The thing is, I have been informed by at least one person I worship as a guru that — as another way of promoting my almost-ready book, How I Learned The Facts of Life — I absolutely have to do a podcast.
Perhaps you can imagine the sort of funk this tosses me into. Into which I have been tossed.
But perhaps, if you’re not a writer, I should explain a simple fact: publishers do not want to take on a book without seeing evidence that the writer is either famous or has a…I was about to write “platform”, which was the term a couple of years ago but I don’t think it is anymore. I’m not sure what is the current term for: I have to prove to a publisher I have so successfully promoted myself, hundreds of thousands of eager readers are waiting to plunk down or transfer a reasonable amount of money to that publisher in order to buy my book.
I suspect you have read the above paragraph and are thinking, “Geez, she is really cranky about this self-promotion business.”
Not so. I have traveled well beyond “cranky.”
Still. I am a grownup and I accept responsibilities with a modicum of grace not evidenced in this post. On my blog I feel free to crank away whenever I must, because most of the time I do have a sense of humor — although it does tend to be dark and satirical.
But look, I’ve also given you funny and adorable animal things so a dyspeptic post or two shouldn’t send anyone to the Pepto Bismol, right?
I Googled “how to do a podcast.” Got thousands of people advertising their wares as podcast masters. That is, they want me to pay them for doing what I’m fairly sure I should be able to do myself.
Bye, Google.
I bought a book. SO YOU WANT TO START A PODCAST: Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Story, and Building a Community That Will Listen. I wanted to replicate the three colors in that title (the book cover is a lovely aquamarine)– SO YOU WANT TO is in yellow but when I yellowed it, it wasn’t readable. Nor would START A PODCAST be if I bleached it white, which is how it is printed, so…
This is the first sentence of the introduction: “Hello, you magnificent creature.”
Now, I have at least 86,000 people who subscribe to this blog and over 150,000 who hit it each month. A few of you probably know me personally but even if you don’t, ALL of you know I do not respond to being called a “magnificent creature”!!!!!!!!
Still, I’m reading the book.
And I’ve bookmarked a specific series of instructions on how to set up a podcast linked to this blog. Haven’t read much of it yet but I’ve started to gather information.
The only podcast I’ve listened to was connected to the New York Giants website and I listened because the Giants’ ex-GM, Ernie Accorsi — whom I know slightly — was on and talking about wonderful Giants things and he was terrific and funny. As he is.
So I have a general idea of what to do with a podcast, and a general plan for the subject matter of a podcast, and a specific idea for how long each podcast will be. (Short.)
OK, I’ve reported in on this podcast business. Later I’ll entertain you with a passage from a collection of Dorothy Sayers short mystery fiction, about a semi-failed author of mysteries who comes up with an innovative way of promoting himself to a publisher.