Bens Podcast Stack

# Bens Podcast Stack ### Before * I spend a bit going through things I can find online about a person - especially other podcasts they’ve done. People who go on a lot of podcasts can end up answering the same questions over and over again, so both the guest and the audience usually appreciate new questions that build on other things (you can just cite other podcasts/writing.) * Nothing fancy about scheduling * Bootstrapping legitimacy around a podcast is a bit tough - start with friends and close acquaintances. Once you’ve done that, you can start sending people requests that say “I’d love to have you on my podcasts - past guests have included person1 <link> and person2<link>.” * I make sure I have a wired internet link when recording just to minimize connection shenanigans ### During * I always let guests know that they’ll have final edit rights so if they say something they would rather not have said, we can take it out. Not everybody does this but I think it lets people relax and do less self-censoring. * Record via Zoom (or in person if possible) * Some people get nice recording setups but I haven’t bothered * I prefer video chats because then I can do some non-verbal feedback to the person but other people prefer audio only * Some people have both people record on their own ends and then combine the audio - I haven’t done that. * Some people intro guests live - I do intros after the fact and splice them in * Write down the first question you’re going to ask them verbatim but no the other questions ### After * You need a podcast hosting service - I use www.libsyn.com - it is pretty friendly but also gives you direct control over your content. * When you first start you need to make sure your podcast feed is syndicated to apple, Spotify, stitcher etc - your hosting prover should walk you through this * Record an intro and outro - the custom is to have music fading in at the beginning and out at the end to signal the beginning and end of a podcast. It’s jarring when podcasts start with just talking. * Make sure you have a license to the music! There are plenty of open license pieces online. * I used garage band to create my intros and outros but I think Descript may have gotten good enough to just drop the music there directly * I use www.descript.com to edit - splicing in intros and outtros, normalizing volume etc. I used to hire a producer on Upwork (who I can intro you to if you want to go that route) but Descript got good enough that while it’s slightly more work, it gives me a transcript, removes all the “ums” automatically, and lets me shift parts around if I feel like it. * I use Figma to make the cover * It’s optional but I always send the final edit to the guest to get their final approval. A lot of it is a respect thing.  [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Bens+Podcast+Stack) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Bens+Podcast+Stack)