Distributing to Amazon Music is a must for any podcaster, big or small. That is why we have written this blog post on Amazon Music podcast submission.
Right now Amazon Music has about 55 million listeners around the world and that number is only growing. 🔥 When you submit your podcast content to Amazon, becomes available in all kinds of different, interwoven formats:
- Amazon Music website
- Amazon Music app
- Audible website
- Audible app
- Amazon Prime membership
- Alexa
Probably one of the best parts of putting your podcast on Amazon Music is that it makes it easy for listeners to request Alexa to play it. Amazon Music is the default music and audio service on Alexa. This means if your podcast is on Amazon Music, people can just say:
“Alexa, play [insert the name of your awesome podcast here] on Amazon Music” 🤖
How cool is that!? We’ll get into more details about how to listen to your podcast on Alexa later in this blog post. 👇 We’ll also explain how to access podcasts on Amazon Music and Audible.
To start, we are going to walk you through, step-by-step, how to submit your podcast content to Amazon Music. First we’ll cover how to do it if you have an Ausha account. 💜 Then we’ll cover how to do it if you don’t.
We will also cover the metrics Amazon provides to you, how to get featured on Amazon Music, and how you can monetize your podcast on Amazon.
If you still have any questions by the end of reading this guide, remember we are always available to help on our Ausha chat! Our mission is to make your podcast content heard! 🚀
How to Submit Your Podcast to Amazon with Ausha
Amazon Music podcast submission is so easy to do on the Ausha platform, it feels a little silly to type it out click-by-click, but here we go!
Step 1:
Sign in to your Ausha account 💜 As a reminder, Ausha the first podcast marketing platform with all the tools a podcaster needs to launch and grow their show.
Step 2:
Select the podcast that you want to distribute to Amazon Music. (Maybe you are a serial podcaster. In this case you need to distribute your shows one by one on Amazon Music.)
Step 3:
Then, go into “Settings” on the main page of your show and select “Distribution” on the left-hand side 👈
Step 4:
Click “Distribute” in the Amazon box image 🚀
Step 5:
Select ‘yes’ or ‘no’ whether your podcast has already been made available on Amazon Music or Audible through a different hosting service other than Ausha.
That’s it. 🔥 Those are the steps. Now your podcast is on Amazon Music and Audible (you may have to give it about 24 hours). Hooray!
How to Submit Your Podcast to Amazon Without Ausha
The manual way to do an Amazon Music podcast submission is a little more complicated and time-intensive, but you can do it! Here is a guide to the steps:
Step 1:
Go to this wonderfully easy URL: https://podcasters.amazon.com/
Step 2:
Click the “Add or Claim Your Podcast” button.
Step 3:
At this point, Amazon will prompt you to login in to your Amazon account or create an Amazon account.
Step 4:
Once you’ve signed, you’ll be sent to a page that says ‘add your podcast.’ In the space provided, put in your podcast’s RSS feed URL.
Step 5:
Then select which country your listener audience is primarily located in.
Step 6:
Now you will see a kind of confirmation page. It will ask “Is this your podcast?” showing you your podcast cover art content. It will also ask you to click a box that says you’ve read their Terms of Service. Then you click the “Confirm Email” button.
Step 7:
Check your email inbox and follow any instructions on the confirmation email to confirm. The email will be sent to the email address associated with the RSS feed link, so be sure you are checking the correct email inbox.
Now wait with eager anticipation. Your podcast should start appearing on Amazon Music and Audible apps within about 24 hours. 🚀
If your podcast audio content doesn’t appear or if you run into any other trouble, reach out to Amazon at their email: [email protected].
Check Your Status
After you have finished your Amazon Music podcast submission, you may notice something called the ‘show status.’ Keeping an eye this can help you make sure your podcast is up and running on Amazon, or troubleshoot the reasons it is not.
Here are the most common statuses you may see:
Pending
Every time you create a new episode and upload it to your hosting platform, it can take Amazon up to 24 hours to make that episode public on their platforms. The nice thing is that they always email you once your episode has been processed and is active. 🙏
Active
Active status means you are good to go. Your podcast is live and listeners can hear its beautiful audio on Amazon Music and Audible. 🥳
Invalid Email
Like we explained earlier, Amazon will send you a confirmation email once you have entered your RSS feed. They send it to the email address in your RSS feed. If there is a problem with that email address and the confirmation email cannot be sent, you will see your podcast on Amazon has the status “invalid email.” You will want to contact your hosting platform and have them check to make sure the email address is properly formatted in the RSS feed. Hopefully it is a quick fix and you will be on your way in no time. 📧
Unconfirmed
Once Amazon has sent you the confirmation email, you have twenty-four hours to click the link to confirm it. Until you have clicked the confirmation link in the email, the status will be “unconfirmed.” 🕵
Hidden
Your podcast is on Amazon Music and Audible, but you have made it temporarily unavailable. You may decide to do this because you need to sort out a problem or something. When you are ready to be active, just switch it back to active and you are good to go. 👍
Suspended
Uh oh, you will see this status if your show is inactive due to violating Amazon Music’s Terms of Service. This can happen if you have included content you do not have the right to use, like a song or other recording. It can also happen if you have content that is has language deemed unacceptable under the Terms of Service. Just make sure to read the terms of service so you know what to avoid so you do not get suspended. 🚫
Changing Your Podcast Host
As a reminder, Amazon does not host your podcast. It streams it from your hosting provider like Ausha. That’s why it needs your RSS link.
If you move to a new hosting provider, you’ll need to update Amazon with a new RSS link. You can do this by going to the Amazon overflow menu for your show and then click “Update RSS feed.” 🤖
But with Ausha it’s even easier to do it. Move your show here and we will get all that switched over for you in one centralized process.
How to listen To Your Podcast on Alexa, Amazon Music, & Audible
Ok, now that you’ve successfully distributed your podcast to Amazon, it is time to experience the magic of having Alexa play it. ✨ Here’s how to listen to your podcast (or anyone else’s podcast) on Alexa.
Setting Up Alexa
Like we mentioned in the beginning of this post, Amazon Music is the default podcast directory on Alexa. That means a listener should be able to just say “Alexa, play [podcast name]” or “Alexa, play [podcast name] on Amazon Music” and voila your podcast will play. 🤩
If this isn’t working for you, don’t worry, here’s what you need to do:
- Open the Alexa app on your phone (or a similar device).
- Select the button with three lines, it is the “More options” button.
- Tap “Settings,” then “Music and Podcasts,” then “Link New Service.”
- You should see images and/or names of podcast directories, including Amazon Music. Select “Amazon Music.”
- At this point, the app may prompt you to enter your login information into Amazon Music. If so, log in.
- Follow any further prompts to link your directory, Amazon Music, to your Alexa.
- You will see a confirmation message when the directory is linked to your Alexa.
Yay! You did it. Go team! 🙌
Now let’s dig into Amazon Music a little more
Like we said in the introduction of this post, putting your podcast on Amazon means listeners can access it in all kinds of interwoven ways. These can get confusing so we’re going to break down all the options.
The podcasts distributed on Amazon Music are accessible in basically three different plans.
Listeners can access podcasts :
- as part of your Amazon Prime subscription.
- with an Amazon Music Unlimited plan (Individual, Family, or Single Device).
- (most of them) for free through Amazon Music Free. That’s right, free. We like that one. 😉
Podcasts on Audible
Finally, let’s talk about Audible. Where does it fit in this Amazon galaxy and what does it have to do with accessing podcasts? 🤔
Audible is Amazon’s audiobook branch. Listeners can access lots of podcasts for free on it without any kind of Audible plan, just a general Amazon login. With a paid Audible plan, “Audible Plus,” listeners can access its whole catalog of podcasts, including ad-free episodes and exclusive series.
The bottom line is that your podcast will likely be free for listeners to access in a variety of ways through Amazon. That is a why it is one of the top podcast distributors in the world.
Amazon Music’s Analytics
We always recommend that podcasters track their episode’s performance analytics to see what is working well and what they may need to try to do differently.
If you have Ausha, you will have all your podcast analytics from all the listening platforms on one easy-to-use dashboard.
But if you want to go inside Amazon Music itself and check your analytics, here are the categories it tracks, as well as definitions of them:
Start
A start is counted when a listener hits Play. Multiple Starts in a single day only counts as 1 Start.
Play
The definition of a ‘play’ is when a listener plays 60 seconds or more of an episode. Multiple Plays in a day only counts as 1 Play.
Listener
One listener is defined as a unique listener who starts an episode.
Engaged Listener
An engaged listener is a level up from ‘listener.’ It is a unique listener who listens to more than 60 seconds of an episode.
Follower
Amazon Music defines a ‘follower’ as a listener who clicked the follow button.
Episode Performance Charts
You can get data by going to the individual episode detail pages and looking at their Episode Performance charts. What is helpful about looking at the data this way is that the chart breaks your episode down into segments so you can tell when your audience members stopped listening to your episode. 📊
This is super helpful in a couple of ways.
First, you can figure out if your episodes are too long. If you see that people are consistently turning off your podcast after thirty minutes and your show is one hour long, you might want to consider shortening your episode length to thirty minutes. ⏱️
Second, you can see if people are skipping to or away from certain segments. For example, they may love a certain segment where you answer questions from listeners, so they will skip straight to it when they start listening. If the data shows that that is happening, you might want to consider lengthening that popular section. On the flip side, you might notice that the metrics show people are skipping away from certain sections. If that is the case, then you know you need to either improve that section or swap it out with a new idea!
Another way to use these metrics is to see if certain guests are more popular than others, if your show has an interview format. If people stop listening or skip guests that cover a certain topic, but stayed tuned in for others, you probably want to evaluate if you want to keep inviting guests on that topic. 🤝
There are lots of ways to use this data so be sure to check it after you have had a successful Amazon Music podcast submission.
Get Your Podcast Featured on Amazon Music
Guess what! You can apply to get your content featured on Amazon music! 😍
Email them at [email protected] at least 2 weeks before you would like to be featured. Include the following info:
- Publisher (or Podcast Network) name:
- Contact name:
- Series name:
- Series description:
- Promotion territory (Worldwide, US, UK, DE, JP):
- Trailer release date:
- First episode release date:
- Release schedule (daily, weekly, etc.):
- Desired promotion date:
- Social media accounts used to promote shows:
- Podcasts’ original working files (i.e. layered PSD file) and host headshot(s) (if applicable)
Make Money from Your Amazon Music Podcast Submission
What podcaster does not like to make a few coins when they can? It is always nice to find a way to fund your podcast production or even make some profit. 🤑
The Amazon Influencer Program allows you to do just that. The process is pretty simple. Once you apply and are accepted, you get a personalized link to get commission on Amazon products you recommend through your content. You get your own Amazon page where you can do livestreams, as well as post photos and videos. If you are really lucky, Amazon will feature content from your Amazon page across its channels, giving an incredible, free marketing boost. 🚀
To qualify for this program you need to have a YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok account. Not all four, just one of the four. If you apply using an Instagram or Facebook account, they have to be business accounts.
Once you apply, Amazon will look at your number of followers and other engagement metrics.
So make your podcast work for you! 🏋
Want More Info?
We have found the Amazon’s Podcaster FAQ page to be very helpful. Here’s the link. You can check it every so often to see if they have added or updated any of their frequently asked questions and answers.
The Mission: Podcast Submission
One of the key ways to grow your podcast audience is to be listed on as many distribution directories as possible. On the Ausha platform, you can automatically submit to all 22 directories in the world. But even if you are going it alone and have to submit manually for listing, go for it!
The world is waiting to hear your podcast content. Submit your podcast to Amazon today!
Keep an eye on this space for more information about submission to specific directories. We have already done blogs on submitting to Deezer, Spotify, Google, Apple Podcasts directories and we will definitely create more in the future to help you.
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