Getting on Podcasts in 12 (Kinda) Easy Steps

Radio interviews were a great way for authors in the 20th century to spread the word about their work. They still are — to the extent that local radio is still a thing that exists, and that people listen to. But fear not, podcasts have replaced radio for this important publicity effort, and they’re a lot better. Consider these facts:

People listen to podcasts more than they ever listened to radio
(Most) podcasts are hungry for guests, and easier to get on
Podcasts have far more specific audiences, meaning you’ll be talking to your niche
People can download podcasts whenever, meaning your interview will be easily available at any time
New podcasts (new places to be a guest) appear every day

So, now you know that podcasts can help get the word out about your writing. The next question is how you can get on podcasts to begin with. The twelve steps below won’t guarantee you a whirlwind podcast tour that sells thousands of copies of your books…but this absolutely will be a good start in giving your writing and publishing career the leg up it deserves.

12 Steps to Get On Podcasts and Sell Your Book

1. Narrow Your Message

Your podcast appearances won’t be as powerful if you just come on to talk about your book. For that matter, your application won’t stand out and you may not get much opportunity to talk in the first place.

Identify two to three tight hooks that relate to the core message or coolest things about your book. For example, if you’re a martial artist who writes fantasy novels, your message could be about how your black belt skills informed your fight scenes. If you write about mental health, you could discuss how writing your book helped you.

Specific is always > general when marketing. Podcasting is no exception.

2. Organize Your Collateral

“Collateral” is an old-school marketing term for physical pieces of publicity material like brochures, flyers, and catalogs. Yours won’t be physical, but you do have the digital equivalent in the form of your social media feeds, book description, and website. If a podcast host is considering you, the first thing they will do after reading your email is go look you up online.

Before you send that first email, make sure your online collateral is professional and attractive. Bonus points for making whatever tweaks you need to make it directly in line with your narrowed message. (Check out Training #534 on Creating a PR Kit for what to put together.)

3. Organize Your Landing Page

If you get on a podcast, and it goes well, listeners will want to look you up and (hopefully) buy your book. Go to your landing page (whether that’s on your site, or on Amazon, or both). Make sure it’s as excellent as possible. Now is the time to make the improvements and tweaks you’ve been putting off.

While you’re at it, like with your collateral, find ways to make the landing page echo the narrowed focus of your interview. The more your page is in line with audience expectations, the more sales you will make.

4. Write Your Bio

If you don’t have a strong one-paragraph bio yet, write one. If you do, take a look and make any adjustments necessary to fine-tune it toward your narrowed message.

A good bio will be one (natural, not extended) paragraph long, and include the following elements:

Your name
The genre you write in
Why you are passionate about that genre
Any awards or accomplishments you have in that genre
(Optional) a personal interest or bit of trivia

5. Build Your One Sheet

A “one-sheet” is a single piece of paper that contains all the critical information about you and your manuscript. Think of it as a resume for your book. You can go online and find countless examples, watch Training #438 on How to Create a One Sheet (including a template you can download.) Pick a format you like and then input your information.

Some information here will duplicate info in your bio, on your collateral, on your landing page, and in your cover letter. That’s okay. This is the piece potential hosts will save or print and refer back to as they consider you.

6. Write Your Cover Letter

Compose a single form letter you will send to the various podcasts you want to consider you as a guest. This is basically a query letter, only aimed at a slightly different audience. If you have a query letter that works for you, use it here. If not, consider the following structure:

Paragraph One (you’re awesome): why you’re interested in this podcast

Paragraph Two (I have this awesome idea): what you’d like to come on to talk about (your narrow focus), and why it’s a great match for this podcast

Paragraph Three (I’m awesome): why you are uniquely suited to discuss that topic with the podcast’s audience

You’ll leave some blanks in this letter, to be filled in with the specifics for each podcast you approach, but have this written, spellchecked, and ready.

7. Learn the Terrain

Now that you have the materials you need, it’s time to start hunting for podcasts to approach. This process starts by getting to know the terrain for podcasts in your genre.

Ideally, you will have been listening to these podcasts all along and have a sense for who’s who…but life is rarely ideal. Start with a google search for “Podcasts about (your genre)” and poke around, then do a search for “Podcasts about (something related to your genre)”.

Repeat that search about five times. Listen to a couple episodes of the most popular, and a few others. By the time you’ve listened to a dozen episodes or so, you’ll know enough to move on to the next step.

8. Choose Your Three Tiers

From the research you did in the previous step, you’ll be able to triage the various podcasts into categories:

Big Deals, podcasts with a huge audience and a lot of cred, who might be a challenge for you to get on

Midlist, podcasts with a fair audience, but not so much that they wouldn’t consider an author as a guest

Growing, new or small podcasts who will be grateful for a guest, and who might become strong allies because you’re starting out together

Your aim will be to guest on a few from each tier — with the understanding that the top tier might take some doing.

9. Make a List

You’ll complete this task in three sub-steps.

In step one, you will make a spreadsheet with all of the podcasts you’ve identified. This spreadsheet will contain the following information:

Podcast name
Host names
Contact point (usually an email address or the URL of a contact form)
One sentence about the podcast’s vibe and approach
Any notes you think will be helpful
The podcast’s tier

In step two, you will organize the list into batches of five. Each batch will contain one Big Deal, and two each from your Midlist and Growing tiers.

In step three, you will take the first batch of podcasts and move on to the next step…

10. Customize Your Cover Letter

For each podcast in your first batch, compose a customized cover letter where you tweak your template to their specifics. Usually this means changing the first paragraph a lot, and the others just a little.

Make sure you include the names of the hosts. Like with editors and agents, it’s a small detail that can make or break your cover letter.

11. Send Your First Batch

This step is quick and easy. Send your five cover letters.

Go slow. Make sure you make no copy and paste errors. Follow any instructions you find for applying to be a guest. You only have the one chance to make a first impression, and this is that chance.

12. Follow Up

Here I mean following up in two ways.

First, follow up with this process and send another batch out either next week or later this week. Don't send more than ten a week because more than that can get tough to keep organized, and it's okay to stick to one batch of 5 per week.

Second, follow up with the podcasts. If you haven’t heard back in two weeks, send a polite note to confirm they received your note. Check in again a month later.

Rinse, Repeat

One nice aspect of all of this is that all but the final five steps, you only need to do once — and steps eight and nine just need updating once or twice a year. By the time you’re actually pitching podcasts, you can do a lot of work in batches to engineer a sweeping podcast tour in time for the launch of your next book.

Pro tip: it’s often better to schedule multiple appearances back to back on one day. It saves time in setting up, dressing up, and making sure of your appearance. There’s also a psychological aspect to having an “interview day”, instead of multiple days across a few weeks that get interrupted by this high-profile, high-stakes appointment.

Need more motivation, inspiration, and/or direction before pitching? Be sure to check out a pair of training we've done previously on the topic:

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