How (and why) I turned my book into a podcast

By Kate Hanley

My book, How to Be a Better Person, was released in January, 2018. Sales eventually quieted down, and I lost my promotion mojo. I also was very busy with client ghostwriting and other projects, which is great for my bank account, but not so great for my creativity.

I knew I needed something to keep both my book and me “out there,” but I didn’t have any ideas for a new book.

Then a fated conversation with a friend about how the 401 tips in my book would make great (and short) podcast episodes set my wheels turning.

Just a few months after that conversation at the May 2019 American Society for Journalists and Authors conference, I launched the podcast on September 23, 2019.

Here are my takeaways thus far.

My goals for starting a podcast

When I launched the “How to Be a Better Person” podcast, I wanted to:

• Build my audience. I know I want to write more books, but with the majority of my mindshare going to client work, I don’t have ideas. Until the muse visits again, I want to grow a demonstrable audience and develop a deeper relationship with listeners. 

• Put myself out there as an expert in a new way. Lots of people have written a book. Lots of people have started podcasts. Fewer have done both.

I hope to raise my profile in such a way that I will open myself up to bigger opportunities—as a columnist, a speaker, or something I can’t yet foresee. In addition to providing new revenue streams, having a higher profile will serve me well when my next book idea comes along.

• Have a personal project I love doing. I love working for clients. But I also know I need something that’s mine to get excited about to really feel fulfilled. I have always loved the audio format, ever since hosting a radio show in college. Being in a quiet room, alone, wearing headphones, and talking to an imaginary listener really does it for me!

• Monetize . . . some day. Of course, I do have fantasies/goals of monetizing the podcast, but I felt it was important to build an audience first. As soon as I get through the first 100 episodes, I will seek sponsors; ask for individual supporters through Patreon; or develop a paid program.

The nuts and bolts

Once I had my goals articulated, it was time to go into creation mode—my favorite part! Here’s what that involved.

1. Deciding the format. 

Now that the podcast market has exploded—there are more interview and richly produced investigative podcasts than you can shake a stick at—I wanted to differentiate myself somehow.

My book’s format leant itself nicely to a short (five minutes or less), daily format. I started offering seven episodes per week. After getting feedback from listeners, examining my listening rates, and doing a reality check with my own busy schedule, I dialed that back to five episodes a week.

2. Writing. 

This has been harder than I anticipated because I didn’t understand how different it is to write for a podcast. The writing in my book is really spare. A podcast is much more conversational.

I don’t yet feel comfortable just making some notes and riffing—when I have tried it, it has necessitated more audio editing which is either time-consuming if you’re doing it yourself or more expensive if you’re hiring someone to do it for you.

So, while I am getting faster and less fussy at writing the scripts, it still takes me about 30 minutes to write and record each episode.

3. Recording. 

This piece has been much easier than I expected: A co-working space where I live opened a fully outfitted podcast recording studio that is affordable to rent.

That meant I didn’t have to spend any time figuring out which microphone to buy; I didn’t have to struggle to find a (nonexistent) sound-proof place in my house.

The results

Naturally, I’ve been watching for something to happen, looking for results that indicate whether creating a podcast made business sense for me or not. There have been a few surprises so far.

• Downloads. Six weeks in, I’ve just hit 10,000 downloads. I am thrilled with these numbers even as I look forward to them growing. I think the short format encourages folks to listen to multiple episodes whenever they first discover the podcast, which keeps these numbers high. 

• Book sales. Surprisingly, the podcast hasn’t yet positively impacted book sales. In fact, according to the Book Scan data I have access to via Author Central on Amazon, the book is selling about 25 percent fewer copies per week since I launched the podcast (they went from the mid-20s to the high teens).

Perhaps this is because folks think they don’t need the book since they can get daily content for free on the podcast. Or perhaps it just hasn’t been long enough to see an effect. Still, it gives me another outlet to promote the book as a holiday gift (and, later, as a graduation gift). We’ll see how sales this holiday season compare to last holiday season.

• Newsletter subscribers. I went back and forth on this, and decided against adding everyone on my existing newsletter list to my podcast newsletter list – it just felt like spamming to me, and I’m supposed to be helping people be better people! So I’ve started a podcast newsletter from scratch and it has been slow to build. At some point I need to re-think this.

• Increased visibility. As all authors know, a book, like people, starts to age as soon as it’s born. A daily podcast, on the other hand, is always brand new. This makes it easier to promote—and I’m doing a lot more of it than I ever did for any of my books.

I’m regularly pitching media outlets of all sizes now to get publicity, and consistently posting on social media to an extent I never have before. Maybe I have an appetite for promotion because the podcast is free and that means I’m not asking anyone to spend any money?

I also feel really proud of it, and I’m less shy about talking about it for reasons it would probably take a therapist for me to fully understand.

• More dialogue. In the majority of my episodes, I solicit feedback from listeners, either via email, Tweet, or Facebook or Instagram post. While it’s slow to build, it is opening up new lines of dialogue between my listeners and me, which is priceless. Every email, tweet, and direct message is great fuel that keeps me going!

On a personal level, podcasting has helped me with two of my own goals—to get better at leveraging content I’ve already created, and to get better at being consistent. Launching a daily podcast is great for building consistent habits.

While this is where things stand almost two months in, I’m excited to see what else arises as I keep at it. After all, 80 percent of success is just showing up, right?

To listen, sign up for podcast news, and/or drop me a line, visit beabetterpersonpodcast.com, follow me on Twitter, or connect with me on Facebook.

Simple Ways Make a Difference in Yourself — and the World

How I use Instagram to sell more books

By Kate Hanley

When it comes to social media, I love Instagram above all other platforms. I used it strictly for personal purposes, primarily to share photos of my kids and my daily life. (Which may explain why I loved it; it was a work-free zone!) But as I was creating a promotion plan for my newest book, How to Be a Better Person, I hired an online marketing consultant who challenged me to re-think that.

Pointing out that I had nearly 500 followers and that my posts generally got a decent level of engagement, she convinced me that my Instagram feed was too good a promotional opportunity to ignore.

I saw her point, but I was nervous; I loved Instagram because it wasn’t the frenzy of promotion that Facebook has become. I didn’t want to contribute to the noise.

Presuming I could get over that hurdle, I also didn’t know how to use a visual medium to promote a book that’s filled with tips that are related to changing your outlook.

Together, we worked out a plan to spend one week on each of the eight sections on my book as a way of giving first and inviting people in to the book instead of merely asking them to buy—which can feel like a big ask to someone who doesn’t really know you and not likely to be very effective.

For each post with the themes, I decided write two to three paragraphs about the tip I was posting a photo of—call it micro-blogging. As a writer, this was a way for me to get excited about using a visual platform for something work-related.

Micro-blogging helped me come at book promotion from a spirit of giving and inviting, and not so much about “pay attention to me and buy my stuff!” That helped ease any reservations I had about using my Instagram feed as a promotional tool.

The How

Tech-wise, it hasn’t been seamless. I’ve typed most of these posts on my phone with my thumbs, which is slow-going and painstaking, but I feel it’s important to have access to an emoji keyboard to stick with the conventions of the platforms and to infuse tone.

You can install Gramblr on your computer and then upload photos from your hard drive and use your nice big keyboard to post—I just heard about this and am looking forward to trying it out!

One thing I have come to love about Instagramming for work purposes is that it shows you exactly how popular each hashtag is, so you can choose hashtags for your posts that jibe with your content and that will help new people find that content and, hopefully, follow you.

Instagram is also more conducive to building relationships with other followers whom you might not know in real life—perhaps it’s the heavy use of emojis and tagging that really engages people and makes it feel like a friendlier place.

Make sure you reply to all comments and use emojis to connect with your commenters, and people will be more likely to share your posts with their followers (although they, and you, will need to download an external app—I prefer the Repost App—to share other people’s posts to your own list.)

The Results

I released a book last May called Stress Less, which I didn’t do much social media promotion to support—mostly because I was on deadline to write How to Be a Better Person when it came out! (Having two books come out in the same year is kind of like having Irish twins; one will naturally get less attention when the other is more needy.)

But comparing the sales numbers, How to Be a Better Person has sold 30 percent more copies in its first month than Stress Less did in its first month of life. (I’m also up to 680 followers.)

Of course, the fact that How to Be a Better Person came out in prime new year/new you season (it was released on January 2) probably has something to do the strong first-month showing, but if you can boost book sales doing something you enjoy and that helps you engage directly with your readers, why not?

Other cool Instagram ideas I’ve seen:

• Develop 30 days of content counting down to a holiday that has some relevance to your subject matter in your own version of an advent calendar. Katy Bowman of Nutritious Movement is a whiz at this.
• Post a picture of a stack of three or five books and saying you’ll give them away to three or five lucky winners who post a comment that answers a particular question (perhaps something you’re looking for feedback on).
• Ask readers to post a picture of themselves with their copy of the book and tag you and/or use a specific hashtag

If you’re on Instagram, I’d love to connect with you there! I’m @katehanleyauthor. And if you’ve seen other great book promotion ideas implemented on Instagram, I’d love to hear about those too—please leave them in a comment here!

for Mother’s Day (my request!) and love it. Learn more about Kate on her website. 

5 most common obstacles to writing your book

By Kate Hanley

There’s a reason why 80 percent of Americans (that’s 200 million people) say they want to write a book, yet only .04 percent of them actually do it in any given year: Writing a book is no small undertaking.

Doable? Absolutely. Easy? Not so much.

Especially if you’re falling prey to one or some of the most common obstacles to actually getting a book out into the world.

Are you subjecting yourself to any of these common roadblock thoughts? I hope seeing them with more clarity—and learning their workarounds—will help you get going!

Roadblock thought #1: “I don’t have the time.”

Of course getting all those words and thoughts down seems like it will take up mountains of time—and who has those lying around?

Detour: Rather than trying to “find” the time, presume it’s already there, and then go about claiming it.

Small chunks add up to big progress. You could resolve to spend 20 minutes a day working on your book, and in a month you’d have ten hours under your belt—enough to write about 10,000 words. If the average book is 75,000 words, you could have a complete first draft by Valentine’s Day.

Or, maybe you’re not a daily person; you really need to do a deep dive. You could carve out one four-hour period each week (Sunday morning?), or one full weekend a month, for 16 hours a month and be done by Christmas.

Roadblock thought #2: “I don’t know where to start.”

Writing a book is a big project, and there’s no one right way to do it. You could spend months, even years, thinking through all your options. In fact, many people do.

Detour: Use a two-page book proposal to distill your idea, set your intentions, and create a roadmap for yourself.

Here’s what it includes:

• The gist of what your book is about
• Who it’s for
• The problem it solves (for nonfiction books)
• The benefits it offers (for nonfiction books)
• Why you’re the perfect person to write it
• A down-and-dirty table of contents

Keep it concise and don’t overthink. Anyone can write two pages. And then you’ll have started!

Roadblock thought #3: “Who am I to write this book?”

Compiling all your best thoughts, slapping your name on the cover, and putting it “out there” is a great recipe for kicking off a swirl of self-doubt.

“I don’t have a degree.”

“I’m no expert.”

“People will see I’m a fraud.”

Detour: Go back to your two-page book proposal, and flesh out why you are the right person to right this book. Include everything that relates to your book’s subject—experiences from your personal life as well as the more quantifiable traits, such as training, clients, degrees, and writing experience.

Re-read it whenever you feel those doubts creeping back in.

Roadblock thought #4: “I need to focus on the work that pays the bills—there’s no energy left for anything else.”

At the root of this one is motivation, or a lack of it.

Detour: The best way to inspire yourself to take action is to remind yourself of the positive results you’re trying to create.

What do you want this book to do for you—build a fan base that will buy novels in your series or get you a promotion, better-paying or higher-profile clients, speaking gigs, media appearances, or increased credibility?

Then write out what’s at stake for your audience—how will they benefit from the ideas, entertainment, or the point of view that only you can present?

Write your answers down. Post them on the bulletin board above your desk. Don’t let yourself distract yourself from what’s really at stake.

Roadblock thought #5: “I just want to write the thing—I’m not good at marketing myself.”

If I had a quarter for every time I heard a writer say, “I’m just not good at marketing,” I’d be a rich woman. And yet, I get it. I had to get over this particular roadblock too.

Detour: What you need is a mindset shift.

If you believe that the information or entertainment you have to share can help people, it’s not an intrusion to tell them about it—it’s a service.

Also, it’s not really about you; it’s about the message inside it, and the potential of that message to help other people.

I say this with love: Get over yourself. The world needs what you’ve got, and you’re not helping anyone by keeping it corked up.

Which obstacle is keeping you from finishing your book? What are you going to do about it?