Episodes.fm Makes it VERY Easy to Share Your Podcast
Say goodbye to saying, “…or wherever you get your podcasts.” A new website by Nathan Gathright called Episodes.fm makes it very easy to share a landing page with a comprehensive list of podcast listening platforms:
I launched Podlink in 2018 to make sharing links to the podcasts you love easier. I sold it at the end of 2020, and Spotify laid me off in 2023, but I still wanted to iterate on that mission.
Today, I’m excited to announce an early preview of Episodes.fm.
Starting out, the website will support 30 platforms, and allow you to link both to the podcast, and individual episodes:
The original Podlink supported 8 apps; Episodes.fm is starting with 30 and will add more soon. If you’d like your podcast app included, submit a pull request to this repo.
All you have to do is visit Episodes.fm, and search for your show. It’s quite impressive.
Joe Casabona is a podcast and automation coach who helps coaches, course creators, and authors grow their podcasts into authority-building lead generators. He does that through expert-tested systems that come with 10 years experience podcasting, 15 years teaching, and over 20 years working the web.
Back in December, I wrote about how great the podcast analytics tool Voxalyze is. Since then, they announced that they’d be removing podcast stats from their service. That went into effect on December 31st.
And today, they’ve announced they’re shutting down all of their services:
With a heavy heart, I am writing to you today to share some difficult news about Voxalyze. Over the past 2+ years, we’ve been on an incredible journey together, striving to revolutionize analytics for the digital audio industry. Unfortunately, we find ourselves at a crossroads, and it is with deep regret that I announce we have made the difficult decision to file for insolvency under German law.
The announcement goes on to say that while they had a great year revenue-wise, they were unable to raise additional funding.
This is disappointing and a bit stunning, as I’m unaware of other services that do what Voxalyze did. But perhaps this is a testament to the fact that what they were trying to do is very hard.
So what do you do in the meantime? Leverage your platform stats, and separately, the additional information you get from Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Perhaps YouTube’s analytics will become even more useful to podcasters in 2024 as well.
Batman’s utility belt. The Doctor’s Screwdriver from Doctor Who. Tommy Pickles’ toy Screwdriver1. These things could get our heroes out of whatever pinch they found themselves in.
They were a tool for any occasion. And that’s what Descript is for Podcasters2.
Part of Podcast Advent is showing you some tools to help you with your podcast workflows, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t start with Descript, because of its versatility.
If you’re recording a solo podcast especially, it’s an all-in-one tool.
You can record audio and video directly do it.
You can edit that audio/video by deleting text.
You can improve the audio, add effects, and more.
And you can publish directly to a number of podcast hosting, and video platforms.
Plus, its AI tools (like Find Good Clips) are getting really good. And if you are recording interviews, their recent purchase of Squadcast means that you can do seamless remote recording, and import that interview into Descript.
Even though I have an editor, the workflow of record, import to Descript, and use it to find good clips has been a life saver. It allows me to give better notes to my editor, and now that I’m recording video, create sharable clips on social too.
If you haven’t tried out everything Descript has to offer, I highly recommend it. It’s a game changer for podcasters.
Which, incidentally, was heavily influenced by Doctor Who. ↩
None of the posts this Podcast Advent are sponsored. I want to present truly helpful tools for podcasters. That said, you’ll find an affiliate link here and there. ↩
In an upcoming article, I’m going to pose the question, “what’s missing from your process?”
It’s something I think about all the time — am I leveraging my time, and the tools I have, properly?
I started thinking about my production toolkit when I did my year-end review for RSS.com. I was trying to add something in Descript and was struggling, so I decided to go to my old standby, Screenflow.
I’ve been saying for a long time that if you have a podcast, you need a clear call to action (CTA), and it should be to join your mailing list.
But what I often don’t talk about is literally everything else. Where do you get a newsletter? How much should it cost? What do you send once people start signing up?
So I thought there was no better time than Podcast Advent to dive deeper into the topic of building your newsletter — specifically with ConvertKit — so that you can start building, and leveraging, your email list in 2024.
This is Part 1: Getting Started. Part 2 will be sending emails and automating. Part 3 will be growing your list and making money.
Why Have a Mailing List?
Let’s address the elephant in the room first: if you have a podcast and perhaps a social media presence, why do you even need a mailing list? The answer for most creators and small business owners is simple:
A mailing list is the only place where you truly own the access to your audience. If Facebook, X, TikTok, or Medium disappeared today, you’d immediately lose access to the people you were able to reach so easily a mere 24 hours ago.
For podcasters, it’s even more important than that. You don’t really have access to an audience at all. Sure, people subscribe or come across your show and listen — but there’s no platform to send them messages outside of their podcast app.
Further, they can’t interact with you at all. There’s no liking or commenting on individual episodes. And if someone rates your podcast on Apple Podcasts, you don’t get further access to them.
Podcasting without a mailing list can feel like a one-way street. But what you have a mailing list, you have direct access to people and you’re not just relegated to their podcast app.
Mailing List Options
Now, there are lots of options for creating a mailing list — ConvertKit isn’t the only game in town.
There’s Mailchimp, which has been around forever.
There’s the relative newcomer that’s gained a ton of popularity, Beehiiv.
There’s also ActiveCampaign, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)1, AWeber, MailerLite, and a bunch of other ones.
Outside of that, there are publishing platforms that double as mailing list services — most notably Substack, which also has its own ability to host a podcast.
I started on Mailchimp, but moved when I outgrew everything they had to offer. And honestly, if I were starting today, I’d give Beehiiv a closer look…but as you’ll see in Part 3, there are some features that put ConvertKit in its own class of Email Service Provider (ESP).
It really depends on what you’re looking to do. There are pros and cons to each, but here’s why I’ve stuck with ConvertKit.
Why I Recommend ConvertKit
ConvertKit is free for your first 1,000 subscribers — and honestly it gets pretty pricy after that. But there’s good reason for it. They have infrastructure in place to allow you to connect with your audience in ways other ESPs don’t.
You can tag and segment your list based on interest (or favorite episode), and send just those specific segments emails.
You also get rich automations to make sure your new subscribers feel welcomed as soon as they subscribe.
Their growth and monetizations tools are fantastic. They offer the Creator Network — which is a similar feature to Substack’s recommendations — and they allow you to sell digital products right from the platform2.
Finally, they know the industry and share their knowledge. Their podcast, Deliverability Defined, is a gold mine of information to help you keep a clear, healthy email list.
And of-course, you own your list. If you want to export it and go somewhere else, you can!
Provide your email address, create a password, and agree to ConvertKit’s terms and conditions.
Set Up Your Account
Select “I’m just starting out” and choose the free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers.
Specify that you are a podcaster when prompted to select your creator type.
Create the Opt-In
We’re going to create a landing page — that way you don’t need a place to embed the form, just in case you don’t have a website for you podcast.
Create a Landing Page
Click on “Landing Pages & Forms” under the “Grow” section.
Choose “Create New” and select “Landing Page.”
Select a template that best suits your podcast.
Customize the Landing Page
Edit the general styles, font, and background to match your podcast’s branding.
Replace the default artwork and add text or a testimonial to encourage sign-ups.
Set the color scheme and customize the call-to-action button.
Create a thank you page and customize the redirect settings.
Publish Your Landing Page
Save your settings and publish the landing page.
In the video I cover some other options worth checking out too…things like how you might want to set up a custom domain, what to do you do have a WordPress site, etc.
How to Connect Your RSS feed (📹)
Something you’re probably wondering is what you should send to your subscribers. I’ll cover that more in Part 2 of this series, but for now, you could automatically email them when a new episode is out. This video shows you how to do that:
You’re Ready!
All right — you’re all set to start building your mailing list. Now, it’s time to start promoting it on your podcast.
Keep a look out for Part 2, where we’ll go through your first set of emails (the welcome sequence), and some basic automations.
Disclosure: both Brevo AND ConvertKit have sponsored my podcast, How I Built It. ↩
I’ll touch on some drawbacks to their service in Part 3, but it’s still better, comparatively speaking, than other similar services. ↩
When I first started podcasting, recording and editing was kind of a pain. If it was just you, you could use a decent mic and either Quicktime or Windows Recorder. But neither of these are truly good recording tools, and I’ve lost longer audio in both. There were also apps like Audacity and GarageBand, which were better and you can edit with them. But it still required a bit of know-how to get things dialed in. And that was just for a solo show.
What if you wanted to record with a cohost or guest? Well, back in 2016, you needed to do a dance with Skype and eCamm Recorder or Audio Hijack. And you still had to tell your guest to use Quicktime or the like to record their side if you wanted the best possible audio.
Things got slightly better with Zoom, but you still ran into the problem of compressed, possibly choppy audio. And then, no matter what, you had to feed the two tracks into Audacity to edit them. It was tough going. It was a big barrier for entry with podcasting, and it’s still the way lots of people record their show.
But today, there are MUCH better ways. It’s never been easier to record and edit high-quality sounding audio for you, or your guests. Here’s how to do it, whether you’re recording just yourself, or with a cohost or guest.
Podcast Booster Blueprint
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Recording A Solo Show: You and Only You
Hands-down the best way to record and edit a solo show these days is Descript. It’s easy to use, mostly free, and automatically creates a transcript while you speak. There are even fantastic features like Studio Sound, which will take bad audio and make it sound a lot better.
You can easily choose your mic and press record. The words appear as you talk.
The kicker is that you can highlight that text and delete it, and it will edit the audio. It’s really impressive! You can even remove filler words or swear words automatically with the click of a button1.
When it comes time to publish, Descript can export as audio or video, as well as push your content to YouTube and podcast hosts like Castos and Buzzsprout. It will even generate files that can be used in professional tools like Adobe Audition or Logic.
I use Descript any time I do a solo show or bonus recording for my members. It’s definitely the easiest way to record, and do simple edits for your podcast. Plus, there are lots of great Descript tutorials out there for you.
It also allows you to create multiple tracks, meaning you can combine you and a guest into one file. As for how to record that, I have a different recommendation.
Recording More Than One Person: Riverside.FM
Full disclosure: Riverside.fm is a former sponsor of my podcast, How I Built It.
The days of clumsily using Skype or Zoom, and getting your guest to record their audio separately are over. In the last few years, several tools have emerged to help podcasters record interviews and get the best possible audio that is uncompressed and free of artifacts from connection issues.
There is no better tool than Riverside.fm. I’ve tried several, and Riverside has been the most reliable, well working, flexible, and feature-rich.
The way it works is you create a “studio” — a room where you and your guests or co-hosts go. You can see everyone and what headphones and mic they’re using. You can record just audio, or audio and video, and it will automatically manage internet connections. You can also mute, and manage attendees.
But the real magic happens when you press record.
Riverside will automatically record your audio and your guests’ audio locally, on their computer, and then upload the best possible recording for you. They’ll also “sync” the audio to make sure there’s no drift2, and you can get separate tracks. You can also use their magic editor to edit, if you’d like.
There’s also fantastic sharing features using “Clips,” and an iOS app that is apparently very good3. It’s bar-none the best way for you to record and get super clear audio with multiple people. It will sound like you’re all in the same room.
Record Away!
Podcasting is work, but often the hardest part is pushing record. Now you have 2 fantastic tools to help you do just that. If it’s just you, I highly recommend Descript. If you’re recording with more than one person, there’s nothing better than Riverside.fm.
Podcasting can be as intimidating as public speaking, if not more so. Unlike public speaking, you can’t see your audience and how they are reacting to what you are saying.
Starting out, you won’t know how your topic will be received, whether people will be interested and listen, or if there are mistakes in your approach – this is why preparation is crucial.
In this post, podcast coach and podcasting expert Joe Casabona gives you his best tips on choosing the perfect name for your new show, securing the right domain, generating compelling episode ideas, and creating eye-catching artwork that stands out.
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