what do you use to create artwork for your podcast?”

I use a combination of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. I like Illustrator for all the benefits of vector illustrations. Unlike raster images (like what Photoshop does), a vector image can be scaled up and down as much as you want, and as many times as you want, with no loss in quality. I do use Photoshop for touch-ups on the output from Illustrator at times.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

In this episode, I’m talking about the benefits of planning your podcast episodes and making bullet points of topics to cover, Jim Beeghley has a question about setting ID3 tags in ID3 Editor vs. using iTunes, and I go over the nearly-complete podcast workflow automation that I’ve been blogging about for the past two days.

The winner of the March drawing for a free hour of podcast consulting with me is Eric Nagel! Thanks Eric, I’ll be in touch soon about setting up a time with you.

Having a bullet list of things to talk about and what to say makes for a much smoother show. In last week’s episode, I winged it. All I had were the questions that had been called in written down in my Evernote notebook. As a result, I think my section about proper mic technique was a little disjointed. This time out, I had a bullet list of topics and what I wanted to say about them, and I think the show was far better for it. Having a script for the opening and closing is awesome, too.

Jim Beeghley asked me today, via Twitter:

@QAQN Do I need to use a program like ID3 Editor or can I do the same with GarageBand or ITunes? #babp

I’m a big fan of ID3 Editor. It’s powerful; it can set ID3 tags that programs like Garageband and iTunes can’t. In my estimation the most important tags to set are the artist, title, album, copyright, and artwork. You can get away with not setting anything else, although I prefer to also set the year, the URL, a comment and the composer.

All the tags I mentioned are available to you in iTunes, but only the title, artist, composer and description, which I believe is the same as comment, are available in Garageband. Plus the artwork.

iTunes supports way more tags – all the basics, really – and if you want to use itunes, you can, but i don’t recommend it because it’s slow – especially if you have a large library. I have a very large library located on attached storage, a Drobo unit. once iTunes loads up, it’s great, but the loading can take upwards of a minute or two. Then another minute to set the tags correctly. ID3 Editor is just faster and better, in my opinion.

PLUS, ID3 Editor (and iTunes, to be fair) is scriptable from the command line, which leads to some awesome automation possibilities, which I’m going to talk about next.

The final part of the show was devoted to podcast workflow. I went over the details of my podcast workflow tutorials (that was part one, this is part two). You don’t need to know anything about Bash, shell scripting, or command lines in general – but it helps. If you’re interested in learning more, please contact me!

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

In this episode, Tricia Meyer asks about the use of music in podcasting, Bradley asks about USB podcasting kits, and I offer some advice about microphone technique when using USB headsets.

Music. It’s important.
photo credit: Audio-TechnicaUK

Earlier this week I asked on Twitter what questions folks might have for this episode and Tricia Meyer got back to me just a few minutes later with the following:

@QAQN Use of music. Before/during/after? How important. Or did you already cover that? LOL

I think music in your opening and closing is very important, and I cover exactly why in this show. I also go over some easy ways to get music into your recording and where to find music that is safe and legal to use in your shows.

Next, a question from Bradley by way of Shawn Collins. Bradley wrote to Shawn with a question about a USB podcasting kit, specifically the Alesis USB Mic Podcasting Kit. Shawn relayed the question to me, saying it might be a good topic for the show – and I think it is! I gave a few pointers, things to look out for when considering kits like these.

Episode #2 finished with some tips and tricks for making the most of a USB headset microphone setup. I will never tell you not to use a USB headset if that’s what fits your budget, your style or your needs. If, on a scale of one to ten, a podcast recorded with pro gear is a ten, you can get up to a good 8-8.5 with a USB headset if you treat it right.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

It’s the first official episode of Be a Better Podcaster! I’m thrilled that this is off and running and I hope you enjoy it.

In this episode, I give you my background, the who and why of the show. Next, the current gear that I’ve got. You can see the complete list on my podcasting equipment page. In brief, I’m primarily hardware-based: a Heil PR-40 microphone, a Mackie 802-VLZ3 mixer and a Tascam DR-07 digital recorder.

After the introduction and equipment check, I began what is to be the purpose of this podcast series: talking and teaching about the craft of podcasting. I have such a passion for this, I hope that comes across! I took two questions this time. The first is from Eric Nagel, who asks my opinion about recording a show when you have no big topics to cover. Should you only record when you have something to say? The second is from Dr. Jai Ranganathan, via Twitter, asking what I think of the Apogee Duet firewire interface. This particular segment showcases what I believe is a strength of this podcast series. One question, I have a solid answer based on personal experience. The other question, I did the research before the show and gave my best answer based on that research, but do not have personal experience.

If I know something, I’ll share it. If I don’t, I’ll get the answer, then share it. I may not have all the answers, but I’ve got a lot of ‘em, and the ones I don’t have, I’ll get. That’s my commitment to you, my listener.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN (preferred), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

Bandwidth provided by GeekCast.fm.

The first episode of Be a Better Podcaster will debut soon, and while I could do a show with some general podcasting topics, I want this series to be about helping you.

This prelude (hence the #0) episode accomplishes three things:

First, it gets the ball rolling with iTunes before the show goes live; iTunes won’t accept a show that doesn’t have any episodes. I want listeners to be able to subscribe to the show in iTunes when it begins, not a day or two later. This episode is kind of a… soft launch, if you will.

Second, it establishes who I am and why the show exists.

Third, it allows me to put the call out for questions that I can answer beginning with episode #1. I want to share with you whatever I can about podcasting and the most effective way to do that is with your involvement. Shoot me an email – feedback@qaqn.com – or, preferably, leave a voicemail on my listener line at 281-241-QAQN. Don’t be nervous, I have a magic button* that makes everyone sound awesome when their voicemail is played on my shows. Please keep voicemails to 2 minutes or less.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

*I don’t really have a magic button. But don’t worry, I haven’t heard a voicemail yet that I thought was too bad to play on one of my shows. You’ll be great.

Bandwidth provided by GeekCast.fm