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Publish Your First Episode

Publishing your first episode is exciting! This guide walks you through creating an episode, adding your content, and making it live.

What You'll Need

  • Episode title: a clear, descriptive title
  • Recording date: when you recorded (or will record) the episode
  • Audio file: MP3, M4A, or WAV. You can add it after creating the episode.

Start with a draft

You don't need your audio ready to create an episode. Draft it with a title and description first, then add audio when it's ready.

Steps

1. Start a new episode

From your podcast's Overview page, click New Episode in Quick Actions. Or go to Episodes in the sidebar and click New episode.

2. Enter episode details

Fill in the Episode Details section:

FieldWhat it's for
Episode TitleA clear title for this episode, up to 200 characters (required)
Episode NumberSuggested automatically based on your existing episodes
DescriptionWhat listeners will hear, up to 4,000 characters

The description field is a rich text editor with Bold, Italic, bullet and numbered lists, and links. A character counter shows how much room you have left.

3. Set your dates

In the Scheduling section:

  • Recording Date & Time (required): when this episode is recorded. Your time zone is shown under the field.
  • Scheduled Publish Date & Time (optional): set this if you want the episode to go live automatically at a specific time.

Why the recording date matters

Episodes count toward your plan's monthly episode allowance based on their recording month. If a month is full, pick a date in another month, add an episode pack, or upgrade. See Billing and Plans.

4. Create your episode

Click Create Episode. Your episode is created as a draft and opens straight in the episode editor.

5. Get to know the episode editor

The editor has five tabs: Details, Collaborators, Media, Automation, and Publish. See Create an Episode for a full tour.

6. Add your audio

Go to the Media tab and upload your audio file. Supported formats: MP3, M4A, and WAV, up to 500MB. See Upload Audio for details.

7. Publish

Go to the Publish tab and click Publish Now. Your episode goes live in your RSS feed and reaches listeners on every platform your show is listed on.

You'll see an Audio required notice on the Publish tab until your audio upload is finished.

On the Free plan?

Free accounts can publish 2 episodes per calendar month. Unpublishing doesn't return the allowance; it resets on the 1st of the next month. Paid plans publish without a monthly publishing cap.

Prefer to schedule it?

Instead of Publish Now, set a Scheduled Publish Date & Time and click Schedule. PodcasterPlus publishes the episode automatically at that time.

Audio Best Practices

For the best listener experience:

  1. MP3 at 128 to 320 kbps is a good balance of quality and file size
  2. Keep levels consistent: around -16 LUFS is comfortable for most listeners
  3. Reduce background noise before uploading; the cleaner the source, the better

What's Next?

Congratulations, you're a published podcaster! Some good next steps:

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