Casting a Pod, or, Podcasts

One of the great blessings of living in this internet age is easy access to information. Even though it is easy to get lost in an internet jungle filled with trolls and bots, if you tread carefully you can find some pretty great treasures on your travels.

There is all sorts of wonderful information out there that you can access with just a click of a mouse. And for writers, in particular, there are great tools, websites, and podcasts that can be a great deal of help.

Podcasts can be very useful for writers. Over the last few years I have come across some that I have found to be very valuable as I seek to learn and grow as a writer.

In no particular order, they are:

1. Writing Excuses. The tagline of this podcast is Fifteen Minutes Long, Because You’re in a Hurry, and We’re Not That Smart. But don’t let the title fool you. This Hugo Award-winning podcast is hosted by bestselling authors Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler, and they are pretty “smart” writers, indeed. This year they have added some others to the core crew, namely Wesley Chu, Piper J. Drake, and Mary Anne Mohanraj. Each week four of the cast is  on the show, talking about all the various aspects of the writing craft. It isn’t always just fifteen minutes, they sometimes go over by five or ten minutes, but trust me, you won’t mind. This podcast is an excellent place to learn from experts about writing, whether it be writing great characters, pacing, world building or endings. Writing Excuses was created in 2008, and the first five years had seasons of only 25-30 episodes each, so the “seasons” overlapped the calendar years. Starting in 2012 the seasons mirrored the calendar year, with 52 episodes per year. In Season 10 they did a Master Class of writing, where they took you through every part of writing a book/story, from ideas to ending and everything in between. I am slowly making my way through this season and finding it excellent. The authors are pretty much all fantasy/sci-fi writers (Howard Tayler writes/draws the online comic Schlock Mercenary) but everything they cover on their podcast is relevant to any genre of writing. Each week they also give you writing prompts on the topic they are covering. This podcast is excellent for beginning writers and professionals alike, and I highly recommend it.

2.  Novel Marketing. This podcast, hosted by author James L. Rubart and Thomas Umstattd, Jr, CEO of AuthorMedia, is all about marketing your novel. There is lots of advice out there for how to market yourself as a non-fiction writer, but as a fiction writer things get a little trickier. How do you sell yourself when you haven’t been published yet?  A blog is recommended for authors, but what do you write about? How do you attract
readers to your website/blog? The hosts are sympathetic to the struggles authors face in trying to get their work “seen” by the right people. This podcast is especially relevant to self-published authors, but even those who have contracts with publishing companies will find something useful here, I’m sure. Each episode is around thirty minutes long, so it’s not a big time committment. If you are wondering how to market yourself and your book, this is a great place to start.

3. Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast. As you can tell, I am trying to learn about marketing myself and my books before I actually have a book to sell (hah). This podcast is hosted by writers Lindsey Buroker, Joseph Lazlo, Jeffery M. Poole, and Laura Kirwan. Each episode they interview authors about how they market their books, and in the process you get lots of tips and information about what works and what doesn’t. This podcast is longer, about an hour, so it’s more of a time commitment than the other two. Really great information to be found here. I find it fascinating and a bit intimidating, to be honest, all of these authors are writing a lot more than I am, so at times I feel a bit inadequate, but oh well, the information they give is great and I learn a lot from them. Don’t ever think you can just publish your book to Kindle and wait for the money to roll in, there’s a lot of books being published every single day, and you need a strategy for marketing your work or it will sink faster than you can imagine. This podcast is a great place to figure out what to do when it comes to marketing, and they occasionally will cover other aspects of writing as well, such as the how-tos like plotting, characters, and the like. It’s aimed at sci-fi/fantasy writers (hence the title) but any fiction writer can learn from this podcast.

There are so many other podcasts out there for writers – those are the ones I listen to fairly regularly but if you do a search for “writing podcasts” you will see there are a whole lot more. If I had more time I would listen to more of them! 

And here’s a couple “extras” that are not writing-related per se but I find very informative! 

4. The British History Podcast. This is a chronological telling of the history of Britain, starting at the Ice Ages. Not dry history, but focussed on the lives of the people who lived through the various time periods covered. The host is Jamie Jeffers, and he does a great job of making history come alive. They recommend that you start at the beginning and work your way through it, but you don’t have to. I started at the Dark Ages section (no surprise there) and didn’t feel like I had to listen to all the stuff before it for it to make sense. If you are writing about any period of British history up to Alfred the Great (that’s as far as he’s got so far) this is an excellent resource. Enjoyable for anyone who is interested in history, whether you are a writer or not.

5. What Should I Read Next? You may have noticed that my reading series this year comes from  Modern Mrs. Darcy. I found out about it through this podcast hosted by Anne Bogel, Modern Mrs. Darcy herself.  Each episode Anne hosts various guests, from authors to bookstore owners to other podcast hosts, and has a chat with them about books and reading. Specifically she asks each guest to tell her three books they love, one they hate, and what they are currently reading. Out of that list (and the conversation she has with them about the books) she recommends books for the guest to read next. This podcast is a great deal of fun, and you come away from it with all sorts of ideas on what you might want to read next, too. On the website she highlights weekly deals on Kindle, often featuring some of the books she has talked about on the podcast, so needless to say my Kindle is filling up with great books to read. Really enjoy this podcast. It has helped me to discover some new books and authors I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

There are so many good podcasts out there, on any topic you can imagine. If you have never dipped into the podcast universe, give it a try. You’ll be glad you did, come the next road trip you take!