Clare's Guide To Starting A Pod...

Clare, of Three Beautiful Things, has started her own podcast and so I asked her how she went about it...

This is what she told me:

"It was very easy indeed -- so easy that I couldn't believe I hadn't done it before.

1. Get hold of mic (I already had one for Skype). The one I have costs about a fiver.

2. Download Audacity from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ -- this is free sound recording / editing software. You also need something called LAME, so that you can convert the files in MP3s -- Audacity explains how to do this quite well.

3. Choose your Podcast host -- I did this by asking people who already podcasted, and who listened to lots of podcasts. I went for Podbean because it's free. I heard good thing about Libsyn.

4. Record and upload your podcast.

My top tips would be:

• Chat rather than read
• Mess around with Audacity for a while so that you feel confident with the sound of your voice, and with the software. I am going for an unpolished presentation. Audacity does allow cutting and pasting, but I know that if I spend hours each week making it perfect, I'll just give up. Instead, I take note of any wonky bits and bad habits, and resolve to improve them next time.
• Listen to the MP3 before you post it."