What guidelines and tips do you have for submitting podcasts to the AppleVis website?

Thank you for considering submitting a podcast to AppleVis! In order to ensure the highest quality and relevance for our listeners, we ask that you please read and follow these guidelines carefully.

This page also sets out the guidelines and rules which inform our quality assurance process when reviewing podcast submissions.

Before Starting Your Recording

  • Check our archive for existing podcasts on the same topic. If the topic has already been covered, we will only accept your podcast if it offers new or additional information.
  • Plan and prepare what you want to cover in your podcast.
  • Familiarize yourself with any apps or products that you will be demonstrating in the podcast.
  • Adjust VoiceOver volume and speech rate for optimal listening. We recommend 50-60%.
  • Turn on Do Not Disturb if using an Apple device.
  • Choose a recording location with minimal background noise.
  • Make a test recording to check audio levels and background noise.
  • Content is far more important than recording quality, so don't be deterred from recording a podcast simply because you don't have specialist equipment or software. A good quality recording can be made directly onto an iOS device.
  • Mono recording is preferred over stereo, unless the podcast requires stereo recording for its content.

During Recording

  • Tell listeners the topic of your podcast and what you will be covering. If your podcast is about an app or accessory, state clearly the name of the app/accessory and what it does.
  • Make sure that the names of any apps or products mentioned in the podcast are correct. It can also be helpful to spell out any names so as to avoid any possible confusion with similarly named items.
  • If demonstrating an app, don't feel obliged to walk-through and describe each and every page, element and button.
  • We do not post complete walk-throughs of games, as these have the potential of spoiling the game for listeners. Accordingly, if demonstrating a game, please limit this to what is necessary to give the listener an overview of gameplay and accessibility.
  • Clearly state what gestures or keystrokes you are using when interacting with an app.
  • Try to avoid talking while VoiceOver is speaking.
  • Try to keep to a minimum any discussion which is not relevant to the podcast (we will most likely remove this, anyway).
  • Try to avoid long pauses and too many “ums” and “ahs”.
  • Limit contact information to 1-2 options, such as an email address and/or Twitter username.

After Recording

  • Listen to your recorded audio in full to make sure that you have done what you set out to do; and that the above guidelines have been followed.
  • Please do not add the AppleVis intro or outro clips to your recorded audio. Although you are most likely trying to save us work, you won't have access to the original clips, so we will only need to redo this.
  • Submit the audio in it's original state if possible, as we will always need to do some editing, and each recompression of the audio will result in some degradation in sound quality.
  • Use this page to submit your audio to AppleVis.

Important notes:

  1. Submission does not guarantee posting on the AppleVis website.
  2. AppleVis reserves the right to edit audio and content.
  3. Do not use the podcast feed to promote products or services. We typically do not accept a podcast from somebody directly connected with what is featured in the podcast.
  4. Profanity or offensive comments will not be accepted.
  5. AppleVis does not repost audio recorded for another website or radio show.
  6. Podcasts widely available on other websites will not be reposted.
  7. All podcasts must be in English.
  8. Submit one podcast at a time and wait for review and posting before submitting another.

Podcasts Which Do Not Meet AppleVis' Quality Assurance Guidelines

AppleVis is run by a small team of volunteers, and processing podcast submissions in a timely manner is just one of the many things we do. Thus, we have developed the below policy for working with podcast submissions which do not meet the quality assurance guidelines set out above:

  • If a submitted podcast does not meet our quality assurance guidelines, it will not be accepted for publication to the AppleVis Podcast. The author will be notified as to why the podcast was not accepted, and detailed feedback on how the podcast could be improved will be provided. If the author wishes to submit a second version of the podcast for review, they are welcome to do so.
  • If the second version of a podcast does not meet our quality assurance guidelines, it will not be accepted for publication to the AppleVis Podcast. The author will be notified as to why the podcast was not accepted, and detailed feedback on how the podcast could be improved will be provided. If the author wishes to submit a third version of the podcast for review, they are welcome to do so.
  • If the third version of a podcast does not meet our quality assurance guidelines, it will not be accepted for publication to the AppleVis Podcast. The author will be notified that the podcast was not accepted for publication; however, detailed feedback will not be provided, and no further submissions of the same podcast from the same author will be reviewed.
  • We will review up to three (3) versions of any one podcast.
  • Authors who submit a podcast which does not meet our quality assurance guidelines are welcome to submit different podcasts on other topics. Each podcast is reviewed on an individual basis, and we will review up to three versions of a podcast—even if an author's podcasts have not met our quality assurance guidelines in the past.
  • AppleVis reserves the wright to approve or reject any podcast for any reason.

Please contact us if you have any questions which aren’t answered here.

Resources

A podcast by Scott Davert in which he shares some tips and good practice for recording podcasts
A podcast in which Thomas Domville demonstrates how the iOS app Audio Memos can be used to record podcasts