My wife suggested I record my voice reading chapters of my stories, and make it a podcast. Has anyone here had experience with such? Any tips?
Thanks in advance.
My wife suggested I record my voice reading chapters of my stories, and make it a podcast. Has anyone here had experience with such? Any tips?
Thanks in advance.
Someone in the now deceased Writers' Group I went to gave it a try. No great success but he said it was fun.
AJ
I would think it would take some skills actors have. The tone of the voice so it won't put the listener to sleep. The ability to show emotion in your voice. The ability to make each character sound unique and with the right voice. Stuff like that.
Duncan7 - what exactly are you asking? Is it about the technical aspects of making a podcast and distributing it, or how to make the reading itself compelling, as @Switch_Blade has noted?
I ran a somewhat regular weekly podcast for a number of years, and have a little experience with it.
E
You can host a podcast anywhere you can host a blog that has an RSS feed. You simply structure each episode as a blog posting that includes a media file, and then then podcast distribution services like Apple Podcast will do the rest. If you want a free hosting service, check out this article which lists several - https://riverside.com/blog/free-podcast-hosting.
For recording it, my recommendation is that you get a high quality microphone, with a wind guard or a pop-filter. There are lots available now that have a USB end point that you can simply plug into your computer.
For editing, I also recommend that you get yourself software that will remove silences, background noise and hiss. There are lots of tools out there that do this, but I can't give any particular one a recommendation because the tool I used to use appears to no longer be available.
You'll also want mixer and editing software. Again, there are a lot of open source / free tools out there. My go to is Audacity. It's complex, but very very full featured. It can handle multiple tracks, and has a filter architecture so you can add new plug-ins to address differing scenarios. I used to give myself a more "radio" voice by adding a little more bassiness and a smidge of reverb. It can do all kinds of other mixing / editing tasks. I haven't used it in a while, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that someone has built a filter for removing silences / reducing noise.
Great podcasts have compelling intro's and outro's - music etc, usually with a voice over. I'd recommend checking out suno.com. It can give you a quick audio track generated using AI, and it has a free tier. You can then record your own voice over, and mix the two of them together with Audacity.
Good luck!
E