Make Your First Podcast On Your iPad

I LOVE listening to podcasts—I think it's fair to say that, apart from reading and writing, podcasts are my primary form of entertainment. Podcasts on nature, science, technology and, of course, writing. I've flirted with the idea of creating a podcast of my own, but how does one start? It seems there is SO MUCH one needs to know and do.

So, in an effort to educate myself about how to go about creating that first podcast, I've begun this blog series. Today we'll skim over what one needs to do to create a podcast—all the steps—and then, in this and future blog posts, we'll do a deep dive into each one. Today we'll talk about what recording software you might want to use as well as what your intro might look like.

 If I haven't covered something and you'd like me to, please do leave a comment.

Elements of a Podcast

I'll be going over each of these points in more detail, later.

• Recording software: One has to choose a software package (or packages) for editing audio files that both fits your budget and does what you need it to. Then one has to install it and get comfortable using it.
• Home studio: It's also a good idea to set up—even temporarily—a home recording studio. Obviously, if you buy professional equipment the resulting audio will sound best, but there are inexpensive improvisations that can make a marked difference in sound quality.
• Music/sound effects: The key is to be sure that the music you use isn't in any way pirated. The rule of thumb I use for art is this: If it's not clear how the item is licensed then I don't use it. Happily, it turns out there are quite a few places on the web where one can find public domain music and sound effects. I'll list the links to the ones I've found.
• Podcast format: Every podcast has what is called an intro and an outro. What information should they contain?
• Hosting: After you finally have your finished audio file you need somewhere to host it. There are a number of different solutions and we'll go over the most popular.
• Create your finished audio: You'll want to make sure that the sound is uniform throughout the podcast. You don't want your voice to be soft—encouraging your listeners to turn up the volume—and then blast them.

Recording Software

About the matter of sound quality, certain podcasts are created in recording studios—for instance, This American Life, Freakonomics, Nature—and the audio quality is, as expected, top notch.

Other podcasts, especially in the early days before the creators knew their efforts would be profitable, were recorded in carefully constructed home studios. Inevitably, the quality isn't as good but still okay. The question is: Is "okay" good enough?

 I think it depends on your audience. If care is taken in setting up a home studio, chances are most folks won't notice unless they stop and think about it. Hopefully, they'll be too engrossed by what you're saying to focus on the quality of the audio. Second, I don't think folks expect as much from a podcast as they do from an audiobook.

 I could be wrong, though. What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

GarageBand

Let's face it, there are a LOT of choices. Just google "podcast recording software." If I was doing the recording on my iMac I would just use Audacity. It has a lot of features, is easy to use, has been maintained over the years and—this is important, especially in the beginning—it's free. Also, the manual is actually helpful. I've used it for years and will continue to use it. Highly recommended. 

That said, we're interested in recording on the iPad (or iPhone), and unfortunately Audacity doesn't have a version for the iOS.

 I've experimented with several apps and, honestly, the only one I can unreservedly recommend is GarageBand. It's not free, but it is relatively inexpensive at $6.99. I have no doubt that there is better software but chances are it costs a lot more money. My goal here is to help those who—like myself!—have never podcasted before to get up and running relatively inexpensively.

Using GarageBand

Not being musically inclined, when I first launched GarageBand I was a bit bewildered. Fortunately, I came across an excellent YouTube tutorial entitled, "Recording a Podcast with GarageBand for iPad" by Skip Via. I've embedded it below.

 

 I worked through the video and ended up with a recording that wasn't completely terrible.

 A couple of things:

• Turn off the metronome: Settings > Metronome Sound > Visual Only. I also set "Metronome Level" to 0.
• Start/Stop Recording: Press the round red button.
• Set "Song Sections" to automatic: There's a small "+" in the upper right hand corner, under the "?". Tap it and then select "Section A." Set it to automatic. This will let you record for as long as you have space to record.

Here's the recording I made (see below). Keep in mind that I recorded this on my iPad Air without using an external microphone. I think if I used a microphone the sound quality could be improved.
 

By the way, the quotation I read is: "Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work," by Stephen King.

 If you would like to edit the audio (and chances are you will) you could edit on your iPad using an app like iMovie or you could use, as I did, Audacity on your Mac.

That's it for today! Sorry for the long post. I've been working on this one for awhile. I hope you find it useful. If you do (or even if you don't!), please let me know! I would be interested to learn what worked for you and what didn't.

The next article in this series on how to make your own podcast:

Ever been curious about the structure of a podcast? Read on! Make Your First Podcast: Intro and Outro.

Other articles you might find useful:

Write That Story! Don’t Let Fear Win
Don’t Write, Bleed
Getting Motivated To Write

Scrivener And Goodreader: How To Get Rid Of Paper Drafts

I don't have a printer.

When I need something printed I go to the print shop across the street. It works fine, for the most part, but I don't like killing trees and it's inconvenient not to be able to print something the moment I need it.

The solution: Scrivener + Goodreader

I use Scrivener.

I used to use MS Word and I was (to put it mildly) reluctant to switch word processors. I'd used Word for a number of years, was very comfortable with it--my quibbles with The Ribbon notwithstanding.

But Scrivener has won me over. Having the ability to, at a glance, see a short one sentence description of not only each section but each scene, being able to set up my project targets (I enter the date I want the manuscript done by, the number of words I'd like it to contain and Scrivener will tell me how many words I have to write that day). I also can specify, for each scene, how many words I'd like it to contain and Scrivener will show me my progress graphically.

And the random name generator: heaven!

Anyway. Suffice it to say that I'm a Scrivener convert. You might be wondering what this has to do with a paperless office. I'm coming to that.

PDFs + Goodreader

Scrivener--like Word--gives you the option to output your work as a PDF.

Goodreader--the app--lets you use your finger, or a stylus, to markup PDF files.

This gives writers the ability to get rid of their printer. Here's how:

1. Output your work from your word processor as a PDF file.
2. Import it into Goodreader (many people use Dropbox or Google Drive for this),
3. Markup the PDF file with whatever changes you'd like to make,
4. Save the PDF file back to Dropbox, switch back to your word processor,
5. Open up the PDF doc in a separate window and make whatever changes you'd like to your original document.

That's it!

Perhaps laying it out like that, the five steps, makes it look like a lot of work, but it isn't. Or at least it's a lot less work than printing it out. And it allows one to get rid of paper!

I find this works the best for short stories and novellas, I still print out my novel length stories.

If you'd like to read more about this, here's a great article: The Virtual Red Pen.

More good news: Literature & Latte the creators of Scrivener, may have Scrivener on the iPad in time for NaNo this year!

Photo credit: "melancolia" by paul bica under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

A Must Have App For Writers: Index Card (5 out of 5 stars)

Writers, I've found the killer app for the iPad: Index Card.

Chuck Wendig recommended Index Card in a recent blog post, 25 Ways To Plot, Plan and Prep Your Story. Since I'd gotten a lot of use out of his last app recommendation (SimpleMind for iOS), I gave it a try.

I've used Index Card every day since I've bought it! I even wrote the first draft of my last story using the app.

(I guess after this glowing recommendation I should say I have no connection to the folks who made this app and I'm not an affiliate. I just like to pass along information that's helped me.)

Chuck Wendig also recommended a page called 10 Hints For Index Cards which gives great advice on what to include on a card. For instance:

1. Keep it short. Maximum seven words per card.
2. A card represents a story point, be it a scene or a sequence. You don’t need a card for every little thing.
3. Keep cards general enough that they can be rearranged. (“Battle in swamp” rather than “Final showdown”)

I hear someone asking: What's so great about Index Card?

1. Index Card allows you to write as much per card as you want. 

This is a definite plus for me since I'm ALWAYS running out of room on physical index cards, but I don't want to buy huge cards because I want to be able to fit them all on my cork board. The app just shows the first couple of paragraphs of text in card view and allows you to title each card so you know what that scene/section/chapter is all about. Problem solved!

2. You can move the cards around

Yes, this is something we'd expect from a digital app, but it's a definite improvement over physically arranging bits of paper on a board made of cork.

3. You can change the color of the index cards

Again, this is a small thing, but it helps me keep track of cards that are just description (I use one card to describe each character). You can duplicate and rename the cards, or entire cork boards. 

4. You can create stacks of index cards

For instance, you could call one stack Act One, another stack Act Two, and so on.

5. If you don't like viewing the cards in rows there are other ways of viewing the cards.

You can view the cards in columns or as one long row.

6. You can diagram multiple stories at the same time. 

I like to work on three stories at the same time, but I don't have space to have three cork boards up on my walls. With the Index Card app, just start a new file. I can switch between projects with the tap of a finger.

7. You can quickly and easily export all your work to Dropbox, or email it to yourself, or export it to iTunes, or preview and print it. 

It can even make you coffee in the morning! Okay, maybe not, but I feel that it wants to.

Index Card is $4.99 but, for me, it was well worth it.

A couple of years ago Chuck Wendig wrote a post where he recommends a bunch of apps for the iPad, apps that help him as a writer; it's a great post, highly recommended (Chuck Wendig uses spicy language, so be warned): The iPad For Writers. His app recommendations are toward the end of the post.

What is your favorite writing app?

Photo credit: "form follows function" by Robert Couse-Baker under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

PressReader: A Great App! 5 Out Of 5 Stars

Occasionally I'm approached to review an iPad app and if it's related to blogging, reading, writing, or the publishing world I'm happy to oblige. In the case of PressReader it was a no-brainer.

Every day I read many online newspapers and blogs looking for interesting information to share with you good folks, but I have never read a digitized version of a newspaper.

Everything about PressReader is easy, smooth and bug free. Ordering a paper takes one click followed by a 5 second download. Rather than paging through sections to get to the article you want to read, you simply click on an embedded link and your chosen article unfolds in front of you.

Or, if you simply want to page through the paper quickly to get to a particular section, use the SmartFlow bar at the bottom of the screen. Although the images of each page are about the size of a playing card they are crisp, even on the iPad 2. Of course you can always just flick through the paper page by page. Once you've reached the article just do a reverse pinch motion to zoom in on the text and glide through the article.

What has made me fall in love with this app is the fast, smooth, movement. I've paged through two newspapers now and it hasn't stuttered once, let alone crashed.

Sometimes when I write an unreservedly glowing review of an app one of my readers will write to me and chastise me for being uncritical, so I asked a friend of mine who subscribes to two newspapers to take a look at it. He loved it! His one comment was that he couldn't find a way to view the entire page at one glance. (It could be that there is a command for this that I don't know.)

The next question is: how much? A monthly subscription will run you $29.95 a month but for casual readers--that would be me!--you can download a newspaper for only 99 cents. That's not bad, it's certainly cheaper than buying one.

Has anyone else tried PressReader? If so, what did you think?

Other articles you might like:
- Pixar: 22 Ways To Tell A Great Story
- Penelope Trunk Discusses Time Management
- Kristen Lamb: Don't Let Trolls Make You Crazy

Apple's MacBook Air: A Bundle Of Awesomeness!

Apple's MacBook Air

I just bought my first laptop! AND my first Mac. Since I first put my fingers on a keyboard I've been a PC gal but I took a bite out of the Apple, as it were, when I bought my iPad and I think I'm hooked.

My 13" Air arrived yesterday. I had it deilvered to a friend's house because my intercom is broken and the UPS guy left it with a my friend's neighbor! I had kittens. And then my kittens had kittens. My baby was with a complete stranger!

Fortunately for all concerned my friend's neighbor turned out to be a very sweet elderly Italian lady who invited me in for tea and cookies. But still! She could have been someone visiting from half-way around the word who needed money to support their growing iPhone addiction. For all I know they could have just taken my laptop and disappeared. Anyway, moving on.

Here's a picture of my new 13" MacBook Air in the box. I haven't discovered her name yet, but I'm confident she will tell me what it is.

SJ stands guard over my new MacBook Air

Pretty, isn't she? (That's my friend's cat, SJ. The first thing he did was climb inside the box and then try to lie across the computer.)

I need to do a few things with her before I can use her and I'm a bit nervous. As I said, I'm a PC gal and I've never really used a Mac before. I hope the learning cure isn't too steep. I'll blog about whatever adventures I had setting her up. (I'm excited!)

This post has been a bit different, more personal; I promise things will be back to normal tomorrow.

Cheers! (And wish me luck! I'm going to need it.)

Thanks for reading. :-)

WorldCat: Find Books In A Library Near You

This is a fantastic idea! Ever wondered if a certain book was in a library near you? I know I have. Here's a page that takes the pain out of your search, and it doesn't just work for books, you can use it to locate things such as CDs, DVDs and Articles. (If you'd like to try it out for yourself, go here: WorldCat: The World's Largest Library Catalog.)

To try it out I entered the city I live in and typed in the title of one of my favorite books, Lord Of The Flies, by William Golding. After hitting the enter key I was given a list of links to various editions and formats. I clicked the first link and was presented with a list of libraries in my area that have the book, what format the book is in, the distance to the library, and a list of links to information and services the library provides.

As if that weren't enough I was also presented with links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Better World Books in case I wanted to purchase the book.

Reviews
At the very bottom of the page I was presented with a smattering of reviews Lord Of The Flies has received and which rate it on a scale of 1 to 5. Which brings up the issue of how useful reviews are.
One reviewer on Goodreads.com gave Lord Of The Flies one star out of five and, which may be worse, 102 people agreed with that rating! Let me quote from this review:

See, I would have cared a bit more about the little island society of prepubescent boys and their descent into barbarism if you know, any of the characters had been developed AT ALL

As I say, the mileage you get from the reviews will vary. By the way, I can't give you a direct link to the review I quoted, but you can read it here, it's the last one on the page.

WorldCat: The Site For Mobile devises
WorldCat also has a site for mobile devises (WorldCat: Mobile Web Beta) so I thought I'd try it out on my iPad. This is terrific! It works just the same as the standard website but it seems more streamlined and user friendly.

WorldCat on Facebook
WorldCat also has a Facebook app, to learn more about that go here, WorldCat search plug-ins, or head straight over to Facebook's WorldCat application page.

Cheers!

4 iPad Apps For Writers

The following is from writerswin.com:

There’s a writer in all of us, or so the saying goes, and in this day and age of modern technology and mobile computing, more people are considering this true. People update blogs from their smartphones while commuting to work on the train, and use their tablets to continue the next great American novel in every location from home to coffee shops to church on Sunday.

Since its inception and wide availability, writers of all kinds have embraced the Apple iPad. It’s smaller and lighter than a laptop and as conveniently portable as anything on the market today. Here’s a look at some of the top writing apps for the iPad, each designed to help you be the best writer possible…

Read more here: 4 of the Best iPad Apps for Writers

The iPad apps in question are: Pages, My Writing Spot, Chapters--Notebooks for Writing, Advanced English Dictionary and Thesaurus.

I have Pages on my iPad and I use it constantly. Great app. The other ones I've never used, but I'm tempted by the dictionary app.

Hope you find something to make your writing life easier. Cheers.

Write Or Die: The App

Write Or Die!

An article I just read reminded me that the famous, or should I say, infamous, writing app Write Or Die has transformed into an app for the iPad.

For writers, procrastination is an eternal enemy. It has classically waited in the pauses between words, in that argument outside the window, in being thirsty and needing a glass of water, in having to run to the bathroom. Now, with the Internet, it's also lurking there on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram and Path, and wait, did the London Review of Books just post a new issue online?

In other words, procrastination is everywhere.

Avoiding the procrastination temptation can be too much to ask. But hey, there's an app for that.
Write or Die is made specifically to keep writers on task. It comes with the tag line, "Putting the 'prod' in productivity."

How the app works: Writers begin typing in the app's window. When the typing slows to a stop, there are consequences. The writer can set how severe those consequences will be. In "gentle" mode, a notice pops up with a kind reminder that it's time to start writing. In "normal" mode, the app begins to emit an unpleasant sound, which only stops once the typing begins again. In "kamikaze" mode, the app is set to destroy: when the writing has stopped for too long, the words begin to erase themselves. There is also a "nyan cat" mode, turning an Internet meme into a destructive force.

The message is clear: Keep writing, or else.

Write or Die started out in a desktop version, created by a "Dr. Wicked," and became available as an app for the iPad last fall. Why pay attention now? Turns out, its system of possibly disastrous punishments actually works.

That's according to Helen Oyeyemi, a British writer whose novel "Mr. Fox" just came out in paperback in the U.K. When asked for writing advice this week by The Guardian, Oyeyemi recommended Write or Die, saying, "Because, sometimes, fear is the only motivator."

Read the rest here: Not writing? There's an app for that: Write or Die.

Here is a link to Write Or Die in the app store.

I've been experiencing a bit of writers blog so thought, "This is just the thing! I'll download it." Then I got sticker shock: $9.99! I know many writers swear by the (free) internet version of this app, and I was going to pay anywhere up to $5, but I've never paid $10 for an app.

Hmmm ... I think I need a glass of water ...

How To Use Your iPad to Subscribe to a YouTube Channel

I love my iPad, and I love watching YouTube videos, so naturally I wanted to use my iPad to subscribe to channels I liked. It seemed as though it should be simple, but for months exactly HOW to do this eluded me. Finally I figured it out.

Imagine you're watching a YouTube video, perhaps one of John and Hank Green's Truth or Fail videos, and you decide you want to subscribe to the channel. How would you go about doing this?

1) Press the blue "Done" button in the top left-hand corner of the screen.

2) Press the "More From" menu button in the top right of the screen (it's beside "Related" and "Comments")

3) Just under the "More From" button you'll see "Move Videos from " and then a "Subscribe" button.

Thanks it!

Thanks for reading.

The new iPad

No, not the iPad 2, the NEW, new iPad.

I just finished reading a text stream of the opening presentation in San Fran. I have an iPad 2 and, while there are a lot of new and notable features in the iPad ... the new iPad ... I think that my dollars are going to remain in my bank account, awaiting the release of the iPhone 5 or perhaps a new iMac.

What's new about the new iPad?
The biggest change seems to be the to-die-for retina display, coming in at 2048 x 1536 pixels. I've only seen pictures of pictures -- I'm heading down to my local Apple store later today in the hope of getting my hands on one -- but they looked amazing. Combine that with a twice-as-fast processor and you've got one very nice tablet.

Engadget.com has a table comparing the old iPad to the new one you should check out if you're interested in the details: The new iPad vs. iPad 2: what's changed?

I'm trying to get into the app store to download iPhoto. It would have been nice if Apple had given us a new port so that photos (video, etc.) taken on the iPad could be easily uploaded onto a computer, but, still, iPhoto looks like software worth having. And, hey, it's fun!

Thanks for reading.

My Birthday, NaNoWriMo and Dragonvale: a warning

Okay, I've spent a couple of hours doing things like answering emails and reading posts and now I have half an hour to compose a blog post. Can I do it?

Yes I can! By talking about three things that seemingly have nothing to do with one another.

It was my birthday last week and thank you to everyone who said happy birthday, I really appreciate it! I worked on my birthday -- I'm talking about my day job -- so my friends are taking me out today to celebrate. I'm going to Society.

That's later, in a few minutes I'm heading off to a NaNoWriMo luncheon and information session. I'm excited! As I've said too many times, this is my first year doing NaNo and the 'bright shiny' hasn't worn off. I talk to other, veteran, NaNoers and they look at me pityingly with memories of beery, bloodshot eyes and waking up at their desk, gripping a half-empty can of Red Bull.

I'm time-starved right now so I know something is going to have to give. Sleep, of course. Showering ... hmmm, probably try to keep that one. One thing that's probably going to fall by the wayside is Dragonvale, a delightfully addictive game featuring ... er ... dragons. You get to mate them and build them houses and feed them. Okay, it doesn't sound super addicting but, trust me, it is.

Okay, gotta run!

48 of the best iPad Apps: Many of them free!

As a Canadian writer -- and therefore by definition poor -- I get excited about free! Here's a list of 48 iPad apps starting with BRITISH LIBRARY 19TH CENTURY BOOKS. For this app, if you choose not to subscribe, you only get access to 100 books. But, still!

Here's the article: The 48 Best iPad Apps

iPad Apps for Writers

I felt it was time for another post about iPad apps. Or, in this case, a post about posts about iPad apps!

1) Debbie Ohi, iPadGirl, has written the most compressive listing of iPad apps for writers I've seen. She breaks her post into sections such as, Writing & Project Management Apps I Use The Most Right Now, and Notetaking Apps For Writers Who Prefer Writing By Hand, to name only two of the seven categories she discusses. She talk about 30+ apps. Well worth the read. Apps discussed: SimpleNote, iAWriter, Notebooks, Pages, Evernote, Appigo's To Do, Elements, Manuscript for iPad, to name only a few.

 Read Debbie's post here: iPad Apps For Writers

2) Although only two iPad Apps are compared, iA Writer and PlainText, I think I would be hard pressed to come up with a better comparison and analysis. As a result of reading this blog post I installed PlainText. It's a great little app and, hey, it's free!

Read Alex Layne's post here: iPad Writing Apps: PlainText vs. Writer

Alex's conclusion?

Honestly, I think both apps are great. PlainText has better organization and Dropbox integration, but Writer has a more focused environment and better typography.

 

Azul Media Player for iPad: 5 out of 5 stars

One of the reasons I bought my iPad 2 was to have a portable device that could play video files. Some folks listen to music when they write -- and I do that as well -- but my favorite thing is to listen to old TV shows I've watched dozens of times. I don't feel any curiosity about what will happen next, but I like the background noise.

Anyway, when I bought my iPad I was new to the apple universe but the App store was easy to navigate and I found a media player quickly. Perhaps too quickly. I'm not going to say which media player I bought, but I wasn't happy with it because it didn't play AC3 sound files. There is a file conversion program that will convert sound files into another format, but I didn't have good results.

I began to think about spending $100 for a media player I could hook up to my television but I didn't want to spend the money, and I wanted something portable, so I decided to try The App Store one more time. After reading many reviews, chose Azul.

* insert trumpet sound *

Every AVI file I have tried to play on my iPad using Azul has worked perfectly! Interestingly, even some of the converted files that the other media player had trouble with, Azul has been able to play just fine.

Links:
Azul Website
Azul on iTunes

iPad 2 Rumor: new iPad to weigh 16.5 oz

I'm chomping at the bit for news about the iPad 2.  David Carnoy from cnet reports that, according to a previously accurate tipster, the new iPad shell will be made of a "new material similar to carbon fiber rather than aluminum" reducing the weight of the new iPad from 24 oz to 16.5 oz.

Read the entire article, here.

iPad 2

Edit:  Update on the iPad 2 from cnet. (Dec 23, 2010)

A couple of months ago I decided that I was going to buy a tablet in the new year, but wanted to wait until the iPad 2 came out before I made my final decision.  A month or so ago there were a few reports of the iPad 2 being shipped for Valentines.  My heart went pitter patter and I felt like I was five years old waiting for Christmas to come! 

Today I goggled "iPad 2" and came up with this link.  The video isn't new, it was posted Sept 30th, but it speculated that the iPad would be available for sale in June 2011.  June!  I hope not.

Others speculate that the iPad 2 will have a dual camera, a USB port and a longer battery life.  It would certainly be nice.

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