Leedsista podcast: More Listening
Leedsista Libre
Free!
I've been reading my writing out loud on a podcast for subscribers since 2017, and Leedsista Libre is a free podcast that will dip weekly into the archives to republish some of those recordings for free.
You can follow Leedsista Libre wherever you get your podcasts, or by hitting the button below.
More Listening
Support Leedsista!
Leedsista members on the More Listening tier (or above) can listen to me reading every new article out loud in my fine Yorkshire voice, all in a convenient and easy to use private podcast feed.
It's only £5 a month, includes members-only articles and emails, you can try it for free for 30 days, and there's a sample episode below that you can listen to right now.
(Want to use Spotify? Scroll to the bottom for info)
If you're a More Listening member who likes to listen in your web browser, you can do that on this page, using the embedded player below (it'll show up when you're logged in). It includes the latest episode and all the old ones.
Below the player you'll also find info on adding the podcast feed to apps on your phone or other devices.
Listen in your podcast apps
It's easy to add your private Leedsista podcast feed to your favourite apps.
When you signed up, you should have received an email from the podcast service — Transistor.fm — with instructions. You should also receive an email every time I post a new episode, unless you've turned those emails off, and they contain the instructions too. There's also a guide with a video here.
(If you haven't had any emails, contact me here and I'll resend.)
Those instructions boil down to: press the 'Listen Now' button in the email, choose your podcast app from the list, then when the app opens, hit the 'Follow' or 'Subscribe' button.
You can do this for as many apps as you have, on as many different devices as you use — so you can do this on your phone, then on your laptop. You can also manually copy and paste the feed into your app, but that shouldn't be necessary.
The private feed works in most podcast apps, but not all — significantly, not Spotify. If Spotify is a deal-breaker for you, please see below for a workaround.
Which podcast apps work with the feed?
Here's a list of which apps do or don't work:
These iOS podcast apps allow you to add private feeds:
Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Downcast, Castro
These Android podcast apps allow you to add private feeds:
Castbox, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Podcast Republic, Player FM (register for an account first), Dog Catcher, Beyond Pod, Podcasty, PodKicker
These podcast apps don’t support private podcasts:
Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podcast App, PodcastOne, DoublePod, PodcastHD, Podcast Guru
What if I really, really want to use Spotify?
Spotify generally don't like private, subscribers-only podcasts, because they charge their own subscriptions. But they have been experimenting with allowing some members-only podcast feeds to integrate with Spotify.
One service that integrates is Patreon, where I have hosted the 'Moscowcast' since (checks notes) blimey, 2017. That's the same thing as More Listening — me reading articles out.
Ideally I'd like to move everything over from Patreon to here, but I am keeping it open to give people the option of using Spotify for the More Listening podcasts.
If you go to my Patreon page, there's one tier there available to sign up for. If you join that, you will get the option to add a podcast feed to Spotify and listen that way. You also get a feed that works in the same podcast apps as the regular one. Signing up on Patreon will also create an account for you on this site, so you'll get all the benefits of reading the extra articles, getting them by email, and so on.
There's one important condition I should mention — it's more expensive. I'm asking £6 a month for using Patreon, instead of £5 to join directly here. There are three reasons for this:
- It's extra work — setting this up is a bit of a faff and I use a paid service for it, and then I have to upload the podcast files in different places
- Patreon takes a cut and charges extra fees, so I won't be seeing all of that extra pound
- Spotify kinda sucks with the way it pays artists and has ruined Barcelona's nice shirts, so I don't want to encourage them. But yes I am also a hypocrite and use it all the time as well
I hope that makes sense — drop me a line if you've any questions about it, or just head to Patreon to sign up there.