LibriVox Forum

As a heavy consumer of a particular genre of LibriVox recordings, I'm interested in making this content more accessible. I'd like to look into creating a podcast that specifically focuses on my favorite genre, where I would crank out a podcast episode for each title.

I have tried searching the LV forums for podcasting discussions, but apart form the LV community podcast, I'm not seeing current discussions about this.

Has this been tried before and I just missed it?

I'm a technical guy, but haven't done any podcasting yet. Is there someone reading this who has podcasting experience, that could provide a little guidance?

Thanks!

I recorded a short story once for LibriVox that was going to be used by a podcast. I'll try to remember the Web site.

There used to be a couple of LibriVox podcasts, but they have fallen by the wayside. See

https://librivox.org/pages/podcast-page/#1

In addition to the book and the community podcast, for a short while there was a also new releases podcast.

Putting on a devil's advocate hat...

Would you ask advice on podcasting about knitting in a knitting forum? On podcasting about paragliding in a paragliding forum? Or would you rather look for a podcasting forum and ask there?

Scott, I got your PM inquiring about my experience with the LV podcast. I'm replying here in this thread so others with more experience might offer better advice than me. (My experience is limited to only one podcast.)

Basically I found that assembling a podcast is not much different from editing together a dramatic reading or play. If you have done that, then just keep the same things in mind when you edit a podcast - (make sure you adjust all the contributed clips to match at a similar volume level, consider how much 'breathing space' to leave between one clip and another, etc.) The only thing I found new and different in a podcast was that in editing a dramatic work, all the material was already scripted for me, while in a podcast, I had to write my own commentary to connect the clips together, and consider in what order to place the clips.

When it was time to post the completed podcast, an LV admin did that step of the process. I have never uploaded anything directly to archive.org myself, so I wouldn't be able to advise you on that step. But there are lots of people who know how to do that, so it should be easy to find some advice on that step. I have a non-LV friend who has a regular biweekly podcast, and she posts her podcast on soundcloud, which might be another alternative to archive.

Podcasting cataloged projects is much different than creating a community podcast. The community podcast is assembled and sent to Archive, like a regular project. The podcasts spoken of in the first post here would involve somehow taking the cataloged files and... submitting them to a podcast feed? I don't know exactly, but doing something else with them than we do with the community podcast.

I had a similar idea, but I was wondering if you mean that the podcasts would be just the Librivox recording or it would also contain commentary, from you and/or others.

TriciaG wrote: ↑July 15th, 2020, 2:27 pm Podcasting cataloged projects is much different than creating a community podcast. The community podcast is assembled and sent to Archive, like a regular project. The podcasts spoken of in the first post here would involve somehow taking the cataloged files and... submitting them to a podcast feed? I don't know exactly, but doing something else with them than we do with the community podcast.

Correct. I envision show notes that explain the source of the audio (LV) and that they are public domain recordings, and (if Archive's streaming is configured properly) using links to the Archive content as the podcast audio component. I personally don't enjoy all the commentary that's often inserted before and after stories I hear on podcasts, so I wasn't planning on adding audio content of my own.

Thinking it through, I might want to make a separate intro recording for episode 1 (and possibly repeating later) explaining the content, since I bet many people ignore show notes in things like Apple Podcast and Stitcher. If I can submit that content to Archive and have it served from there, so much the better.

I need to figure out how to do the basic block-and-tackle work of creating and publishing the RSS feed for a podcast; I'm hoping someone here might be able to provide a little guidance on tools and platforms that have worked well for them.

McScotty wrote: ↑July 17th, 2020, 10:23 am I need to figure out how to do the basic block-and-tackle work of creating and publishing the RSS feed for a podcast; I'm hoping someone here might be able to provide a little guidance on tools and platforms that have worked well for them.

That is precisely where I don't expect you'll find a lot of help on this forum. We no longer do a regular podcast here, as it's not our focus. Occasionally, we'll put a new one out, but there will often be many months in between. Even those who are involved in the production of the podcast (as far as recording and editing) aren't usually involved with actually submitting the audio to.... wherever it is that it needs to go!

I think your best bet is to follow Tovarisch's hint and find a forum that is dedicated to podcasting, not producing audio books.

If I'm wrong, and someone comes along who has the info you need, then so much the better!

I'm don't know much about podcasts but the "podcast" we produced is not distributed as a podcast - it's distributed the same way as all our mp3 files.
We did have a reader who, independently of us did something they called a chapter book, picking an LV book and transmitting it a chapter at a time at regular intervals but I don't know how.
If you have iTunes on your computer you can click on the <subscribe to iTunes> button on the LV catalogue page and it will appear and be playable under the podcast collection of iTunes.
And that is about the end of my knowledge - I've not used iTunes for that purpose but I just tried one and it worked

Anne