We love feedback and comments on our podcast episodes! Twitter and email are great ways to respond to our show, but if you want us to be able to incorporate your comments into a future episode — or if you want us to feature you reading aloud an extract from your favourite romance novel — you need to send us an audio recording.

Yes! Of you! Your voice! We would be so thrilled!

There are several ways to do this. We’ve listed a few of the simplest ways you can do this. (Of course, if you’re a sound engineer, feel free to go all out and wow us!)

Pro tip (not really pro): Your car is a good place to record (obviously while parked and when there’s not much traffic around). The worst place is the bathroom. Or a noisy pub.

Social media

Record a video of you on your smartphone, and post it on Twitter or Instagram. You must tag us at @BookThingo so that we can find your post.

iPhone

Open the Voice Memos app, tap the big red dot, and record your comment or extract reading. (If you have those snazzy Apple earbuds with a built-in mic, they work well with recordings.) When you’re done, tap the big red square and name your file. Tap on the file name, and tap on the sharing icon on the lower left (below the triangle play icon). This brings up a bunch of apps that you can use to share the file. Feel free use an email app to send it to us.

Android

Download an app like Pocket WavePad and follow the instructions (sorry, we don’t have an Android!).

macOS Desktop

On Mac, open QuickTime Player and go to File > New Audio Recording. Click on the record button to start, and click again to finish. Follow the prompts to name and save your file, then email it to us!

Windows Desktop

The application you need will depend on the version of Windows you have. On Win7, you need to open Sound Recorder. When you open the application, click on Start Recording to start, and Stop Recording when you’re done. On Win8 and Win10, you need to open Voice Recorder. Click on the microphone to start recording. Follow the prompts to name and save your file, then email it to us!

Online

If all else fails, there are several free online voice recorders available: Free online audio recorder by APowersoft, Vocaroo, Online voice recorder by 123Apps. If it gives you a choice, please save the file as .wav (preferred) or .mp3. But please note: We haven’t tried any of these and can’t vouch for their effectiveness or security.

Audio recorder

If you have one of these, you probably don’t need our help with recording. It might be good to know that we record in mono at 64 kbps , 44.1 kHz, constant bit rate. You can send us an mp3 (or any format, really) but if you send us a .wav file, I’m sure Rudi would be very appreciative.

Let us know if you have any trouble with these apps, or if you have other recommendations that we should include in this list!