I talk with Fred Castaneda from the Struggling Entrepreneur podcast. But I didn't interview Fred. Instead, Fred interviewed me for his podcast.

In this episode, I take a look at things to consider if someone wants to interview you. Specifically, if you are a podcaster and another podcaster asks to interview you, what should you know? What should you do or not do? Using clips from the raw recording with Fred to illustrate many of the points, I cover these topics:

Why you might want to be interviewed

Why you might not want to accept the invitation to be interviewed

How you get yourself interviewed

What do you do before saying, "yes"

Vetting your interviewerFred Castaneda

Using a release

Setting the topic and scope

Pre-interview questions

Setting up the call

Recording double enders

Approval of edited recording

Graphics and logos for the blog post

My interview at Struggling Entrepreneur is Episode 178, which you can find at http://strugglingentrepreneur.com. I think just about every dedicated podcaster is at least a little bit of an entrepreneur, so check out Fred's other episodes as well.

This episode deviates from the usual format. Instead of speaking with a guest podcaster, I talk about sampling rate, bit depth (or sample resolution), and bit rate. It's a little technical, but this topic keeps coming up in forums and in podcasts about podcasting, usually in the context of "what bit rate should I use to make my mp3 files?" Online, you can listen to and read a variety of answers to that question, but in this episode you'll hear my opinion.

Ed Ovett produces and hosts the Ed's Mixed Bag podcast, a labor of love that is centered around indie music. Ed is always doing new things and the links to them are usually posted on both Facebook and Twitter. 

We talk about how Ed selects the music for the show and where he gets it, how other show segments to break things up and add interest, and things to consider if you are thinking about contests on your podcast.

Ed comments on being a little over ambitious when it comes to episode frequency and what that means for how much of your time the podcast will consume. Also, Ed has some recommendations for podcatchers other than iTunes:

• Media Monkey
• Double Twist
• Ziepod

Ed has some experience with live streaming and we talk about The Pod 5 show that was on Mevio. That was first produced on Talkshoe and then on Ustream.

Note that Ed has a deal with CallBurner that can get you a discount.

Mentions:

• Mike Tech Show Podcast
• Zack "The Mothman" Daggy
• PodProducer
• Cast Blaster
• Audacity

In his episode we concentrate on podcasting when you're away from the studio. Not field recordings like sound-seeing tours, but podcasting when you are away from home, traveling, maybe staying with friends or in a hotel. In other words, podcasting from a suitcase.

Guests Carl Valeri and Len Costa are two of the four hosts from the Stuck Mic AvCast. With a cast of pilots, this podcast often sees several of them away from home, usually in a hotel. We cover a wide range of topics, including:

The challange of coordinating recording sessions with the travel schedules of the hosts.

Recording episodes and having lots of backup using Screenflow on the Mac and also Call Recorder.

Microphones for travel, including using a dynamic mic (like a Shure SM58) and a USB audio interface (like the Blue Microphones Icicle or the Shure X2u) for the combination of ruggedness and noise rejection.

Impediments to podcasting on the road, such as getting psyched when you are out of your normal environment and the unpredictability of hotel Internet connections. Also, dealing with noisy hotel rooms and just plain bad acoustics with mic selection and placement, creating an in-room sound booth, and disconnecting the telephone.

Getting through airport security and the need for backup copies of your on-the-road recordings.

Using a sharing service like Dropbox or Google Docs to communicate schedules and episode plans.

Finally, the guys also have some thoughts on publishing podcast episodes using the enhanced (m4a) audio format.

Marc Edelheit tells stories in his 2 Cent History podcast, interesting historical stories. We talk about how Marc prepares for and produces effective stories that communicate an engaging message. Marc's keys include extensive research and preparation, and capturing story elements that have an emotional impact on the listener. Marc records himself telling the story and checks for effectiveness before he steps into the studio. Once in the studio, he leaves the technical aspects of the podcast production to a professional so he can concentrate on content.

In some ways, podcasters are often telling a story of one sort or another. In that regard, we might all benefit from an examination of the methods Marc employs.

Why do I use Squarespace for my podcast?

I bet most serious podcasters host their podcast blog on a Wordpress installation, and with good reason. Wordpress has a whole ecosystem of plug-ins that take care of many podcast publishing details so you don’t have to. Also, there are a huge number of resources available for help when you need it: websites, instructional videos, books, and podcast consultants. Everything points to WordPress when it comes to a blog for hosting your show.

But do you have to use Wordpress to publish a podcast? Not at all!  In fact, you can use any blogging service. It will just take a bit more work if you don’t have a toolset like what is available for Wordpress. And the process can be a bit more manual.

I use Squarespace as the blogging platform for the Podcasting Passion podcast. Why? That’s not easy to answer. For one thing, I’m a contrarian who likes a challenge. And it was a challenge to figure all this out.

I also get nervous about a mission critical process (like publishing my podcast!) that relies on a collection of plugins. Plugins are like a drug: once you start you always want more. Then you end up with a software system that’s made up of too many components written by different developers that all must somehow work together. In my mind, it’s a dubious strategy that can lead to trouble down the road. Yet, I realize that thousands of others are successfully operating Wordpress-based podcasts every day.

So rational or not, I decided to ignore the conventional wisdom and create a podcast on Squarespace. If you want to do the same, here are the steps I went through:

Get your Squarespace blog

Go to Squarespace.com and sign up. It’s not free but it’s not too expensive. Squarespace features a “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) design interface that allows authors without much technical knowledge to create impressive web pages.

Get your Domain Name and Point it to Squarespace

With Squarespace you get your own URL that looks like this:

http://yourpodcastname.squarespace.com

but it’s better to get your own domain name. You want to do that for branding purposes as well as search engine optimization. I’ve been particularly pleased with hover.com for domain name registration.

When you have your new podcast domain name, you want to point it to Squarespace. That way, when someone visits www.yourpodcastname.com, they go to your Squarespace blog. Start by visiting your domain name registrar and create a CNAME record that points your domain to www.squarespace.com. In Hover this is very easy to do – under Domains, click your domain name, then click the DNS tab. With other registrars, you may have to request that they do it for you.

Next, log into your Squarespace account, click Website Management, then Custom Domain under Structure. Enter www.yourpodcastname.com as the new domain to map to. Your visitors never see yourpodcastname.squarespace.com, only www.yourpodcastname.com.

Sign up for an Audio Hosting ServiceLibsyn

You need a place to store your podcast MP3 files. If you are serious, you’ll use Libsyn.com and pay the small monthly fee. If you don’t know what to do, use Libsyn.com. Just my personal opinion, of course!

Create an RSS feed in Squarespace

When you sign up with Squarespace, you automatically get an RSS feed for the blog (a “journal” in Squarespace-speak). If every post is a podcast episode, this feed is fine. If you mix podcast episodes with blog posts that are not podcast episodes, or if you want future flexibility, then create a feed for just the podcast episodes. You do that by creating a special “Category” in Squarespace for that purpose.

Squarespace creates a different RSS feed for each Category you create, so you want to make a Category for your podcast episode posts. You can use any name, but you’re probably best off calling it something like “podcast.” If you intend to use your blog as the home for multiple podcasts, then create a unique Category for each podcast.

To create a Category for your podcast, view the journal page in Structure Editing mode:

Then click the "configure this page" link.

Select the Categories tab:

and create a category, like "podcast:"

Alternatively, you can create a Category in the Editor when posting a new entry. Next click the Feeds tab:

and note the Feed URL of your Category. For the Podcasting Passion podcast, the Feed URL is:

http://www.podcastingpassion.com/journal/rss.xml?categoryId=4405000

Create a Feed in Feedburner

Now you need a way to syndicate (or “burn”) your RSS feed. That’s what Feedburner does. Go to feedburner.com and log in with your Google (Gmail) account. Put the Category Feed URL from Squarespace in the Original Feed in Feedburner. Choose a name for your Feedburner feed to go at the end of http://feeds.feedburner.com/. I used PodPassion, so the podcast feed is I will use everywhere is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PodPassion

You only have to do this once.

Create your podcast

Finally it’s time to do your thing and create a fantastic podcast MP3. Be sure the file is tagged properly. Upload the MP3 file to your hosting service (probably Libsyn, or Archive.org if you are cheap) and note the resulting link to your MP3 file.

Create your blog post in Squarespace

Create a new “journal entry” in Squarespace and write the blog post or show notes for your podcast episode. While you’re doing that, uncheck the Published box until you are absolutely finished creating the post. Include a link to the MP3 file from your hosting service in the post. Probably you’ll also want to include an audio player and a link to directly download the podcast MP3 file.  Before you publish the post, be sure to set the Category to the one you’ve chosen for your podcast. In my case, the Category is “Podcast.”

One more thing: iTunes uses some special tags that you want to have in your feed. Squarespace interprets special HTML codes in your journal entry body and inserts them as iTunes tags in your RSS feed. They don’t show up in your post, just in the RSS feed. View your post in HTML mode, and type in the ones you need. Some of the tags that Squarespace understands:

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-AUTHOR: Someone -->

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-SUBTITLE: Podcast -->

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-SUMMARY: A Summary -->

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-ENCLOSURE-URL: http://somewhere.com/somefile -->

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-ENCLOSURE-LENGTH: 1024 -->

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-ENCLOSURE-TYPE: audio/mpeg -->

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-DURATION: 00:00:30 -->

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-EXPLICIT: yes -->

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-EXPLICIT: no -->

<!-- RSS-ITUNES-EXPLICIT: clean --> 

That Summary tag above is what goes in the Description column in iTunes, so you’ll want to add that one. Make sure to place a space after the colon, or the tag won’t be properly created.

That’s it – publish your post. Feedburner will pick it up, and since you’ve given iTunes the Feedburner feed, your iTunes subscribers can then download your podcast to their device.

Summary

To summarize, we have these one-time steps:

1. Create a Squarespace account.
2. Point your podcast domain name to Squarespace.
3. Create your Squarespace RSS feed.
4. Record your Squarespace RSS feed in Feedburner.
5. Use the Feedburner feed when you list your podcast in directories, including iTunes.

Then, for each podcast episode, upload your MP3 file to your media host and create a Squarespace blog post that includes a link to your MP3 file.

Who needs Wordpress?

This episode is Part 2 of my conversation with Erk, who produces a number of podcasts that you can find over at Channel Erk.

We talk about Erk's simple mobile recording kit that lets him continue to create episodes even while on extended trips away from home. He uses the Zoom H4n for interviews, recording ambient noise, and creating soundscapes in an engaging way that puts the listener right there with him. Remember, if you don't have a recorder with you, you can't record audio. But then, your smartphone may be all that you need!

One of the messages here is that podcasters need to think about the degree to which we over-produce or over-edit our podcasts. Certainly, there are some shows that need to be as technically perfect as they can be. But for all the rest of them, consider the "organic" approach that Erk takes.

Let the "imperfections" in a conversation bring life and realism to the recording. Use the ambient noise that "intrudes" on your recording to help create and support the atmosphere that defines the context for the podcast.

Plus you might spend less time in front of the DAW and more time creating content.

Guest Erk produces a number of podcasts in different styles on a variety of topics. He records his shows in a natural way, treating them almost as objective representations of the environment, not subjective interpretations by the producer. Consistent with that approach, Erk does very minimal post production.

We talk about how Erk began to podcast, what led him down the path to producing multiple podcasts, how his mum contributed to the podcasting, and how Channel Erk came to be. We discuss outtakes, regular release schedules, how Erk fnds the time to produce so much, and his minimalist editing approach.

Guest Steve Visscher from the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast talks about the recent episode he and co-host Grant McHerron produced based around a major news event that directly relates to the theme of their podcast.

To their audience, the big story was the industrial action at the airline Qantas, the subsequent lockout and shutdown by the company, and how the Government got involved. Steve and Grant were able to line up interviews with major players and authorities in this contentious issue: labor union leaders, politicians, journalists, and others. It was a massive accomplishment for a podcast.

We talk about creating relationships that give you and your podcast access to major figures in your niche and the importance of timeliness when covering news topics. Also the need to explicitly understand your role in the interviews, especially when the topic is controversial. Steve has quite a few tips for podcasters who find themselves in a position where they can create great content around a major news event. A lot of it has to do with how you prepare and position your podcast to be ready for these events when they come up.

Listen to PCDU Episode 77: Qantas: After the Grounding to hear Steve and Grant's podcast episode covering the news event.

Wayne Henderson is a professional voice actor, having done voice acting for radio and television commercials, voice-overs for corporate videos, instructional and training CDs, videos, and website audio. He creates his own Podcasts and does Podcast intros and outros.

We wanted to see if we can learn something from Wayne that we can use to make the voice of our podcasts sound better, and also to talk about the benefits of using a voiceover guy to make our podcasts more effective.

Wayne and I start by considering the importance of the voice and how to take care of yours. Then on to mistakes podcasters make - primarily being too far from the mic and using a bit rate that is too low.

Wayne recommends getting the best mic you can afford. He uses two processing methods: the Aphex Aural Exciter on the hardware side, and Cliff Ravenscraft's "special sauce" applied with Adobe Audition on the software side. (Cliff, the "Podcast Answerman" is a great resource for podcasters.) Audition is complicated while Audacity is simpler and free, and you can achieve most of the same effects under Audacity with plugins.

Wayne points out the importance of having a plan for your podcast episode.

We talk about when a podcaster might want to consider a voiceover, and what options you have, like voices.com and elance.com. Wayne explains his approach to developing a voiceover for a podcast, and how lots of communication is important.

We also mention Daniel Lewis and his Episode 50 of The Audacity to Podcast, How to Improve Your Voice from a Cheap Microphone with Audacity.

Follow Wayne on Twitter at @TIWWH

Mentions:

How to Get Out of Radio

Lifespring! Podcast

Geek News Central Podcast

Entertainers Secret throat relief spray

In this episode, we have a wide ranging conversation that touches on podcast intro music, video podcasts, what part of podcasting Ray loves the most, and also podcast forums and community in general. We talk about how your podcaster's ear improves over time, the sound of the room where you record, being self-critical of your podcast, where podcasting is going, and Ray tells us what he'd grab on the way out if the studio was on fire.

You can follow Ray on Twitter at @PodcastHelper.

The Crew Lounge podcast is hosted by flight attendants Sara Keagle and Bobby Lori. It's about the life and experiences of flight attendants. Sara joins as my guest, along with Mike Cargian, producer of the UPGRD.com network, which is where you find The Crew Lounge, along with some other podcasts and blogs.

We talk about how Sara and Bobby came to be the co-hosts of a new podcast, and how having a co-host can be a cure for podcasting "shyness." Co-hosts can add interest through the back and forth between them, and that certainly happens on The Crew Lounge. Mike comments on what podcast co-hosts can learn from improv.

While Sara and Bobby concentrate on getting the guests and the actual podcast content, and Mike does the actual audio editing. In fact, that's what drew Sara to the UPGRD.com network. This let Sara and Bobby get a new podcast off the ground with no experience. They note that if you utilize others for editing or some other aspect of the production, it's a good idea to have common goals or at least clarity about them so the resulting podcast is what you intend.

The equipment list for The Crew Lounge is very simple: a headset mic and a laptop running Skype. On the recording side, Mike, who listens in on Skype, uses a simple USB mixer and Audacity to make the recording. He uses a Label track in Audacity to mark items for editing later. That way he edits only the parts that need it, not the whole track.

We talk about how Sara and Bobby started appearing on radio and television offering travel tips. Initially they were sought out but then they started approaching stations on their own with content ideas. They've been to stations all over the U.S.

Mike talks about setting expectations if you intend to get involved in a podcast network and how a network can provide a ready-made audience.

Find Sara on Twitter as @theflyingpinto and the UPGRD.com network is @upgrd.

Allan Hunkin is a speaker, a writer, a professional podcaster, and an online broadcaster since 1997. He also publishes Podcast & Talk Host Mastery, a resource guide, industry directory, and how-to book for podcasters and others.

We talk about the rising bar of podcast quality and what that means for podcasters. Also, just who is the competition for listener ears, and where should you spend your scarce podcasting dollars.

Allan offers the advice that when you start podcasting, you should concentrate first on the content, then later on operating the mixer and equipment.

We agree that workflow techniques (even file naming conventions), can have a big impact on production times, and that good software allows you to manage the time spent editing. Allan explains how audio podcasts are better than video for certain types of content.

We also talk about Allan's Podcast & Talk Host Mastery e-publication and how podcasting became part of Allan's brand building strategy.

You can follow Allan on Twitter at @AllanHunkin.

Broadcast professionals Brian Baltosiewich, founder and Executive Producer of Radio Exiles, and Bob Cady from the "Bob and Doug Coast to Coast" comedy podcast talk about the craft of podcasting.

Brian has over 20 years of experience in broadcasting, on both the radio and television. He created Radio Exiles as a site where you can find podcasts produced by professionals that find themselves off the radio. Besides the "Bob and Doug Coast to Coast" comedy podcast, Bob does voiceovers and runs the online radio station Soft Classic Rock.

My conversation with two broadcast professionals who now podcast is interesting because they bring a different perspective. If you started podcasting as an ametuer enthusiast, you might be surprised with some of their comments. We talk about the differences between broadcast professionals and ametuer podcasters and conclude that good radio and good podcasting are not very diffferent - its about compelling content.

We also talk about podcasting training, "aging" your content to make it better, and advice from professionals on where to spend your scarce podcasting dollars. Their answer might surprise you. It surprised me. These broadcast pros are not as focused on hardware and software as you might think.

We also touch on creating community, and the future of audio programming in the face of video.

Brian has started writing some great articles about podcasting at Radio Ink.com. See the first in the series: How To Create Your Own Podcast, How to Start Your Own Podcast - Part Two, and How to Podcast Part III. You Have Gear, Now What?

You can follow Brian on Twitter at @RadioExiles.

Guest Daniel J. Lewis is a full time digital designer and podcast consultant. He produces several podcasts of his own: a clean-comedy podcast, one featuring movie reviews with critical thinking for Christians, and a "how-to" podcast about podcasting and using Audacity.

We talk about David's three keys to a quality podcast: passion for what you talk about, organization of your thoughts and how you communicate them, and the dialog you create between you and your listeners.

We consider podcast characteristics that detract from quality, such as over-processing, excessive noise reduction, improper volume, background music that's too loud, and poor mic technique. Also, techniques for planning your podcast episodes, and how that can vary depending on the type of podcast.

Daniel comments on reasons why you need to establish a podcasting routine, and why you sometimes need to re-evaluate and break that routine. On hardware, the item that Daniel would give up last might surprise you. We also talk about the contribution of software to audio quality, and if you should spend your money first or last on software.

Finally, David comments on his decision to go into digital design and production full time.

Find Daniel's podcast network at Noodle.mx, and his freelance digital design site at D.Joseph Design. Follow Daniel on Twitter at @theRamenNoodle