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Today we had a really awesome guest who is pretty much to thank (or to blame) for this podcast existing: Cliff Ravenscraft, the Podcast Answer Man. It was Cliff’s 100% free podcasting setup tutorial website at LearnHowToPodcast.com that I used to learn how to build SPP and make it the show that you love and loathe today.
But before we started talking to Cliff about why and how writers can start podcasting, we answered a few…
Voicemail questions!
1. Can you use using images in a Kindle file?
After saying how awesome and buy-worthy he thought my book The Bialy Pimps was, Garrett asked about using small images as his chapter headings in Kindle docs. The short answer is that he can totally do it with no problem. And of course, knowing Garrett, he already had weeks before we answered this question.
2. Do writers really need websites?
This question came as a result of some confusion. Sean once said that Amazon could distribute your work to WAY more people than most websites, but we clarify here that this does NOT mean that writers should not have websites. Writers need a home base, if for no other reason than to build an email list. If you’d like to know how to set up your own website, here’s a tutorial showing you how to do it. Also, here’s a tutorial on how to set up and use an email list.
Podcasting for writers with Cliff Ravenscraft
There’s a ton of detail when we got Cliff on the line, but a few of the basic reasons writers might consider podcasting are because it allows you to form tighter relationships with readers and to share more of yourself with them, which will allow them to love you more. It can also act as your writer’s platform.
We run through all of the nitty gritty in this one about what kind of equipment you’ll need, how much you can expect to spend, how involved it is to set up a podcast, and how to set expectations.
And I’ll also add this: The three of us here LOVE the podcast. I (Johnny) would go so far as to say that without the podcast, I wouldn’t be producing 20% of the work I’m producing today, which leads to another reason podcasting can be valuable, and that’s for the masterminding aspect of talking to other writers.
If you want to know more, absolutely check out Cliff’s Learn How to Podcast tutorial series and subscribe to his Podcast Answer Man podcast.
To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #44 – Podcasting for Writers with Podcast Answer Man Cliff Ravenscraft
Great show guys. I had never heard of Cliff before, but I can see why so many people listen to him on so many shows. He is both engaging and knowledgeable. I hardly noticed the time fly by.
It really makes you want to podcast listening to him. Great guest.
Keep up the good work chaps.
Hi Sean, and thanks for the shout out.
I just wanted to clarify on my own blogging strategy. I blog regularly on http://www.TheCreativePenn.com because 50% of my income comes from professional speaking, consulting and sales of digital products – all sold through that site. When I started that I was writing non-fiction and never thought I would write fiction
Now, my fiction site is http://www.JFPenn.com and I hardly ever blog there and I don’t believe blogging is the best way to promote fiction. That site is mainly static although occasionally I post articles that I reference in the back of my novels about my research.
I love my professional speaking side and will never stop doing that, so even as my fiction income grows, I won’t give up TheCreativePenn. But basically, that is a business site, not a fiction site.
Thanks all – Joanna
Great distinction, Joanna!
And yeah, I love the speaking stuff too. Would like to do more in 2013, but probably not the blogging.
What Carl failed to mention in his comment was the reason time flew by for him. Let me help you answer that question, he fell asleep listening to Cliff go on and on within the first 15 minutes of the podcast.
Cliff is an accomplished podcaster who makes these types of appearances to channel your listeners over to his podcast/website and ultimately line his pockets. I have listened to many of Cliff’s podcasts and there are some episodes that had a little nugget of information that I found helpful, but I had to either skip through the bulk of his content or endure the entire show (Johnny should be able to back me up on this one). It was apparent in the first half of the show that Cliff hadn’t done his homework on you three. I was so confused when he kept relating your work to bloggers. I wanted to reach through the RSS feed and shake you guys, hard. Take control of the interview; Cliff was a guest on your show, not the other way around. It’s fine if he wants to make a couple plugs, but if I wanted to hear him babble for an hour I would just go check out the latest Podcast AnswerMan.
This was easily the worst Self Publishing Podcast episode to date. Get back to the hysterical non-sense that your real fans care about and love. I learned nothing knew about writing, or podcasting for that matter, and the worst part was that I wasn’t even entertained. Now I have to wait seven more days to hear something good. Sorry to be tough on you guys, but I have been listening to you for months and I know you can do better.
Sorry for the homophone in the third paragraph, second line.
Cheers!
Agreed…I LOVE the podcast. But this one was…well…meh.
Well, we love you, dude, but you’ve gotta know that I’m not going to back you up on this one. I maintain that his sites and podcasts (not his paid products, as I never bought any) are THE reason our podcasts exist, and he’s also given me a good amount of advice personally. He did it for free, with no direct financial incentive.
Obviously, he’s hoping that appearing on shows like ours will make income for him, but I see absolutely no problem with that. It’s the same thing we all do… when I appear on another show or blog, I’m hoping that it’ll make people like me and come in to my camp and maybe, eventually, buy something. I think that kind of give-then-get strategy is totally fine.
It’s cool if you didn’t like this one, though… we have plenty of entertaining irrelevancies coming up.
Of course he is going to want to make money/get business, like Johnny said. Who doesn’t do that?
The thing that makes me smile about some of the comments this week, is this episode was actually on topic and sharing stuff about publishing (in this case getting your voice out via podcasting) the entire time. AND it was passed on by one of the top podcasters out there.
It appears that people prefer it when you guys just joke around the entire time. I listen to BoU for that. That is just me…
I have to disagree. I found this podcast to be quite useful. I agree that he plugs himself a lot, and does so in his own podcast as well, but that’s fine. I learned a lot in this episode.
I would like to hear of some examples of fiction writers who are using podcasts to support their work and build audience, etc.
This podcast was useful, practical and on topic.
In mid-Feb I started co-writing a daily humorous micro-fiction blog – it’s about 500 words a day, and the construct is the daily travel diary of a sportsman on tour with a national team. (The Australian Cricket team. “Cricket? Man, you gotta understand what a CRUMPET is before you understand Cricket! Know what I’m sayin?”).
Thanks to this podcast, two things happened yesterday:
– we launched the podcast of the content (ie that’s a daily 3 minuter), and
– we got approached by a (bigger than us) sports website to syndicate the content (blog and audio).
Cost of the podcast? Zip apart from hosting. I set the whole thing up in a day, having watched Cliff’s video, and am now madly recording the back episodes.
Completely unsure if a 3 minute daily podcast will work – but I’m going to know if it does pretty soon. Maybe the listeners will prefer a weekly digest. Can do that too, or instead.
Happy days. Best thing is that the list generated by the blog/podcast is growing much faster than the list from my author blog – in fact, my total list numbers have doubled in a week – and has the same target demographic. My list is still small, but I might have finally cracked how to get it moving.
Too busy to record my questions and send them in, but will soon.
Interesting to read the dichotomy in the comments above … I actually found the podcast really useful, so first of all thanks for that. However, there are two things I really missed. First, Cliff spent a lot of time going on about how and why people listen to podcasts now as opposed to reading (commuting, exercising etc. – something I already knew because I do that myself), but I didn’t get a convincing argument on how that translates to more people buying your books. In fact, I sensed a really awkward moment there when you guys were trying to steer Cliff over to that side of the road, as it were, but he couldn’t really make the transition. I mean, sure I get that you can record your book as a podcast, but I wasn’t convinced that this would translate into sales.
The second thing I felt was missing was a little bit of discussion about the sort of environment a regular person might be able to set up when starting out to get rid of echo or reverberation in the room. Most of us don’t have studios set up in our homes, and may not want to record in our closets … it would have been great to have one or two tips on how to get decent acoustics. I’ve tried recording stuff before, and even with a good microphone (which I have) it sounded a bit tinny or echo-y.
Apart from that – I learned a lot. So thanks again!
I can answer the second part of that pretty easily… NONE of us have studios, and Garrett is the only weirdo who records in the closet. The trick is in the mic. Most mics pick up room sound (including echos) but a good podcasting mic will solve 99% of that for you. Here’s the one we all use: http://is.gd/7TpeBN
Thanks for the reply Johnny. I use this mic: http://goo.gl/DfbxA which I know is good, but even so it picks up these echoes and there’s also a vague hissing sound. Maybe because I’m recording directly into my laptop …?