Making a Podcast Live on iTunes (and elsewhere): Things I Wish I Had Known

Getting our Unabridged podcast started has been an amazing adventure, and I've loved being part of the journey as we took something we loved, book discussions, and transformed it into a real recording podcast. We began recording back in June of 2017, but we did not launch our podcast until February of 2018. Here are a few things we learned along the way as we made our podcast live.

1. iTunes does not determine your release day. We spent a lot of time trying to pace things so that we'd have the best chance of getting a "good" release day for our podcast. While there are no terrible days/ amazing days, it is true that podcasts that release in the middle of the week seem to be statistically better received, whereas podcasts that release on the weekends are not as well received. We wanted a Tuesday/ Wednesday/ Thursday release day. We strategized and plotted and planned to try to achieve this goal, and it turned out (after our podcast was approved with iTunes, which only took a day) that WE push the podcast out whenever we post from our host, Podbean (more about that below)--this happened rather unintentionally the first week (we thought we were supposed to be posting for a Friday release), but we wound up with a Wednesday evening release schedule, which has been great! 
2. You need to choose a host. We work in the tech world, so we were considering hosting it ourselves, but that seemed very complicated and not reliable, so we wound up taking the plunge and paying for a year subscription with Podbean. I did extensive research to try to figure out which platform would be best. I got down to Buzzsprout and Podbean. In the end, a major reason that I chose Podbean, where our Unabridged podcast now lives (see our Podbean link here), is because they offer a crowdfunding service, but we will be using Patreon instead, so that wound up being a moot point. Still, I have been pleased with Podbean. I'm glad we took that route. 
3. Once you have music, a logo, a recording (or two or three), and a host, go ahead and set up your release on iTunes. Once you have the essentials in place and think you can sustain a systematic release (we try to record at least three times each month, and we release every Wednesday), go for it! We released six episodes up front, but I'm not sure it's totally necessary to release extra content. There were a lot of things we couldn't know until our podcast was in action, and we're learning as we go. 
4. Be sure to sign in to iTunes using your podcast login information. You'll upload your podcast on iTunes Connect,  but you'll need to use the Apple ID you created for that on your other iTunes app in order to access the full dashboard within iTunes Connect. It's easy to do, but it took me a long time to figure out that was the issue when I was ready to upload our content.

Whether you are considering podcasting as a hobby or as a way to promote ideas from an organization or school, it's definitely doable, and it's a lot of fun. Contact me on the contact page if you have questions, and I'll do my best to help.