How to: Edit and Publish Your Meditations and Podcasts
READ: How to make a BANGER recording with the fancy music and then put it places that people can actually listen to it.
Editing and sharing a podcast can seem like one of life’s big mysteries. It can be a daunting process that most of us have no idea where TF to start with, so we’ve jotted down our notes from working with dozens of incredible coaches and thought leaders on what works well.
Follow the step by steps and be sure to share with us your finished recordings @cocollaborate
NB: This post is not affiliated with any products or services mentioned.
Where to Get Music and Sound Effects
A zesty sting (very short piece of music or sound), a good transition sound effect or some cool background music can really improve the production value of your podcast or meditation, ie; make you sound FANCY AF.
In order to appease the Copyright Gods, your music options are limited to either use royalty free music and SFX, or create your own. Here are some of our favourite totally FREE places to get music:
The YouTube Audio Library: Once you’re there, click audio library on the lefthand side. You can filter by mood, genre, and SFX (Special Effects)
The Facebook Sound Collection — get your social media scheduling sorted while you’re there
Incompetech — Thousands of tracks composed by one absolute legend.
Anchor.fm — There's a built in library of music and sound effects here too
Anchor also allows you to add in tracks from Spotify (i.e. music you actually know), with the caveat being that if your podcast contains this, it can only be distributed to Spotify. While Spotify is getting more popular, it's still an underdog in the podcast realm, so best to avoid music from spotify so that people can hear you anywhere!
Intro & Outro
Having an intro and outro that is the same in all of your podcasts goes a long way to boost the production value: it creates familiarity and recognition with listeners and build that all important factor: TRUST.
There are many different ways to put together some audio to make your intro, but one of the best is to create it yourself!
I hear you; “WTH, I'm no musician!” — I've got some good news: You are now! This is your moment, your time to shine. Get an agent, then get them to start booking stadiums because you are about make it BIG TIME!!
Okay maybe not stadiums just yet, but GarageBand makes it ridiculously easy to throw together some loops and sounds to make something you can call your own. Have a cheeky look at some quick tutorials, or just dive in and start messing around. There's nothing you can really do wrong! After all, it's art darling puffs on extra long cigarette.
If you’re not feeling art today, that pick an intro track that you like from the above resource libraries or find an expert on upwork to throw something easy together for you. You want your intro and outro to be between 10 and 25 seconds and capture your general vibe so that listeners know the tone of your talk from the outset. It’s okay to have your intro and outro be the same or similar - you want your intro to BUILD and your outro to FADE in order to give your listeners that sense of completion after each eppy.
EditinG
Now that you've got all the different elements you need for your podcast, it's time to put it all together! There's hundreds of apps and services that claim to be an essential tool, and even more people claiming that their way of creating podcasts is the best, it can be overwhelming.
Ignore all that noise - here’s our top picks:
Tools
Anchor.fm: Anchor is a web-based tool that's basically your one-stop shop: it can cover every step from recording to sending it off, and it's all designed specifically for podcasts. There's also a great iPad app for Anchor too!
GarageBand: Free with a Mac or an iPad, GarageBand gives a huge amount of flexibility to make your podcast exactly how you want. It's pretty straightforward to use, and it will do just about anything you want it to do. The first step is to make sure that the metronome and the count-in are turned off (on the top bar)— unless you're planning to rap your podcast!
Audacity: If you're using a PC, this is your best stand-in for GarageBand. It's a free download and fairly easy to learn (You can also get it for the Mac but we find GarageBand is easier to use, plus it's probably already downloaded!)
The Step by Step
Get an idea of the rough structure of the different elements: For a podcast, it will probably follow a familiar format: hook/introducing guest, introduction, speaking part, advertisement, speaking, outro.
Arrange your audio clips into roughly the right order.
Edit your audio. Now is the time to cut out all the moments that don't add to your podcast: the reading over your notes, the spilling coffee on yourself, getting up to let the dog out, the 'oh sh*t mum is calling!', and that long-winded tangent that ended up going nowhere. A good thing to think about is; “will my listeners gain anything by listening to this?” If not, get it gone.
Editing clips in Anchor is super easy, click the three dots, then 'Edit Audio'
Once you're there, split the clip at the start and end of the bit you don't want, then delete the section in the middle with the x button.
Polish. Once you're happy with the layout and content, it's time to listen through to catch any bits you might have missed, and trim it to perfection.
Distribution
The best podcast in the world is worth nothing if it's hidden away on your hard drive, so getting it out there is key. People listen to podcasts on all sorts of different platforms: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and many many more. The good news is, you don't have to manually go to every service to upload it!
Anchor is also a distribution service, so it can automatically publish to just about everywhere it one click. Just hit publish!
If you're not a fan of Anchor (though we can’t imagine why you wouldn’t be), there are other distributors too, plus you can upload directly to most platforms too.
Celebration
Once you've hit publish, all that's left to do is to absolutely spam all of your friends and family (and ofc your audience) to ask them to download and listen to it!
Go grab a drink, go for a walk or treat yourself to a Margie 🍸 because YOU DESERVE IT. Proud of you.
Link us your finished recording in the comments - we cannot wait to hear the magic you are making.
Yours in excitement always,
The CoCo Crew. x