I joined PodOmatic for my social media classes, and listened to quite a few samples. I can immediately see how podcasts could be a helpful tool for authors as a promotional tool, and also perhaps for the agents at the agency to use. Perhaps as a series of informational podcasts to help authors with craft, or do Q&A’s about publishing. It’s limitless really, the applications.
I went straight to the literature section, followed the Ellory Queen magazine and hit “Play” on their first episode. Well, I didn’t realize it was an hour long, so as soon as I saw that I stopped it. Scanning the list for EQ’s recordings, I saw that they were all quite long. I did find a promising group to follow: Scary Spooky. The stories were quick and the feel of the page (given by the dark forest background) promised many goose-bump inducing moments to come.
Unfortunately, the voice they used was mechanical, and though it seemed to be the voice of an older, British man, it read text with that same robotic sound my PDF reader has. This took out all the inflection for me and I found it impossible to follow along with any interest even though I gave two of them a try.
So back to the drawing board for me as I scrolled through the listings. Then I stumbled across “The Authors Show” – a radio interview segment that I had the pleasure once to be interviewed with for my first book. I scrolled through the listings looking for a book that might interest me when I found a book by one of my clients, S. Jane Gari, titled Losing the Dollhouse. Of course I had to give that one a listen. It was interesting hearing this interview that really puts the author in a position of answering questions that force them to think about their book in a marketing/promotional light.
I thought I would then poke around and see if I could find something for pure entertainment, and I found a couple of Australian ladies chatting about Supernatural episodes called Women of Letters. They were lots of fun to listen to, but a very long podcast – not for the time-pressed consumer. I did find because of their conversational tone that I wanted to join in the conversation at times. I think this particular one would be great to listen to an episode of if I were driving somewhere. Like talk radio really.
Coming up next: 2 podcasts for this course. Any special requests?
Magical things. Beautiful things. 
I too found that some podcast were very long and that kind of turned me off. I did like the ones that had interviews or more than one person speaking. It just adds a bit of dynamics to it. I know the voice is very important and if the person is not clearly spoken or the sound quality is poor, people will just shut it off.
As for “Special Request”…..I am really interested in the fact that you are an author, maybe an experience of being an author or even if you have a short story you have written, it would be fun to hear it. As an author you could also do a promo type podcast to get people interested in your book. Just a thought.
Thanks for your input! I would love to read a short story, but I don’t have any new ones. I think I’ve found I’m far more at ease talking about things from an agent perspective than I am author.
Agreed, most podcasts I found were too long, and I’m not in the habit of searching for, downloading and making available when I’m in the vehicle or at a kids event.
Yes I can’t imagine putting together a podcast list to listen to while in the car. I listen to stuff mainly when I take a short break from reading a manuscript, and five minutes is really the longest I think I would stop and listen.
Might be different if it was a story, but I usually listen to music to unwind, to walk, to exercise, and to drive.
Thanks for commenting!