How to Start a Podcast for Beginners, 12-Week AI Tutor Guide, Recording, Editing, Interviewing and Publishing, PDF

Stop letting "someday I'll start a podcast" sit in your notes app. This 12-week plan turns an AI tutor into your producer and first listener: it helps you find a show worth making, get clean sound out of gear you already own, ask questions that get real answers, cut a rough take into something tight, and get an actual episode live in a real feed. You'll learn the whole pipeline (concept, sound, conversation, edit, publish, grow) so you can fix any episode that isn't working, not just follow a checklist.

WHAT YOU GET
This is a deep digital guide: 12 ready-to-run, ~60-minute weekly sessions. You lead each session: every step is timed and written out for you, so no prior podcasting or AI experience is needed.
• 12 weekly sessions, each with a plain-language concept, a concrete worked example, a minute-by-minute session plan with the AI-tutor prompts built in, a "show me" checkpoint, common mistakes to avoid, and practice.
• "Never used an AI chat assistant? Start here": a five-minute onboarding that gets a complete beginner from zero to ready, using a free AI assistant. No paid plan required.
• Four rescue prompts in the front matter for when a session goes sideways.
• One real, published episode and a release plan for the ten after it.

THE 12 WEEKS
1. Find Your Show & Format
2. Good Sound on a Budget
3. Your Voice on Mic: Solo Delivery & Pacing
4. Interviewing & Real Conversation
5. Recording Clean Takes
6. Editing for Listenability
7. Intro, Outro & Episode Structure
8. Publishing & How Feeds Work
9. Growing an Audience Honestly
10. Project Week I: Plan Episode One
11. Project Week II: Record & Release Episode One
12. Demo Day and the Next Ten Episodes

WHO IT'S FOR
Adults with something to say who want to launch a real podcast people actually finish, with no studio, no existing audience, and no experience with recording or editing required.

WHY THIS INSTEAD OF A FREE CHATBOT
A raw chatbot will happily generate you a list of "podcasting tips" and move on. This pack ships the structure and depth it lacks: a real 12-week progression through the whole pipeline (concept, sound, conversation, edit, publish, grow), with a tutor set up to work from your actual audio, ask before it tells, and give you an honest read on whether a stranger would keep listening. You finish with a real episode in a real feed, not a folder of half-finished ideas.

FAQ
• Do I need any experience? None. Week 1 is finding your show concept; every skill after that is broken into small, checked steps, and week 2 covers gear you likely already own.
• Which AI does it use? Any modern AI assistant: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, or Gemini. Free versions are enough; no paid plan is required. If you've never used one before, the guide's first section walks you through setup in about five minutes. No special software beyond that, though a way to record and share audio helps from week 2 on.
• Do I need expensive equipment? No. The pack is built around good sound on a budget: your phone or a basic USB mic is enough to finish the season.
• Will I actually publish something? Yes. Weeks 10 and 11 are a dedicated project to plan, record, and release one real episode to a live podcast feed.
• Does it work outside the US? Yes. The guide is written in US English, and every weekly launch prompt tells the AI to use your country or region for spelling, units, money, and examples, and the publishing week factors in hosting options where you live. For anything legal, like recording consent or music licensing, the guide points you to official local sources.
• Refunds? Standard marketplace refund policy applies.

WHAT'S IN THE DOWNLOAD
• podcast-guide.pdf: the full 12-week guide, easy to read on any phone, tablet, or computer
• podcast-ai-copy.md: the same guide as plain text, to hand straight to your AI chat assistant
• Placement check (Are You Ready to Start a Podcast?): a 15-minute AI chat that scores where your learner stands and names the week to start at, as a prompt to paste and a printable card
• READ-ME-FIRST.txt: which file is which

Instant digital download. Nothing is shipped.

AI disclosure: I guided the main portion; AI executed some parts for me.