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The world of podcasting has become a huge business ever since the invention of iTunes. Podcasting can be both a hobby, but also a way to make money. If you are aiming to make money off of your podcast, you will not find tips on how to make money off of your podcast in this article, but you will find instructions on how to start your podcast with as little money as possible.

The Recording Studio

Your first recording studio doesn’t need to be anything big, a simple USB or Plug n’ Play headset will work wonders, and can usually be bought for under $40, in some cases even under $10. You don’t want to spend a lot on your first recording studio, because for the first few months of your podcast you will need to decide if you want to continue on with your podcast, and if you decide you don’t want to continue and you purchased a big expensive recording studio, it can be hard to sell it back. However, when you feel confident with the podcast you can upgrade.

Hosting Ser vices

Your podcast isn’t going to be free to run, in order for people to be able to download your episodes you need to have a way to get your files onto the internet and available to everyone. There is a simple service called PodBean that does most of the technical work for you, and the basic version is only $5 a month. You can find PodBean at http://www.podbean.com/.

Should I have a separate website?

You may want to have a separate website for your podcast and just use PodBean as a storage area for your podcast. This method can actually save you a lot of money if you want to have your own email domain too.

Blogger sells domains, and you could use a Blogger blog with your own domain as your website to put show notes and links to audio files for listening to the episodes on the blog, some listeners prefer listening instead of downloading them. The domain would be $10 dollars a year.

But how am I saving money?

Having your own email domain can be pretty expensive. Google normally offers this for $50 a month, but since Google owns Blogger it is a little bit different. If you purchase a domain from Blogger they will also include Google Aps at no charge, which is the service that provides email domains. So normally this would be $600 a year, but instead it would be $10 a year with the Blogger domain.

Is there such a thing as free advertising?

There are a few ways to advertise for free. Social networks are a great way to save money, just post updates about your podcast, and post updates when new episodes are released, but don’t spam. Twitter is probably the best way to do this.

You can also contact other podcasters and ask if they would like to link to each other. Then you will both be advertising each other’s podcast, but it will help draw in more viewers for sure.

Anything else I need to know?

That’s about it. Just make sure you have a good schedule of when you are going to release episodes so your listeners don’t forget about you.  Maybe you could even start a mailing list, but that’s a whole other article.