BOOK MARKETING: How to Benefit from Hosting Your Own Podcast Interview with Andrew Allemann Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast, where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is a podcasting expert. Andrew Allemann is founder of PodcastGuests.com, a service that matches podcasters with guest experts for their shows. Over 4,000 people have used his service which has facilitated thousands of podcasts, guest appearances. All the way from Boston, Texas, Andrew, what an honor it is to have you and welcome to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor. My pleasure. Let's talk about the power of podcasting and why you think authors should get booked as a guest on podcasts. I think that might be a good starting point for us. Sure, and I know that you talk a lot about, or your guest talk a lot about how people can market their books. I think podcasting should be a key part of the arsenal when it comes to promoting a book. When you think about what podcasting is, it's your opportunity to sit down. Picture yourself sitting down in an auditorium with 200, 500, thousands of people and talk to them about your book or your subject matter expertise. That visual paints the power of a podcast. There are hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there covering every single topic imaginable and you have an opportunity as an author to go on to these programs and speak directly to that audience, that auditorium of people. It's an extremely valuable way. It's also a good spoken word medium. It's long form which I think is great for an author as opposed to a short one, two-minute promotion. It's a long form conversation that really I think of it when you're guest on the Page 1
mainstream say on NPR Radio talking about their book in an extended conversation, say on fresh air. These are just recorded in advance podcasts instead of radio so it's extremely powerful, and I definitely recommend it to all authors out there. There are couple of questions. One, obviously the idea that thousands of people would be listening might scare the eebie geebies out of people so that's one aspect of this. Then the second is how do they really get started to get booked on a show? Where would they begin? First of all, the typical podcast, the medium podcast has fewer than 200 downloads per episode. Thousands is actually not that common so we can bring the number down there and get rid of some of those EBGBs, but another thing to know about a podcast is unlike a lot of radio shows which were live, podcasts are recorded and most of time the host edits them. If you mess up, if you say something wrong, you can usually say, "Wait. Stop. Can you edit that out and reanswer the question?" That's another thing about podcast that really makes it easier especially if you aren't comfortable with say public speaking. It's a lot easier and also it's not like there's a camera on your face or people actually looking at you, so I think a lot of people are more comfortable with that as well. Now, when we think about getting started with it, the first thing to do is to think about the value that you can add to podcast. Now, I think you're going to want to talk about your book and the expertise behind your book, but think about what you can teach a podcast audience, or how you can entertain that podcast audience. It's the part to start with and then you want to refine it down and put it into what we in the industry called a one sheet or you might call a one pager every once in a while, and that is basically a one page pitch about who you are and what you can talk about. On that, you'll obviously list the book that you publish or books that you published. You'll talk about specific topics that you can cover, any prior media experience and [inaudible 00:04:26] you might have, as well as I suggest that people put some sample questions out there. Yes, it'd be great if the podcast has how to write your book, for you're on the podcast, but as we all know from traditional media, that's not usually the case. Page 2
If you can give them some feeder questions that will help, that will make it easier for a podcaster to book you and interview on their podcast. That's so true. You're right. they don't tend to read the books and what I do often with my guests is that I look through the table of contents of their book or I read the introduction, and that gives me a little bit of background about what the book is about and the questions that I might be able to ask my guest. You've gotten an invitation to be a guest on a podcast. Now, what actual preparation do you advise guests to do? There are a few things you should do and one of those is more in the technical side and the other is on the research side, if you will. In the technical side, there are a couple of things you want to do. You need to have good audio quality and that doesn't mean you need a studio by any means but you should invest in a decent microphone and you can get a good microphone for about $50 on Amazon.com. I know a lot of podcasters use one called the Snowball mic, $50, not a big investment. You can actually get some that are smaller than that. What you don't want to do is speak into your laptop speaker because your sound quality won't be good and you won't come across as professional to the listeners. The other thing you want to do is to find a quiet place to do your podcast, so not a place where the dog will be barking in the background. If you have kids, you don't want them running around screaming. Find a quiet place and certainly don't do it out in public. I think every podcast, everyone's [inaudible 00:06:26] someone who wants to call in from the airport, or something like that, and there's lot of background noise. I recommend to when it comes to a quiet place, one of the best places to do this is in a walk-in clothing closet and I know that might sound crazy but my wife is a very successful podcast and when she started before she got some echo-reducing devices in her podcast room, she did it in the closet. Because closet absorb a lot of echo and you tend to get a pretty good sound there. That's on the technical side. Then, there's also the preparation for the podcast and this is where you'll want to learn more about the podcast host and your audience. Hopefully the host tells you who their audience is in advance. If not, you can ask them about that. Scroll through their previous podcast episodes. Download a couple onto your podcast app and listen to those. Page 3
See what guests they're having and what questions they're answering, and this will help you really prepare and provide the maximum value to that podcaster because if you want to get invited on to more podcasts, the best way to do that is to make a great impression and sometimes that podcaster won't invite you back for a follow up. Other times, some other podcasters might be listening to this podcast and say, "Hey, I want to have this person as a guest in my podcast." Some technical preparation as well as some I guess research and preparation, preparation for a lack of a better term that you should do before going on to a podcast as a guest. I love the closet idea. I've heard it before and it's so much fun, and I can just visualize your wife in the closet talking on the microphones. I actually put a sign on my front door that says, "Recording. Do not knock or ring the bell." It doesn't always work but at least people can see. That's a great idea. Yes, and then I put the cats in another room so that they don't jump all over the place because they're fine until I start recording and then of course they decide they want to come in and be friendly, and so yes. Okay. Let's get to the idea that maybe some of our listeners might think about doing exactly what I'm doing and that is hosting their own podcast. What would be some of your recommendations for that? I think hosting your own podcast can have a lot of benefits. I'm sure Susan, in your business, you've recognized a lot of those. I do recommend that you have some experience being a guest on podcasts before you start your own podcast. You can understand how it works. You can get that experience for sure but if you're going to start a podcast, it's a lot more complicated than say starting a blog. Today, you can go setup a blog and a blogging service and be live within minutes. With a podcast, there's a little bit more to it that includes getting that decent microphone and a quiet place to record, but you're also going to need some software to record. You're going to need to either hire an editor or do the editing yourself, and you're going to need to get a podcast host which is inexpensive. None of these things I'm talking about are expensive. It's just a bit of work and figuring things out. Most people have a website where they post their podcast too and this is what feeds things Page 4
like itunes and Google Play so that people can listen to your podcast on their podcast apps. There is a little bit of work to it. At the same time, I can tell you a mistake I made before I started podcasting and that is that I tried to get everything perfect before I started. I hired someone to do a voiceover intro for my podcast for example and when I got going, I realized, that's really wasn't necessary at least to start. Many people start and then stop podcasting. I'm going to say just get started. Get the basics out there and then you can always improve it over time. I actually ditched my voiceover at the beginning of my podcast because I decided that it was a little corny how I've written it so now I just do my own intro on the podcast and part of this is I modeled it after my wife when her podcast became very popular. She didn't have a recorded voiceover intro and she didn't have a lot of these other things that a lot of people recommended she definitely started with, and it's worked out fine. As long as you can get in there and create something that people will enjoy listening to that they'll get value out of, that's the most important thing. Yes, you need to have some basics. You need to have good sound quality for people to enjoy it. You need to be able to edit the podcast but beyond that Actually, one more thing I would mention, and this should resonate with your listeners, you need a good podcast cover art and this is what shows up in all of the apps when people download your podcast and it's like a book. You wouldn't spend all of this time writing a great book and then go easy on the cover and that is something good. People judge you by the cover. They decide to pick it up and look inside based on the cover. Same thing goes with the podcasts and the cover art. Now, it doesn't have to be super fancy but if it looks amateur, people will judge your podcast based on that. You brought out some very interesting points and one of the most important ones that stuck out for me was the fact that giving value is so important and I just thought back as you were talking about being perfect for the first one. That was me. It took me forever to get the first one out and it wasn't perfect. In fact, it was far from it but I kept going and each episode gets better and better as I learned what I should and I shouldn't do, and what my guests should and shouldn't do. Yes, you learn on the job. Page 5
It's one of those things where you don't want perfection to be your enemy. When you finalize a book and publish it, you want it to be perfect I'm sure, right? Obviously you don't want any typos or anything in the book but think of this like a draft when you get started. Frankly not a lot of people will listen at first anyway so those are the ones to learn on but I see so many people that have this great idea for a podcast. They invest hours and hours, and hours and then they just hit this almost paralysis from trying to make it perfect before they start when they don't even know what it will turn into. A lot of times, a podcast starts one way, and then turns into different formats, or even a different topic as people learn more about what their audience appreciate. I think you and I both did the same thing. We'd put in a lot of effort ahead of time which there's nothing wrong with putting effort in, but I know it delayed me a long time on actually launching a podcast. Is there an optimum time that you should do a podcast once a week, once a month? What have you found is a good time period to do? The key thing is consistency. Once a month is not very often. I do one weekly, so does my wife, and the key there is not just weekly but it's release at the same time on the same day every week. I also wouldn't get ambitious. If you're talking about doing a daily podcast that some people do, think about the time commitment you'd be making there, and what happens if you get sick or you're travelling that day? Obviously, you can record podcasts in advance and schedule them to publish. However, I think weekly, every other week would be a good schedule. Some people release podcasts in seasons which is also an interesting concept. It might work well for authors. You could do a season of podcasts where it's on a particular topic and you interview people. I should mention, you don't necessarily have to interview people in your podcast either. As an author, you could even do one where you read chapters from your book or chapters from books you like. Having a guest on your podcast can be helpful. It can help spread your audience and so think about this from both sides now as being a guest on a podcast and the value that you're delivering to that audience and the podcasters, and what it would be like if you are a podcaster. In this case, Susan invited me to be on her podcast and once it's published, I'll promote the podcast. Page 6
I'll promote it to my email list of over 4,000 people, many of whom are authors, and I will put it on Twitter and Facebook, and social media. This will help grow Susan's audience. At the same time, it's helping me because I'm getting introduced to her audience, to you, the people that are listening to this. A guest format is probably the most common on a podcast but there are other ways you can do podcasts. Personally, I find it so much easier to have a guest expert to interview, yes, but I know it's hard to do it all by yourself. I tried it once and it was hard. Now, some people like- It's exhausting. Yeah. It's exhausting. Some people like- You get tired when you're done. Yeah. Some people like the sound of their own voice and so they will keep going and going but I have a hard time with that, so yes. How about mistakes? You mentioned a mistake that you made early on. How about mistakes that maybe new podcasters make? I think some podcasters get bad advice about how they need to start. For example, there are some people out there that say, "You need to have five or 10 podcasts on your launch day already recorded," so those come out. That's not necessarily true and I think again that's something that keeps people from moving forward because really if you can get one, two, three out there and get it live, that's a great start. Then, you can build off of there. Also, set expectations with yourself and think about how you're going to get an audience for that podcast. If you just get your podcast into itunes and these other podcast sites, you're not going to have a huge audience at least to start. Think about how you can promote that podcast yourself whether that's to your social media followers, if you have an email list, belong to any Facebook groups where you can say, "Hey, I just launched my new podcast." Or any forums. Obviously, you don't want to go around spamming but you're going to need to promote it yourself. It's not as simple as getting a good search ranking in Google. Yes, you can get a good ranking on itunes but in order to do that it's a chicken and an egg. You need to get Page 7
a lot of listeners for Apple to list you high up on their rankings because they're doing it based on number of new subscribers you get each week. You will need to prepare for that and think about that when you think about your plan for creating a podcast. Another thing that I recommend is to understand your strengths and your weaknesses, and how valuable your time is. I knew right off the bat I started learning about editing a podcast and then I said, "You know what? This is not something I'm going to spend my time on." I hired someone to do it and it's relatively affordable to get a podcast editor. I literally just say, "Okay. Here are the files. Here are couple edits to make." They make it sound good. They level the sounds. They publish it. They do everything for me. I would consider if that makes sense for you as well if you're creating a podcast. Yes. I love editing but like you said it isn't a good use of my time so I have a young lady and I found her on Fiverr.com and she's been amazing. She's been working with me since I started and she puts the intro and the outro on there for me. She levels the sound. She takes out all these ums and ahs, and sos, and she does all these things for me. Yes, I absolutely agree with you. A question that I like to ask is how about monetizing a podcast? What are your thoughts on that? How could we go about that? You can monetize a podcast. You can make money from it. I think that a lot of people see some of the most popular podcasts that have these big advertisers and sponsors and think, "Hey, that's how I'm going to make money with my podcast." I would look at it a different way. Ideally, you can make your podcast big, so big and a good audience for you. I would look at the value in a different way though, and that is that for example, when you interview someone on your podcast, you're getting say a 30- minute conversation with someone. Then if you just said, "Hey, I like to learn more about your expertise. Can I give you a phone call?" They might not respond to you but if you say, "I'd be honored if you'd be a guest on my podcast to teach my audience about how to use Facebook to grow their sales," or something like that, they're going to be very responsive to it. I would look at the value of just having guests on your podcast as one of the big benefits that you receive above and beyond any other monetization. Page 8
From an author perspective, I think it would be a good place to pitch your own books, maybe at the beginning of each podcasts. "Hey, I'm the author of this which you can pick up on Amazon or at your local bookstore." I would look at it more that way than, "Hey, you can get advertisers and sponsors." You can. I have them on my podcast but it's not the biggest source of value I get from podcasting. Instead, it's the conversations I get to have with people that otherwise might not give me the time of day. I've had on the creator of WordPress on my podcast. I've had on the inventor of the domain name system back in the, gosh, I guess the '80s. These are people that if I just said, "Hey, can I call you up and chat for 30 minutes?" They probably wouldn't even get back to me, but by inviting them on to my podcast, they were more than willing to do it. Yes, and it's always what's in it for them. I love it if my guest promote themselves and I always give them time to do that, and I'm about to ask you to do that because it brings value to the guest, and value to the listeners as well, and obviously it's creating a great podcast for me. It's a win-win-win all the way around so I like that. Andrew, if listeners would like to find more about your services and go ahead. Share that with us. Sure. PodcastGuests.com, that's plural, it's a place where you can go for free and sign up, and you can get booked on podcasts. It helps you get booked on podcasts, so every week after you sign up, I'll send you an email with a list of podcasts that are looking for guests and if you're a fit, if you meet their qualifications, you just click a button, fill out a form explaining who you are, what you can share with that audience, and get booked on those podcasts. Again, free service. There are some paid optional things but I recommend to get started if you just go to PodcastGuests.com and enter your email. You'll start getting the weekly newsletter that has these podcast in it. It's a good way to get your feet right. One thing we didn't talk about at in the beginning was we skipped from you want to be on podcast to you have an invitation. Getting those invitations isn't always easy. Sometimes you have to do some work, a lot of outreach and that thing. I created PodcastGuests.com to make that easier for people. It's a great website and I've interviewed a few of your members on there and I'm sure I'll be interviewing several more. That's really a very good source. I highly recommend it at PodcastGuests.com. Andrew, if Page 9
you would leave our listeners with a golden nugget, what would that be? I slipped and gave it to you earlier which is the closet trick. I think this is one of the working in a walk-in clothing closet I think is one of the neat podcast hacks that I've picked up on over the years. Whether you're a guest or you are a podcaster, I think this is a great way to create a podcast studio for nothing. I love that. That's a great tool for people to do and be able to start very easily. Thank you for that. Thank you for sharing your wisdom Andrew and thank you all for taking time out of your precious day to listen to this interview. I sincerely hope that it sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Here's wishing you much book marketing success. Page 10