A Novel Podcast

I have been writing for quite a while, and though it may seem odd to some, I had no thoughts of even turning my books into audiobooks until a couple of years ago. So, after going through the hoops of hiring, editing, and setting up the audiobook information, I found myself open to a whole different way of telling a story. This got me thinking.

Now, though I am more of a reader than I am a listener, I realized that the world was transitioning, and I was going to have to evolve with it. As I expanded my writing into different mediums, I started to wonder how interesting it would be to create a podcast. I’m not talking about the regular podcast, where the person goes on and on about a particular subject like it was a real conversation. I’m talking about the old 1960’s version of podcasting. Back in the day, I remember hearing how people would just sit around the radio and listen to stories. Even in the Christmas Story, the kid listens to a radio show every week.

The idea of doing something like this with one of my books seemed incredible to me. Wouldn’t it be crazy to read a chapter every week? Wouldn’t that give the listener something to look forward to? I decided to go for it. I remembered seeing something on my WordPress blog, where I could use one of my blog posts and turn it into a podcast episode, so one day, I put the first chapter of my book, “A Bit of a Pickle” on there, pushed a button, and I was taken to a website called Anchor.

Anchor is a platform that helps you create a podcast for free. You get paid through Stripe, and the platform distributes your podcast to several other platforms like: Spotify, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and RadioPublic. Also, like I said, you can transfer a blog post right from your WordPress account. After it is transferred, you will have the option of using one of their automated voices read your posts or using your voice or that of another person of your choosing. Therefore, if the only reason that you are not doing a podcast is because you are shy, this method will take care of that issue. Next, you will want to split your episode up to make room for paid advertisements. If you don't do this, you may not be offered as many sponsorships, so this is important. Insert your ad spots, create your description, list your season and episode number, and select a date to publish. You can queue episodes for specific dates or publish them all at once, and now, you can even create a subscription to your podcast to generate extra income.

Now, like I said, I use podcasting as a means to introduce a new way of reading my books, but you can decide to do what you want with it. You can advertise. You can hold interviews. You can even give previews of your latest reads to entice new readers. No matter how you do it, creating a podcast is a free and new way to reach new consumers, and I found that sometimes it’s even fun!

Note: If you do decide to use a WordPress blog post to create a podcast, you can go back into WordPress after you import the episode onto Anchor and mark the blog post as private, so it won’t be out in the open. This allows you to import the words for your podcast onto the Anchor platform without having to keep a written copy on your blog.