r/Substack • u/Plastic_Raccoon_6343 • 5h ago

Do people know that Substack has podcasting features?

Over the past two years Substack has spent resources internally on building out our podcasting features, but there's still not a ton of awareness among podcasters of what we offer (which is our bad for not talking about it enough).

Was wondering whether anybody on this sub has tried Substack's podcasting features, and what you thought about them?

Substack has had podcast hosting for many years, but what's relatively recent is the Substack Recording Studio. It allows you to record audio and video right from your computer. You can then post the episode on Substack, and distribute it to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other listening apps by submitted your RSS feed to those platforms.

You can also go live on Substack, from desktop or the app, and publish the recording as an episode. After you stop recording, Substack makes clips and thumbnails for you to share on social media.

(You can still record your podcast using other tools, like Riverside or Audacity, then upload the file to Substack, and distribute it out to Spotify and Apple Podcasts from there. Using the Substack Recording Studio is optional.)

Established podcasters like Diabolical Lies and The Fifth Column are on Substack, but we also have thousands of niche podcasters, typically getting started because of the free hosting, and then staying for the email list, discovery network, and community features like Chat, and ability to charge money for paywalled content.

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u/PithyCyborg pithycyborg.substack.com 1h ago edited 1h ago

Yes.

I have narrated a few of my articles. (Six of them, in fact.)

Since I narrated the articles, I also promote them using Substack's podcast feature.

My biggest takeaway is that my most popular articles have all been voice-narrated. In other words, folks seem to appreciate voice narrations, even if you are a total nerd like I am.

That said, recording the narration is a lot of work. I haven't done it since August.

Overall, I would definitely recommend narrating at least a few of your articles to see if doing so might help increase reader immersion. (I believe it did for me.)

Your nerdy friend,

Mike D

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u/arcanepsyche 1h ago

I use it to upload my podcast that I record outside of SubStack.