How I made my podcast(s) in Substack and how you can too!

Audio embeds, voice over, podcasting top tips, lessons learned, quirky surprises and (finally) making friends with your own voice...?

“Podcasting is a way for people to have meaningful conversations with others that can then be shared with a target audience. There are over 100million podcast listeners in the USA”

Forbes

This mid-week teaching post is FREE for all to read today! It will be locked (in part) to members of

Sparkle on Substack

in two weeks. It’s a long one today as I’d had it on draft for months and kept thinking of more I wanted to share and say…

Making friends with a voice…

Podcasting is not a new medium but it kind of is new for lots of us creators. The permission to take up space is new…Perhaps you’ve listened to podcasts for years but never dreamed about making one? Perhaps you are being called to share your voice but the tech side makes you nervous?

Lots of us are only just wrapping our heads round HOW to show up online in a way that aligns with how we feel most comfortable… There’s the what to say, what to wear, whether to do audio and video, add a zoom filter, the dreaded vulnerability hangover to navigate ¹and a whole load of dynamics of accent and tone to manage. Here in the UK it’s pretty obvious if you were privately educated or if you weren’t - internal judgements aside there IS (or so I’ve learnt) space for us all in podcast land!

Our confidence has perhaps taken a few years to catch up with the true digital natives who were podcasting/ vlogging from the breakfast table while we were still learning how not to freak out about instagram stories. Just me?

A treat for your listening ears…

I used to listen to podcasts on my commute to work. I felt like I’d got to know the speaker and I’d had company. I always followed them online after listening. Podcasts brought expansive thoughts, permission to daydream, space, creative insights, tools, how-tos, solidarity. I would always look forward to the drive home and never mind at all if I was stuck in traffic. I had my podcast friends for company.

When

Laura Oldfield

approached me to make a podcast about balance and business in motherhood with her in 2023, I jumped at the chance but said I could probably only commit to four episodes.

Work and life is busy this year, my husband is on the road to recovery but still not 100% well and I didn’t want to over commit in my part time work hours. We made a plan and the rest as they say is history! The

Company of Two

podcast explores balance, being and business in motherhood.

If she had have asked me a few years ago I wouldn’t have been ready or felt I had enough to say - the time (as they say) is now… I feel that so strongly.

Way Back

I keep all the podcasts I’ve made and guested on here on my website.

I remember making a little series called ‘Voice of the Creative’ a few years back and finding it TERRIFYING! I was so worried about the tech and being a thoughtful interviewer and managing a space to record. Around the same time I collected audio stories of folks living on Holy Island for a oral history project - I adored this work it was insightful, beautiful and hilarious! After that, I put audio down for a little while, did a few closed space zoom interviews for my community and it wasn’t until Substack came along I started thinking about making my own audio again and co-creating with community that way.

I have 3 podcasts hosted here on Substack.

1. Here’s the very first one (GULP) I recorded - I call this one ‘My Beautiful Reality’ - it accompanies my monthly email but it’s more focussed on a moment or two in life. I didn’t email this out - at the time it felt like it was just for me and whoever found it. I email them out now and they get over 300 listens - it blows my mind that people want to listen to me check in on how my month is going. I recorded it straight into Substack!

A little 'My Beautiful Reality' Podcast test

2. A co-hosted podcast for mums called

   Company of Two

I also started a ‘Slow Lived Growth on Substack’ podcast which was very much an art in life podcast as I navigated away from social media and find audience and creativity on the Substack platform. It’s now moved and new episodes will be hosted right here

Sparkle on Substack

- again I record these straight into Substack and have never had any issues. My guest episodes are recorded with video and I share these on YouTube with captions with my members first and then with everyone else here as audio.

What’s the difference; hosting audio, read aloud and podcasts

1. Here’s how to embed audio or a voice over into your post… you’ll need to open it in a new window to see the whole post to read it.

Press the little headphones button in any post.

2. Here’s how to set up a podcast here. Substack is the ‘host’ and your can then distribute your podcast via it’s RSS feed into other places. This is what I do with

   Sparkle on Substack
   - The Podcast!

3. Once your podcast is all set up here you’ll have a URL to embed or share like this…

It’s me, it’s you - it’s Company of Two - let’s unpack the creative process!

First thing’s first…

I am FASCINATED with other people’s creative process; it’s my special interest² and so thought it would be helpful to talk you through the process of making our podcast over at

Company of Two

.

We very quickly decided the title, we worked on a pinterest board to share visual ideas, emotions and feelings and came up with some branding that subtly connected to our own brands.

We started planning content, had a few scheduling bumps in the road and nailed some episodes. We had structure for the episodes and one of us lead with questions.

The Company of Two podcast is now LIVE here on Substack and (thanks to Laura) on most other podcast platforms. 💌 It’s much more than just a podcast - we very quickly realised we could build community here and that’s exactly what we’ve done! That is the beauty of Substack. Do you have some other podcasts to share that do that too?

£ - What the podcast cost to make

I always find budgets interesting so I wanted to share more of how ours has worked… When I say £0 - I just mean no cash - our time is our biggest asset as companies of one.

• Branding - £0 - we did ourselves using Canva (we both have the professional version which is a little over £100 per year).

• Images, illustrations used in Substack posts - kindly sponsored by Emily Powell

• Hosting - £0 - (Hosting is free on Substack)

• Nursery/ childcare fees - £100 - guesstimate - I tried and failed to record in nap time and it’s just far more relaxing to know Luna is away from the house and taken care of. This way I can fully concentrate and don’t feel rushed or stressed in any way. We do weave in lots of voice notes on whatsapp to each other at all times of the day and evening.

• Our time - I couldn’t put a value on it but I recon we’ve both spent around 5-7 days on it so far, Laura has perhaps spent more as she does the audio edits. We received £220 in sponsorship and donations to support the podcast.

• 5% donations to our beautiful friends over at Postpartum Matters CIC

• Cast Magic ai software - $23 per month.

If you’d like to write a guest blog for Company of Twoor be a sponsor for our next series of episodes, feel free to email me claire@creativelyconscious.co.uk

Have Questions? Want to make your own podcast?

I highly recomend

Sophie Ingleby VA

who can support you in a myriad of ways perhaps by making podcast design artwork for you based on your brand?

As luck would have it my dear friend

Hannah Harvey

who hosts the ‘Happily Ever After’ podcast has a package to support you from script to publication over at

The Podcast Academy

and I am working with a wonderful musician on the intro for my guest podcasts here at

Sparkle on Substack

- let me know if you’d like their details.

My Top Tips to starting your own podcast right here on Substack

The planning phase

1. Get to know your co-host - If you’re recording with someone else and there’s chance to voice note and get to know each other first this is my biggest tip.

2. Plan who it’s for - in detail, in depth… there are a million things to talk about but if you know who it’s for and who you want to talk to you’ll stay on track…

3. Script your intro and out-tro (and here’s the important bit) AFTER you’ve recorded a couple of episodes. This way you can do it really authentically.

4. Listen to other podcasts but not too many. I didn’t listen to any in the same niche as ours as that would have been a sure way to give myself imposter syndrome. My favourite in our similar space is The Motherkind Podcast and one that would polarise me is probably one from a 7 figure ‘girl boss’.

5. Make space for error - we had a few false start, a recording glitch (so now we do a test first), illness's baby illness, scheduling misses - it’s all life isn’t it. We wanted to share this with our audience and community and take them on a journey with us. We wanted to celebrate perfectly imperfect creative process in motherhood.

6. Tell people it’s coming but don’t worry too much about marketing, you’ll have more to say about the content when you’ve recorded. Cast magic pulls key themes and writes social media posts for you too.

7. The tech - Substack are a brilliant podcast host, they give you an RSS feed to pull through to other platforms. Relatively simple but we did have to use a different email address for spotify as the standard Substack one only works if someone is subscribed to your Substack and obviously spotify weren’t.

The recording phase

1. Use an app to help - We use Cast Magic which transcribes the audio and pulls out key themes for the show notes too. Laura is saving the transcript in a google form so folks can skim read or catch up with parts if they have a babe in arms. You can also use audition for edits and enhancing the quality. Laura works miracles with ours.

2. Wired for Sound - We both use apple headphone/ built in mic to record and the sound is fine. It would be better if we used our proper mics which we both have but are always out of reach/ not set up. We’ll embrace perfectly perfect imperfection in motherhood and keep going. I’ve got my eyes on the yoga room cupboard as a podcast studio for my guest episodes where I want to work on enhancing the sound quality.

3. Recording - tap tap - is this thing on? We recorded on zoom with video and then sent the audio via we transfer. I’ve saved the audio and the video to use in the future. We might edit video for YouTube and social media - ideally we’d partner with someone to do that but you can use an app like ‘descript’.

4. Hydration station - Have water and tea handy!

5. Feeling in flow - If you can record two back to back do that because once you’re in flow and chatting it’s much easier to go for a second recording plus you remember what you’ve said. Laura is very good at editing out the filler stuff in ours but you can just go for a straight run if you’re feeling high energy!

The stuff no one tells you…

• Know your own values - have conversations about what you will and won’t want to talk about on the podcast - it’s public property at the end of the day. Contrasting values make for interesting conversation but keep yourself safe in that.

• Build community - no one wants to podcast into the abyss - we’ve built ours right here on Substack and it’s not too presumptuous to say we’re in it for the long run. We are so super grateful for all the listens and shares so far. If you want to find it in apple podcasts and review it that would be ace!

• Know it all gets better and easier and it’s hard to remember all the threads - I think in an ideal world would have recorded all the episodes in a marathon so I could remember what I’d said but nurturing our confidence, relationship and connection to the listener takes time. I feel like our best and easiest podcast was around episode 3 when we’d really got a feel for the identity of it and loosened our grip on ‘performing’.

• Be prepared to be emotional. Honestly, when I listed to our intro for CoT on Apple Podcasts on a solo Sunday drive to town I was so emotional - it was that whole circling back to ‘Creating the Thing I wish Existed’ that is my over arching intent for all my creative decisions. A thing that we really know is of service…

I hope that post has been super useful and remember you can find all your member resources here. New

Sparkle on Substack

podcasts come out every other week and over

Company of Two

there are four to listen to.

Do you have a podcast to recommend? Let me know in the comments or share using the ‘restack’ button on Notes so we can find more brilliant folks to listen to right here in Substack?

Claire

✨

Learning the hard way, Luna popping in to podcast land during a CoT recording …

1. Gets easier the more I do it - I connect to making content my son would be proud of and that’s all I need to lead with sharing our stories.

2. A special interest is a reference to finding fascinating in something if you identify as neurodivergent although everyone could have a special interest or multiple really.