Publishing

How it works: hosting and the RSS feed

A podcast isn't uploaded directly to Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It's uploaded to a podcast host, which stores the audio files and generates an RSS feed: a web address with the list of episodes, their titles, descriptions, cover art and links to the audio. The platforms read that feed and display your podcast. When you publish a new episode on your host, it appears on all of them.

• There are free and paid hosting services. Look at the storage or hours they allow, the analytics, whether they let you export the feed to move elsewhere, and whether they insert ads into your episodes.
• The feed is yours: if you change hosts, you can redirect it and you won't lose subscribers.
• Some services work as both host and listening platform at the same time.

The platforms

Once the feed is ready, you need to submit it once to each platform. It's usually a simple process: paste the feed address and verify that you own it.

Many other podcast apps read Apple's directory or let users add any feed, so with these you cover almost the whole audience.

The file: MP3 and bitrate

The universal delivery format is MP3. You work in WAV while editing and export to MP3 only at the end, with the master already at −16 LUFS (you saw this in loudness and LUFS). The bitrate sets how much data per second the file uses: more bitrate, more quality and a bigger file. Try it in the simulator above.

Sample rate: 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz, the same one you've been working at. If in doubt, 128 kbps stereo works everywhere. If your podcast is voice only, mono at 64–96 kbps sounds practically the same and takes half the space; remember that the recommended loudness target is then −19 LUFS.

Cover art

The cover art is what people see before they hear you, and they almost always see it small, in a list on a phone screen. Stable technical requirements:

• Square, 3000 × 3000 px (platforms accept from 1400 × 1400, but 3000 is recommended).
• JPG or PNG in RGB, at a reasonable file size (under 1 MB usually works).

And design requirements:

• Readable as a thumbnail: shrink it to the size of a postage stamp and check the name can be read.
• Few words, bold type, high contrast.
• One clear image or symbol, not a collage.
• Leave margin at the edges: some apps crop it with rounded corners.

Titles and descriptions

The episode title is what decides whether someone hits play. Put what's interesting first: the topic or the guest. The episode number, if you use it, is better at the end or in its own field.

In the description: two or three sentences explaining what it's about and what people will learn or discover, then the links mentioned, the credits (music included) and your social accounts. The first lines are the ones shown without expanding: make them say what matters.

ID3 tags and chapters

ID3 tags are the data stored inside the MP3 itself: title, author, podcast name, episode number, year and cover art. Your host usually fills them in for you, but it's worth having the file come out of the editor already tagged, because that's what people see if they download the file.

Chapters split the episode into titled parts (sometimes with an image) so the listener can jump to the one they're interested in. Many hosts let you add them with a list of timestamps, and some platforms detect them if you write them in the description in this format:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:15 How it all started
• 18:40 Listener questions

Your turn: your publishing kit

Prepare everything you need to publish your first episode, even if you don't publish it yet.

1. Design the cover art at 3000 × 3000 px and check it shrunk to postage-stamp size.
2. Export an episode as MP3 at 128 kbps stereo and at 64 kbps mono, and compare how they sound and how big they are.
3. Write the episode's title, description and chapter list.