How to Create a Podcast In 5 Minutes

Podcasts are everywhere these days, and for a good reason—they’re a fantastic way to reach an audience on the go.

Substack posts by top 30 categories (by the author)

I recently dove into Substack's post statistics and discovered something fascinating: podcasts are the second most popular category.

That got me thinking: why am I not doing this, too?

Then I noticed even Substack megastars like

Heather Cox Richardson

are leveraging text-to-speech tools to create podcasts. They take their written stories, convert them into audio, and boom—a podcast is born. Inspired, I decided to see how fast I could make one myself.

Spoiler alert: the whole process took less than five minutes!

Here’s precisely how I did it:

1. I already had an AWS account and logged into Amazon Polly, their text-to-speech service. (It’s free to use if you’re in the free tier - here are the pricing details).

2. I copied an article and used Polly to convert it into an MP3 audio file. Hearing my words come to life in a smooth, professional voice felt like magic.

3. Next, I uploaded the MP3 file directly to Substack. (Yes, Substack makes this super easy!)

4. I scheduled the post with my new podcast audio to go live.

That’s it. No fancy recording equipment is needed. No hours of editing. And the best part? It didn’t cost me a penny.

Amazon Polly Text-to-Speech Interface ( screenshot by the author)

If you’ve ever hesitated about starting a podcast because it seemed too time-consuming or expensive, I’m here to tell you it’s simpler than you think. In just five minutes, I turned my article into a podcast and reached a new audience.

So, what are you waiting for? Your stories deserve to be heard—literally!