Podcasting and Fiction: Exploring one experience

photo by suchitra

This is a guest post by Isabel Joely Black, who blogs at isabeljoelyblack.wordpress.com and is podcasting her novel Amnar at www.joelyblack.net. As an author working toward publication while podcasting her fiction online, Joely is the perfect person to follow up last week’s post on online publishing.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the NYT bestseller list currently features a man who started out by podcasting his fiction to the world.

Scott Sigler is the pioneer of podiobooks, or podcasting fiction. It’s become popular enough that some established authors use it as a means to attract an audience to their work, and as I heard from a publishing contact back in October last year, the traditional publishing houses and agents are starting to pay attention to these authors.

So this is my story. I’m an author, with several unpublished manuscripts sitting waiting for that magic moment. Self-publishing has never seemed right to me, especially as I’ve come very close to deals in the past. My friends have been dying to hear the story, though, since I never shut up about Amnar and how much I love it.

As it happens, one of my friends listened to Scott Sigler’s podcast. He suggested that I try doing that, to keep the clamouring fans at bay. Finally, I wouldn’t just be talking about Amnar, I’d be putting it out there. They’d never liked the idea of it being posted on a blog because they didn’t want to read on screen — but they liked the idea of being able to listen to a podcast.

It’s like an audiobook, with extras. It’s becoming so popular that even established authors use it as a means of encouraging people to get into their work. It’s usually free, so it’s all about building up a group of listeners excited by the story, people who’d be your army and buy your book once it gets a deal.

Yet it’s also more than that. It’s not just about the story you’ve written, it’s also about you as a person. It’s a chance for you to connect with readers on a personal level. They get involved with your life, your story as you try to get yourself out there.

Amazingly enough, podcasting is really easy. Although I had somebody else do them at first, when I took over at the beginning of the year, all I had was a built-in microphone on my laptop and Garageband (which comes free with a Macbook Pro). Each podcast takes about two hours to put together, and it’s another opportunity to go over my work and get back into the world of Amnar on a new level.

The structure of the podcast is a fairly standard thing: I talk a bit to introduce the chapter, then do a little piece at the end, which I leave unedited. I add in background because the world of Amnar opens up all kinds of possibilities to talk about the detail involved. The most exciting part for me right now is the feedback, as more and more people are getting in touch to say they love what I’m doing and are excited by the story.

Of course, there are drawbacks. You have to build a website that convinces listeners to get listen to or download your work, and do just as much marketing as you would for a ‘blook’. However, there is the opportunity to do something that you might not be able to achieve with a blog. Whereas people have to enjoy reading on screen (not something I want to do with fiction, myself), listening to a podcast is something you can do on the train, the bus, on the way to work or on the way home.

I get a great deal of pleasure out of the podcast itself. I’m one of those people who likes not just writing but talking, being able to communicate using voice. While you often can’t catch a person’s tone just from words on a page or screen, you can do so much with additional sound.

Some people take really original approaches, including using actors and producing a fully dramatised version of their stories. Others do a reading with added sound effects, something I’ve experimented with over the last few weeks. It’s possible to take the story to a new level, as well as showcasing your own writing.

If you decide to do it, it will require more than just a free blog. If you have a Mac, you might well have everything you need. It takes a microphone, some editing software, and either your own website, although it is possible to get space on sites specifically designed for podcasting like Podomatic and Podiobooks. These are great places to showcase your work as you progress, and a chance to share your story as you work towards getting a deal.

Personally, I love podcasting. I love the chance to share my work in this way, and to connect with listeners. I would recommend it to anybody.

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Tagged as: Amnar, blogs, books, community, Joely Black, podcast, publishing, self-publishing, story, Writing