Spent this afternoon setting up the "studio" (or the spare room as it's more commonly known) setting up a podcasting arrangement to begin work on Carnival of Souls.

I thought I would share my finding here should you be thinking of doing the same.

1. Because I spent so long in a band, the sound of my own recorded voice does not phase me. I was quite surprised that I recognised this voice after so long. It's odd. It's like listening to somebody you know really well but can't quite place the face. If you’re not used to your own voice, do lots of testing for days and weeks on end. If you’re not comfortable with your voice, do you really expect me to be?

2. I've had all the windows and doors open in the house all day long and now I have a bit of a 'sniffy nose' as Rhiannon would put it. This doesn't sound great when it intersperses every other paragraph. Thus; note to self, in future, podcast in a warm but well ventilated area - so yeah, it's kind of like using gloss paint.

3. Don't use paper to read from. It rustles. Make the text that you're going to read as large as possible without having to scroll every two minutes. This is far preferable if you can use a different machine than the one you're using to record on. I know most people don't have more than one machine at hand, but borrow one. It gives the whole process just that little bit more grease.

4. How long should your podcast be? Who knows. Try downloading something you really like and then see how long it takes before you get bored of it. That's as good a rule of thumb as any. If you're the sort of person who thinks 24 moves too slowly, maybe podcasting isn't for you.

5. Turn your phones off. All of them.

6. Either do all the distracting items in your life before you start or just leave them until tomorrow... or the next day. All of these things crossed my mind while I was testing it out: have a shave, have a shower, make a cup of tea, how does this podcasting thing work, must call my mother, I need to finish that web page I started this morning... the list just goes on. Get as much of it out of your system as you can. If you're like me, you'll just find them distracting and wander off to do them. Oh, and don't stay online. Fatal.

I think these are good rules of thumb to follow. I'm also quite mindful that throwing your podcast on the internet and expecting people to be interested off the bat is the equivalent of standing naked near a beehive. Stupid and you will get stung.