A podcast can be a great way to extend your author brand, but it requires a sizeable time and financial investment, and the process can be challenging. Enter Anchor, a new app that offers a user-friendly way to record and share your own podcasts.
What Is Anchor?
Initially conceived as a broadcasting app for short-form audio, Anchor became a popular choice for podcasters looking for a user-friendly way to publish their content. Anchor quickly adapted and reimagined the service as a free, easy-to-use podcasting program.
With Anchor, authors can, within the app, record and add audio, create and edit episodes, and share to major podcast platforms to extend your reach. With robust marketing and social media campaigns, authors can generate good buzz about their new podcasts and the titles they publish.
How to Use Anchor
After downloading the app, you’re presented with a variety of features:
- Click on the red “microphone” button to start recording audio for your very first podcast. After recording, you’ll be given a preview of the full audio, and you can add intro or outro music, transitions, and more. Once you’re finished with this piece of audio, you can add it to an episode.
- If you’re doing an interview or Q&A, Anchor makes it easy to ask your listeners to send in audio messages to be played on your podcast.
- Anchor can connect to your iTunes or Spotify account to add music to your podcast before it gets exported. If you need to sample a piece of music or you’re looking for a specific background song, the “music notes” button will automatically add it to your episode.
- With the “record with friends” feature, you can bring in collaborators for a panel discussion, interview, or conversation. If you are working with a cohost, you can quickly get a call started and save the recording to your episode.
- When you hit the “publish” button, you’ll be able to add a title and description to your episode, publish to Anchor, share on social media, and distribute externally to Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, and more. (Note that music will not be included on external platforms.)
Find a Cohost
Anchor’s most recent update, released last month, includes “Cohosts,” an innovative new feature that allows you to connect with others who are interested in discussing the same topic. Though Anchor makes it easy to collaborate with friends and colleagues, this new feature allows for unexpected, engaging conversations, and might be a good fit depending on your preferred topic and comfort level.
When you use Cohosts, Anchor immediately searches for someone currently using the app and connect the two of you to get started. If no one can be found immediately, the app will notify you when it finds a match.
If you’re interested in this feature, click here to learn more.
PRH Authors on the Platform
Alison Green, Ballantine author and founder of the popular workplace advice website Ask a Manager, used Anchor to create her podcast. Her advice on handling workplace dilemmas and dramas works well in an audio format, alongside her successful blog and current book.
When the Ask a Manager podcast debuted, it hit the Top 100 on the Apple Podcast charts (#54 in all show categories, and #7 in the Business category). It was featured for several weeks on Apple’s New and Noteworthy page, and in less than two months it has gained more than 100,000 downloads.
Podcasting may or may not be the right choice for you as an author, but many have found it effective and engaging. Think about whether a podcast makes sense as a way of extending your brand. Consider the topics you write about and whether they would translate well in the podcast space. Think about ways to make your extended content relevant and appealing to listeners. And make sure your podcast idea lends itself to abundant content that you can publish on Anchor on a periodic basis. If you are indeed interested in making a podcast, reach out to your marketing team for further information.
For more tips and trends on podcasting, check out these Author News articles from previous editions:
- Podcasting Tips from Beaks & Geeks
- Trends in Podcasting, and What Podcasts Should Be on Your Radar?
- Navigating the Podcast World
Phil Stamper-Halpin is Senior Manager, Publishing Development & Author Platforms for Penguin Random House.