HOW I'M STARTING MY NEW PODCAST

I have been on many creative adventures over the past year. With the pandemic seeming to last forever, and lockdowns occurring for the majority of the time between last March and right now, there is literally nothing but time on my hands.

In March 2020, I started baking furiously, in an attempt to fuel my pandemic-induced anxiety into something productive. You can read all about how I wrote a cookbook here, and actually, since then I have made tremendous updates to the cookbook. I bought an Adobe license and took classes to learn how to use InDesign and Illustrator, which was no small feat. Anyone who has opened an Adobe program will understand that the interface is not exactly new user friendly. I copied the recipe book from Canva to InDesign, and the creative energy it brought to me motivated the addition of an extra 220 pages of recipes! I have since created three more recipe book designs, with ongoing recipe writing and development in the works. 

But now it's 2021 and I have been wondering what to create next. In the back of my mind, there is a small seed of wanting to create a brand where I can consolidate all my creative ventures. The brand had to have a few main criteria: it had to be aesthetically beautiful, with impeccable design and colours I love; it had to be 'generic' enough to encompass my passions, like design, art, baking, and doing good for others; and finally it had to eventually generate some kind of positive impact, whether financial or social.

Late one evening, I logged onto InDesign and created Souleil. The name is a play on the French word for sun, Soleil, which has a nod to my university French. The incorporation of Soul in the name evokes a sense of spirituality which gives the brand a whimsical and definite indication of purpose-driven and intentional living.

So, I had the brand, but what first? At university, I had two radio shows, and it was someone at the radio station who encouraged me to create a podcast. My podcast, The Beauty Bibliography, was hosted using the equipment from the radio studio and I posted it to Mixcloud and basically told no-one about it. It was a passion project, not for anything in particular besides fun. When I left university, the podcast was all but forgotten, not least because I didn't have any way to record it properly.

With my experience actually hosting audio shows and editing the beauty podcast, a new podcast seemed like a great creative endeavor to introduce Souleil to the world.

How did I start my podcast?

I first created an account on a podcast hosting platform. In order to get your podcast published on Spotify and other listening platforms, you need to upload the audio to a podcast host which will generate an RSS feed that Spotify (for example) uses to stream the content. Long story short, you cannot upload directly to Spotify. In an attempt to legitimise my project, publishing on Spotify was my goal (particularly as this is where I listen to podcasts myself). 

I chose to use Anchor to host my podcast as their platform is completely free to use. I set up my account, added the custom brand logo I had created, and updated the description of my show. You have to give personal details, including an email address that will be public in order for Spotify to publish your podcast. I quickly set up a free Yahoo email account for the brand, to avoid my personal email being broadcast around the internet.

Onto the content itself; I bought myself a cheap microphone from Amazon. So far, so good with this one! I also followed this tutorial to make a pop sound filter so that the audio sounds better and less harsh on the hard consonants.I actually record my audio on GarageBand for Mac. This is the program I used to create The Beauty Bibliography, so having a base of knowledge as a jumping-off point is very handy. This is perhaps not the greatest tool to make a podcast, but it will suffice while I take the time to learn Adobe Audition properly. In this lockdown life, recording with a guest is all but impossible (unless I get my Mum on every week- could we be the new Table Manners?). I have discovered a simple chrome application called Cleanfeed which enables two or more parties to call and record at the same time; I have no doubt that this will be useful for the coming months.

Once the podcast episode is recorded, music is added (the song is Samsara by Good Gatsby), and everything is edited using GarageBand, I can export the file as .mp3. I use the 'new episode' feature on Anchor's website to upload my audio file, write a description and publish the episode. I chose to let Anchor distribute my podcast to other listening applications (such as Radio Public, Pocket Casts, Breaker, and my holy grail: Spotify). If you choose to let Anchor automatically distribute your podcast, you should claim your podcast on Spotify by logging in here. You can also track analytics on the Spotify for Podcasters site or using your dashboard on Anchor.

All that's left to do is get creative and keep making more episodes.