Distributing your podcast

Murderbear

I and two friends are launching a brand new website and podcast this Sunday. I am so friggin excited! ( Easymojopodcast on all the socials if you want to give your boy a follow :-) ) My question is, at least early on, should we we worry about a podcast hosting service or just use our squarespace website to host the episodes? We have a business account with them so we technically have unlimited bandwidth. I submitted our podcast for approval to the big boys last night. Apple, Google, Spotify and Stitcher. I just wonder if it's better to use a service like Libsyn or Buzzsprout or any myriad other services to put the stuff out there now or hopefully wait for this thing to maybe catch on a little and worry about this a little bit later down the road?

This whole thing has been a lot but it's been a good learning process. Unfortunately for me, my cohorts aren't exactly tech savvy. So I am pretty much stuck doing it all. Thank the gods for Squarespace and how easy they make it. (Wow that sounds like an ad ha) I've never built a website or launched a podcast before or done a lot of this so it's great how easy a lot of businesses are making it these days. I just wonder while we are in the smallest of small fry nobodies stage, do we just do it all ourselves or is it better to get in with these hosting services early and maybe they help get your name out there?

Sorry this is a long ass rant. I am just overwhelmed and nervous and feeling all the things before our big launch!

calebthrower

Best of luck @Murderbear ! If I may ask, what will your podcasts be focusing on: gaming, tv/movies,  general entertainment, something else? Sorry I can directly answer any of your above questions. Just wanted to send well wishes!

Murderbear

Thank you!! So, we actually wanted to do a podcast about inspiring people and what inspires them. The three of us (I am just the producer/editor, not really a host) are musicians and we know so many amazing creative types in our area, whether it be other musicians, artists, brewers, chefs, etc., that we decided we wanted to talk to them and see what motivates them and why they do what they do. Our first real episode is with a musician who tours the world currently and has a great story. Our next episode is with a local tattoo artist who also does comic books and is currently drawing for Marvel's Darth Vader comic book. So, we like to have a nice variety of people from different fields on the show.

I am hoping one day we'll get to have two big time Cincinnati area podcasters on the show....coughcough @Jim and @A_Ron_Hubbard coughcough ha

Freddy

Creative types, eh???

bizmarkiefader

I don't have any first hand experience but a podcast I listen to that started up recently had this same problem and ended up using anchor.fm and started running ads for them in the podcast a few months later, probably not a coincidence but it sounds like it works and was relatively easy.

Murderbear

Wow. That looks like a really cool service. Thank you @bizmarkiefader!

Michelle

I don't know much about podcasting production, but I'll definitely check your show out!  Good luck!

Natter Cast

We use libsyn: https://www.libsyn.com/

Not the most configurable of sites, but really easy to manage.

Murderbear

Natter Cast said:

We use libsyn: https://www.libsyn.com/

Not the most configurable of sites, but really easy to manage.

Did you do it from the beginning and if not, do you wish you had? The Squarespace thing is super easy but I'm thinking something like Libsyn will take a whole lot of work off my plate.

CeciliaM

I don't know a lot about podcasts but my husband has self-published some writing and the real issue is marketing and distribution. His book is on Amazon but people rarely purchase it, and when we do a push, obviously it's only to our circle of people so we don't sell many. I'm really not even sure people go to blogs and individual websites that much any more. People seem to get all their content through channels like social media.

So if using a service gets you "out there" more for people to find and listen to you, I would recommend it just from an "experience with self-publishing" point of view. But it might not hurt to think about that as a "phase two" and let your hosts get a few under their belt and make sure it is something that is going to keep flowing, especially if it is something you have to pay for.

Murderbear

That's good advice. I am worried we will run in to similar problems. But, like you said, could be good to get better for a bit before we start worrying about that.

We are also in a band that has around 3K followers on Facebook so I am hoping to shamelessly use that platform to promote it too ha!

A_Ron_Hubbard

If you get successful, and by successful I mean "500 weekly downloads", you'll quickly find the exact limitation of "unlimited bandwidth" that low-tier hosting companies provide. It's unlimited in the same way Olive Garden breadsticks are unlimited, by which I mean, not at all. But it's the age old podcast question, when and where to spend a little to avoid growing pains when you're not even sure you'll grow enough to experience those pains?

Best advice I can give is just be sure that you control your own RSS feeds if at all possible, because for 99% of your audience, that's going to be where the interface to you. As long as you control your own feeds, you can redirect them as you see fit. But if you run out of bandwidth on a $5/month web host, that can be a problem.  I'm deeply skeptical of all free feed services or ones you can just run on a light weight hosting account. I've seen nightmare stories of people losing thousands of subscribed listeners when one of those goes out of business or has a lengthy downtime.

Libsyn is great for $5-15 a month, rock solid, stable, and they even offer ads when your podcasts get big enough to feature them, (about 5k/month/show download numbers) we've been with them for years. I think Megaphone is really good as well, especially now that they've split off panoply and are exclusively podcast hosting. But they don't offer capped services. In other words, you pay like $0.002 for every podcast you deliver, period. Which is great if you have a couple of thousands of downloads, but if you get in the tens or hundreds and don't have a revenue stream ready to go, you might be in for some pain. But megaphone also had built in pipelines so you can start monetizing at that point. 

I'd really sweat this detail, because if you got the $5-10 bucks a month to spare, you'll be way ahead of the game if this takes off even modestly. Jim and I did not do this, and the early days of Bald Move is filled of misadventures of losing our feeds, having to start all over, and steadily moving from one wheezing, over-worked platform with poor service and support to the next slightly larger one, until we're at the point where we're paying thousands of dollars of month for our weezing, over worked platform with admittedly excellent service and support. But honestly, the struggle and discovery and growth is all part of the fun!

Murderbear

Thank you for the advice @A_Ron_Hubbard! I'm hoping a Squarespace Business account will be truly unlimited bandwidth. (I'm guessing we're a long way from that being an issue) They seem like they are one of the bigger names in the game so hopefully they are true to their word.

But I think a service like Libsyn will be worth it in the long run. We looked at Buzzsprout and they seem really good and helpful too. Something that's easy to use is key.

Chinaski

best of luck @Murderbear! drop a link when it's done and i'll def give a listen and support. you got this, i mean you met Sinbad!

CeciliaM

Murderbear said:

Thank you for the advice @A_Ron_Hubbard! I'm hoping a Squarespace Business account will be truly unlimited bandwidth. (I'm guessing we're a long way from that being an issue) They seem like they are one of the bigger names in the game so hopefully they are true to their word.

But I think a service like Libsyn will be worth it in the long run. We looked at Buzzsprout and they seem really good and helpful too. Something that's easy to use is key.

You can probably ask them directly what they mean by "unlimited." Or if you signed a contract it might be in the fine print. 

DrKen

Natter Cast said:

We use libsyn: https://www.libsyn.com/

Not the most configurable of sites, but really easy to manage.

That's what I used from the beginning.  Never had a problem and affordable if you are doing 2-3 hours of podcasts/week