Libsyn quick start guide

In order to quickly get up and running you need three things:

* An audio file in either mp3 or AAC (your podcast)

* A hosting provider (libsyn) – to which you can upload your audio file

* A title and description for the podcast

… and your done!

Here is a step-by-step-guide to doing this using the libsyn interfaces. First of all you will need to login with your username and password.

You will then see a menubar that looks like the one below:

Click on “Media Files” and you will see a screen that looks similar to the one below (you have not uploaded any files yet so other than a sample podcast welcoming you to libsyn it will be blank)

Then click on the “upload” button to see this screen:

To upload files such as podcasts (mp3 or AAC files) or images click on the “choose file” button. A window will appear showing you files on your local hard drive. Go to the folder that the file you want to upload is located and select the file. Then click “load file”.

You will then see an animated graphic that looks like this and counts down how long it has been uploading.

Depending on the size of your file (and your internet connection) this can take several minutes.

If you have trouble uploading a media file using the browser you can also use an FTP client to upload your file (in some cases this may be faster and more reliable).

Once the podcast file has been uploaded you can click on the blue “publish” tab. This will bring up a form that looks similar to the one below.

Select a category, type in a title and a description of your podcast. You will also need to select the matching audio file (the podcast audio file) and if you want an image to appear with the podcast on your libsyn podcast page that image as well. The image file can either be one that you previously uploaded or you can select from this form one to include from your own hard drive. The image below shows you where to to fill out any show notes that you'd like to accompany the post.

In most browsers (not enabled in Safari) you'll see a tool bar in the Show Notes section of the Publishing form. This tool bar will help you to format your show notes as you desire. By mousing over the buttons you should be able to see what function each button will perform.

Clicking the w/h button will switch from 'What you see is what you get' view to Html view if you prefer to format in HTML.