On Building an Author Platform You Actually Own

Everyone tells authors they need a platform—but what does that actually mean in today's publishing landscape?

In this episode of Talking Book Publishing, Kathleen and Adanna sit down with podcasting and content marketing expert Tracy Hazzard to unpack what an effective author platform looks like today. Tracy explains why social media followers aren't the same as a true platform, why your website should serve as the foundation of your marketing, and how creating consistent content can build lasting authority that continues working long after a single post disappears from a social feed.

The conversation also explores practical ways authors can begin building a platform before their book launches. From choosing the right content format—whether that's blogging, podcasting, video, or Substack—to establishing a consistent publishing rhythm, Tracy shares actionable strategies that help authors attract readers, increase discoverability, and build credibility in an increasingly competitive marketplace. If you've ever wondered where to start with book marketing, this episode offers a clear roadmap focused on building your audience rather than chasing algorithms.

In this episode, you'll learn:

•  Why your website—not social media—is the foundation of your author platform. 
•  The difference between building followers and building an audience you own. 
•  How consistent content improves discoverability and builds authority. 
•  Why authors should choose the content format they enjoy most. 
•  Practical first steps for creating a sustainable marketing platform before your book launches.

Connect With Us

Kathleen: kathleenkaiser.com

Adanna: maddannastudio.com

Podcast listeners receive a special 20% off all ProBookLaunch products. Use code TBPLISTENER20 at checkout.

Have a topic or guest suggestion?
Email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today

Join the conversation on Instagram: @writerspubsnet

Transcript

00:00:06 SPEAKER_00
Welcome to Talking Book Publishing.

00:00:17 SPEAKER_00
Hello and welcome to this episode of Talking Book Publishing.

00:00:18 SPEAKER_01
episode of Talking Book Publishing. I'm Kathleen Kaiser, your co -host along with Adana Moriarty. And today we have Tracy Hazard, who's here to talk about how to build a platform, an author platform, in the age of AI. because there's a lot of ways as we have said many times ai is a tool that you can use. And it can be a very creative tool if you want, but it's really a great tool. So welcome, Tracy. Thanks for having me.

00:00:47 SPEAKER_02
for having me. And, you know, I love this idea of talking about platform because, I mean, it's the one thing you hear so often, especially when you want to be an aspiring author and you come into the world and say, well, what's your platform? And that makes a difference. And people are always like, what does that mean? And what it meant a decade ago when I started my business and what it means today are two different things. Totally.

00:01:10 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I started, well, 18 years ago. It has a totally different meaning. First off, they were just introducing the concept and now it has a totally different meaning. So why don't you give us your definition? Yeah, so when I look at platform,

00:01:24 SPEAKER_02
it has to be around all of your followership, but it has to be the followership that you own. And that's the very big difference between what a lot of people say. I can be, you know, a great have Instagram and do really well out there. But if those followers don't take action and really aren't mine at the end of the day, I also aren't able to take them off of the Instagram platform and bring them somewhere else. And they're really not a part of my platform. And so that's what I'm always looking at is I'm always looking at your platform is the things where wherever you're out there. using your content, using your influence, using all of that creation that you have out there. And it's not driving back to a home base. That's not your platform. That belongs to somebody else. It belongs to YouTube. It belongs to Instagram. It belongs to Twitter or whoever it is nowadays. It just doesn't even matter. It may even belong to Gemini or OpenAI or whoever right now. It may not even belong to us anyway. But anywhere we can get them to come back to us where we have a direct ability to contact them again, that is the definition of the platform. I like that one because to me,

00:02:37 SPEAKER_01
because to me, everything still centers around a website, especially with so many authors now doing direct sales, because then you get the people's name. They're buying from you, you know, not just trying to get them to sign up for a newsletter.

00:02:51 SPEAKER_03
If you are reaching out, like if it's someplace that you can contact them, isn't that? basically your newsletter what are other places that you can do that from that are not just you know a newsletter list that you've built so i look i think it's more of this idea especially in this day of ai okay you have an authority consolidation so when i put out posts on instagram or i write

00:03:03 SPEAKER_02
i look i think it's more of this idea especially in this day of ai okay you have an authority consolidation so when i put out posts on instagram or i write an article that is on somebody's website, you know, as a like a contributing article, I used to write for Inc Magazine. I wrote 400 articles that are on Inc Magazine. They're not on my website. Right. So if I didn't have a connection back to them, linking out to them and saying, here's valuable information that you could do, then I'm not consolidating. my authority, my expertise, my power into one place. So that's what I mean by it. It doesn't mean that everything is resident on your website. It means that your website is the traffic director, right? So we're directing traffic wherever is needed most, but we're also consolidating everything that that is because, look, it's so hard on social media. And the amount of time something lasts on TikTok or lasts on Instagram or even lasts in YouTube as being something that gets served up again and again is so slim and so small and so short. Some are counted in hours and not even days or weeks or years. The things you can count on in years are blogs, podcasts, ironically, which is one of the reasons why I started mine. Some amount of Pinterest for some weird reason has a much longer lifespan. It's still only in months, but it's a much longer lifespan than anything else. And that says that there's not a repository of our information anywhere. Now, that's one really good reason to be writing a book because it is a repository, but you still also have to direct traffic to that book and market to those people. So I want to have all of my expertise in one place because I want the AI to know that. I am an expert in this. This is my niche. This is my power. This is my authority. And I wanted to know. And if I've got it spread all over the place, it has to work too hard to figure that out.

00:05:09 SPEAKER_03
So the concept of that is basically. We are kind of moving from SEO, search engine optimization, to AEO, AI engine optimization. So when you say building a platform in the age of AI, is that kind of what you mean is to make sure that your platform is working for AI search?

00:05:30 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so I always think of it as this, if it was worth doing a video, if it was worth doing an interview, if it was worth making... a post about something, then it's worth being a part of your platform. And so making sure that all those things are linked back and referenced to your core messaging, your core audience, your core things, those are the things you have to think about. I mean, I came on the show and what is the first thing we did? We had a little chit chat at the beginning to make sure that this was relevant for you and also relevant for me. Because we need to make that connection to make everything that we do worthwhile in our marketing. That's what I'm talking about here. But I am talking about a website that is a home base for everything that you do. Doesn't necessarily, like, I'm terrible at collecting emails. Like, I have a newsletter. I do. But I'm terrible at collecting emails and dealing with that part of it because I don't really care. I figure if there's enough information on my site, which there's plenty, if you go to our podcastersunited .org website, there's 800 articles and tips. So like there's so much information. So I know that if you find what you're looking for, you're going to book a call with me or you're going to take the action that I want you to take by my book, if I had a book, which I don't. And we'll talk about that in a few minutes. But listen to my podcast, right? You'll know how to reach me in the way that is most connective for you because that information drove you there. But if the AI is not sending you to somewhere and it's confused about where to send you to find me, then it's never going to work. And that's what we want is this one straightforward location that you own and are in control of. There's no algorithm shift going on that's going to all of a sudden make it invisible or take you down. It belongs to you. I see that like,

00:07:20 SPEAKER_01
see that like, yeah, the website is kind of like the brick and mortar part of it that you own. You own the building. You own everything that goes on inside there. Yeah, it's your home address,

00:07:28 SPEAKER_03
it's your home address, right? Yeah. It's where to find you. I think it's funny because Kathleen lives to collect emails. That started as a teenager.

00:07:35 SPEAKER_01
started as a teenager. I know. She was for my fan club. And, you know, by the time I was 16, I had 2000 addresses and phone numbers. So I've just spent my life collecting names. So I automated that.

00:07:48 SPEAKER_02
I automated that. Like I say that like I'm really bad at it because I'm bad at thinking about what to do with it. So I created a whole automated system that I use and it all my content feeds into it. So I use one of these AI automated newsletters. All the addresses are collected and automated and added to that. And then I just let it run itself. I don't really think about it because I think about the content creation side for me. And I know everything I do is all being fed in there and everyone that I partner with is also being fed in there. So I know there's new content every single week, but every single person gets a different newsletter. So I don't have to think about it anymore. And that's how I've like kind of removed myself from the follow up side of it. But the interesting thing is I just looked at it the other day and we have a tremendously good. click -through rate and reading of the articles that are in there. And so it's like up at 40%, which is really astounding. But we have a small list because people weed themselves out really quickly. And so the list just keeps kind of stabilizing and narrowing and getting to where it needs to be. So I'm adding people all the time, but there are also people dropping out. But the people that I'm adding, I looked through the list and I was like, I know all those people because they've also taken the time. to contact me or show up at a coaching call or do something. So I feel like it's really resourceful now and not just this sort of like collection of like, am I just data mining? I like, I don't know what I'm doing with it. So now I do feel that way about it, but I haven't like amped it up like you have. Well, I think this is really great. But if you were Jane Doe and you're just starting your journey here and you're like,

00:09:20 SPEAKER_03
I think this is really great. But if you were Jane Doe and you're just starting your journey here and you're like, this is great, but it still sounds overwhelming. Where would you tell them to start with this process of building a platform that will work for them by the time they get to a published manuscript?

00:09:40 SPEAKER_02
Okay, so the first thing that I always say is get yourself a website. It doesn't have to be super fancy. I do highly recommend that it is a WordPress website, and that is just from long -term experience, knowing that WordPress websites outperform all other sources, Wix, Squarespace. especially HubSpot, any of those other ones, it outperforms it like eight to two. Like, I mean, 80 % power, more power. It goes to a WordPress website from AI and from SEO. So from AEO and SEO, both of them are still more powerful in a WordPress website. So if you need a little help with that, there's lots of people, but there's also lots of little coding softwares and all kinds of vibe stuff you can use out there too. So go ahead and do it. Doesn't need to be more than one page to get started. Right. Just the front page. A little about you. If you want to add a second page, that's maybe your bio and a little more information about you. The important part is to tack the blog part on it or the content piece on it. Now, that's where I differ. This is where I I differ from everyone else out there about this. It does not matter to me whether you have a podcast, a video channel or YouTube channel, a sub stack, a. You would rather write articles. You would rather write blogs. It does not matter to me as long as it's not on social media only. It starts on your website first or starts in one of those locations as its content feed. So wherever you feel most comfortable. I agree with that. Right. I'm a talker. So that's why I started with podcasting.

00:11:16 SPEAKER_03
I agree with that. And you can take all of those pieces and post them as a blog. So when the little bots are out there searching and I mean, our whole website for the podcast, each episode is a blog post. That's how it's posted. It's not a site made.

00:11:32 SPEAKER_02
site made. It's a blog post.

00:11:33 SPEAKER_03
post.

00:11:33 SPEAKER_02
And so we are known by our company that Podatize and Podcasters United is the nonprofit entity that basically, I want to call it like resells Podatize. And so is that. Everything that we do in that is meant to go from video to audio to blog to social share so that it gives you that path to go. The only reason we start with videos, because if your end goal is some social share too, there's a lot of visuals needed. So we capture that, but you don't have to use that because pretty much when somebody loads a video into our platform to be syndicated as a podcast, it just throws the video away and takes the audio file from there. So, and then creates the transcript. And so what we do have, I mean, we have done over 75 ,000 episodes. where we've taken them from video, audio, all the way through to blog posts on people's websites. And so in that process, we learned this amazing way to transcribe everything that is highly, highly valuable. And so that transcription process has been working for over a decade with Google. And we have had multiple conversations with them about what's working in it. Three things that work with doing this is that if you take your video or your audio and you turn it into this blog, then what happens is that you're creating a pattern of language that both SEO knows that there's a human on the other end of it, which is really important. It means some, you know, farm in Romania didn't write your blogs. There's a human on the other side of it. And they cared about that for the last decade. But AI knows that that's human pattern speech. that's being written in there. And they care about that even more because it teaches them how to converse. So it makes them want to consume your content, makes them want to go through it and find what's valuable, what's important, what are you about? It invites them in. And so that's what we've been doing for a really long time is taking that and making those two things work together. The other part of it, the second part of it, is that so there's a human connected to it. is that when you produce a video show or an audio show like a podcast, you have a consistent cadence of production, of publishing. You're publishing on a weekly basis, hopefully. If you can't do it, I mean, if you can't do it weekly, it like has diminishing returns after that. But if you do it weekly... It's so powerful that you really don't have to do anyone. You don't have to do the impact of doing daily, which some people do. And it seems a little overwhelming and crazy. Weekly is enough, enough to give you the recency needed. So you can talk about recent events. You can talk about things that are changing in your marketplace. And it's consistent enough for the AI and the SEO. So both sides of it to consider you a valuable resource because you show up every week. And so those two things combined with the third thing, which is everything about your website should be focused on the thing that you're most unique about, right? So you've got a niche and an expertise and a value to the world. So those three things, when you consolidate that and add something every week, before you know it, you've got 52 weeks in and you've got a huge platform.

00:14:43 SPEAKER_03
So is that across the board if you have a podcast, but you also like to write blogs or, I mean, you're just posting weekly? Or does it have to be I have a podcast I post weekly? Is it just putting out content consistently? It doesn't matter where that content comes from.

00:14:58 SPEAKER_02
It doesn't matter where that content comes from. So if you want to just produce a podcast twice a week and you want to write two articles a week, so then you've got your whole month covered right there. Right. Or do two videos where like I used to do a weekly coaching call that was live and I. I only did it live so that I would have a YouTube video every single week that I could transcribe and add to my website. It's the only reason I did it. I was going to coach my clients anyway, but now I have a recording of that and I would save that out. So there's so many ways for you to not have to work hard to create content, to feed it in. But the minimum requirement nowadays is something every single week. Doesn't matter what it is, like I said. but something every single week. And if you can do it consistently on the same day, AI is a creature of habit and it'll look for something new.

00:15:48 SPEAKER_03
Okay, so we start with a one -page brochure website and a blog. And the blog content can be your sub stack, your podcast, actual writing a blog, a YouTube show, whatever. Where would we go from there? I feel like that's a lot. Do we even need more than that? I mean,

00:16:06 SPEAKER_02
that? I mean, it's just as easy to say, OK, I'm going to start a YouTube channel or I'm going to start a podcast or I'm going to start a sub stack. Think of those three things as your options. So writing and it doesn't really matter. You could you could do it on any platform, not sub stack. You can do it in Vimeo and not in YouTube. It does not really matter for what we're talking about here. You go where you're most comfortable. This is my same advice to everyone starting social media who are not really comfortable in social media. Don't try to do every. platform at once, go to the one you're most comfortable in. So if you're used to using LinkedIn yourself, then start your messaging there. Start with one thing. That's when my message is across everything. So here's the same thing. So I wanted to start with podcasting. So I go to that one place where I can podcast. I set up my podcast platform. I set up my production system. I set up everything that I need to do there to make it work. Or I make it really easy on myself and I go to YouTube and I just turn on live stream. I go to Zoom and I live stream to YouTube, right? I do this something that is so simple for me to be able to execute and execute it consistently and constantly. It just doesn't matter what that is. Everything that happens after that actually isn't as important right now in the starting days of it. So as just getting you to do it and go, I love this. I love talking into the microphone. I love being on camera. Whatever that might be, you want to make sure that it's comfortable with you. And that's your first month. You don't worry about what you're going to do with it after. You worry about that. 30 days later. That's a good start.

00:17:43 SPEAKER_01
a good start. I have my things all over the place. In fact, I started to substack this week. So I've got to realize, oh, so I've got to link that back here and here and here. And yeah,

00:17:52 SPEAKER_02
and that's the trouble with those of us who have been in business a really long time, right? I have actually been writing blogs. My very first blog was on going green. It was called Easy Going Green. And it was, gosh, I can't even remember the platform I was on. That's how old it is. I don't think the platform exists anymore. And that was 20 years ago, probably. So yeah, it was probably Blogspot. It probably was something like that. Anyway, it was like 20 years ago. And so, you know, you lose that stuff if you don't download it, you don't save it, you don't consolidate it, you don't move it into something else. And so you've got to be thinking about... Especially if you've been a seasoned expert, what is valuable and where to keep it? And right now, I'm in the midst of consolidating four websites together into one master plan, podcast, video channel, and website. And I had to really work hard with my AI to figure out the thread that connected all the pieces so that I could put it into one site and not have to manage four anymore. What am I?

00:18:54 SPEAKER_03
What AI do you use for that? Well,

00:18:57 SPEAKER_02
so I'm a very heavy and advanced Gemini user. I'm part of one of their research programs. So I get a little special treatment over there. My AI is like really far along. So what I mean by that is that when I converse with Gemini, it really understands where I'm going and what I'm doing. And I don't have to explain it. I don't have to tell it how I want it to act anymore. And so it's really easy for me to use it. So we were talking about this. I'm moving. And I put in the fact that I was moving and I have to move three businesses and two kids and a whole household full of stuff. And I have to downsize it. And this happened all of a sudden. So I also have activities that are ongoing that I can't change because it's the end of the school year and one daughter's graduating from sixth grade and I have a baby shower for my nephew. So I just I don't have to explain all of that to it. I just go in and say, I need this move plan. I need you to make sure I don't miss any of the activities I promised to do. And this is what this is what my ultimate goal is. And it wrote out a daily plan. And every day it gives me a daily brief saying, don't forget, like this morning it told me, don't forget to message the schools because our daughters are changing schools. Don't forget to message the school because you still haven't heard yet. And I almost forgot that I hadn't heard yet because I'm wrapped up in the end of this school. and not thinking about the next one and they're going to close and i will have forgotten to message them it remembered and so that's kind of why i use it because it really deeply knows me and so Well, I hop around a lot and I try a bunch of different stuff and I love open AI. I love using Chat2BT too. Perplexity has amazing features to it. I love all of those. I do my core stuff in one place because I don't want to spread the learnings out. I want to keep it consolidated. And for me, my ultimate goal for me and my clients is to make sure that that authority platform, that website that they have really is powered. And so if I don't use... The platform, if I don't use the AI platform that understands that deeply, then it doesn't make sense. So there's this thinking about it this way. If I were in book publishing like you, I would care about what Amazon thinks. I would really deeply care. And so any AI that they participate in has much deeper knowledge, whether it's hidden underneath it all, in what trained it and the logic that it uses that is going to benefit Amazon in the end. I would be using that. But that's not where my client base lies. My client base lies in what Apple thinks, what Spotify thinks, and what Gemini and Google think. And so that's why I house mine there. Because I care about what happens on YouTube. And Google owns YouTube. So this is why my home base for my AI is there. I don't know if you know this,

00:21:43 SPEAKER_01
don't know if you know this, but Jeff Bezos was one of the early people on the board of Google. And he used a lot of their... coding and other things to grow it. So I wonder, he's probably using Gemini too. I think they've,

00:21:56 SPEAKER_02
from what I've read, is they've got their fingers in a lot of pies. So who knows? You might find little bits of Amazon insights everywhere.

00:22:05 SPEAKER_03
And they just updated from Rufus or whatever to Alexa AI. That happened right before Memorial Weekend sales. if you had gone in a week ago it would have been i think it was rufus and now it's alexa ai so they had some kind of update that i'm not aware of that i need to go investigate but yeah so i've been i've been an amazon and book use book reader i'm a heavy book reader so i i think maybe your audience should hear that like i mean here i am talking about podcasting and video and all this other stuff but i am a i'm a super reader i read the year that i was pregnant with my daughter i read 300 books i don't quite read that many but i probably at least read 100 books a year and so i am a super reader it's

00:22:26 SPEAKER_02
so i've been i've been an amazon and book use book reader i'm a heavy book reader so i i think maybe your audience should hear that like i mean here i am talking about podcasting and video and all this other stuff but i am a i'm a super reader i read the year that i was pregnant with my daughter i read 300 books i don't quite read that many but i probably at least read 100 books a year and so i am a super reader it's It's what I do for free time because the last thing I want to do is listen to a podcast after that's my day job. And I don't have the patience for video the way video is today. It just drives me. It kind of makes me nauseous. It's so fast. And so reading is my free time. It's what I love to do. And I will read anything. All genres. And which is, I think, kind of odd. But that is the way I like to mix it up for myself. And so I really do care about that. But I've been shopping on Amazon since 1998.

00:23:21 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And I have like, because you can go back and see your history. It's so funny.

00:23:24 SPEAKER_02
funny. The first thing I bought was a book, of course. It was an art book.

00:23:29 SPEAKER_01
You can go back that far. I've never looked at it. Yeah. I don't know if you can anymore,

00:23:32 SPEAKER_02
but you could a while ago. And I did. So and I also had this really good friend who used to be. who used to work and do a lot of the development and coding, and he built the Fire Phone. as one of his projects. And he said to me afterwards, I couldn't tell you this, Tracy, but at Amazon, we write a very clear profile of who our audience is, of who it is that we are designing this phone for, designing this, writing our book for. We should all think about it like that. And it has a name and there's a whole profile about what she does and how she shops. And usually it's a woman and Amazon and what she cares about, what she does. And he said the whole time. that I was doing this project, the profile's name was Tracy. And all I could think about was you. And so when he finally told me what was in the profile, I go, I swear, that is my Amazon profile. Are you sure they didn't just like take me out and go, let's write, let's make the phone for this person. And so I think I was the only person who loved my Amazon Fire phone. I bought it before it was, it was, it was, before they sold it for 99 cents because nobody wanted it because it was actually designed for me.

00:24:39 SPEAKER_03
I don't even remember that. That's so funny.

00:24:42 SPEAKER_02
It was early because it had an assistant built into it. It was like, I mean, thinking about that, it had its own Alexa in its own way. Wow, I didn't know that.

00:24:52 SPEAKER_03
I think creating client or reader avatars, I'm always telling people that and I get a lot of pushback often from potential clients. Once they become my clients, they're like, whatever you say, let's do that. Let's just do this. But in the early stages, there's a lot of pushback because people really believe, especially for reading, that their audience is everybody. And that's crazy because even they don't read every book. Some of us like to read multi -genre, but most people are like, this is what I read. I read romance or I read YA or, or, or, you know. So I think client avatars are super important.

00:25:31 SPEAKER_02
Well, I think they're even more important nowadays because it is this ability to market that makes the difference between whether or not your book is going to sell it or it's not, whether or not your podcast is going to get listened to or it's not. Your ability to market. And face it, we don't. The economy is not great for everyone and we don't have deep pockets. And if you do not have deep pockets, you cannot afford to market to everyone. It's just not going to happen. So if it's not going to happen, then I better make my fans, absolute rating fans who are going to share my show or share my book with every single person out there because it has to be focused and it has to work for that. When we've developed our first podcast, which was 12 years ago. And it was a geeky podcast for 3D printing called WTFFF, which stands for What the Fused Filament Fabrication. You can tell it's really geeky. But we knew our audience, right? We knew exactly who we were talking to by the way we titled it to begin with. And we knew every single time we made our podcast episode, or we would sit down in front of the microphone, we would say, we're answering Liam's question from New Jersey, and we're answering so -and -so's question from New... orleans now we made them up they weren't because we didn't have people writing in when we started the show we made them up but we were answering their questions on air And we had the picture of them in their mind. And eventually, and it wasn't that long for us. For us, it was about 60 days. And in 60 days, we had people reaching out. And I had a picture of who they were. They would ask really pointed questions. And they would say, I'm a middle school teacher in the Midwest. And I have these 3D printers that were donated to me. What do I do with them? And we would come up with ideas and projects and give them. And so we'd say, this one's for, you know, this one's for Julius. And, you know, we would just make this stuff, you know, up in the beginning. And then it turned into reality as we had more and more fans. And so that podcast in five months had 100 ,000 listeners a month. And we didn't spend them. One penny on marketing. And we didn't have a social media presence. I mean, I don't think Tom and I had between the two of us and Tom Hazard is my husband and partner. So Tom and I had maybe a thousand followers on social media across all the platforms. So we didn't do it by spending money. We did it by being focused. And as early being valuable today,

00:28:01 SPEAKER_03
valuable today, though, then podcasts were kind of new and it was a totally different. I don't know. People were consuming podcasts differently because it was like, whoa, right? Yeah,

00:28:12 SPEAKER_02
I mean, you can. You can do it today, especially in podcasting. Why? Because it has not changed. 87 % of people quit their podcast before they ever hit 20 episodes. Usually right around 11 episodes they quit. So we have barely 400 ,000 active podcasters today. produce successful shows. And we have even less percent of those 400 ,000 produced on a weekly basis. So you can imagine a raving fan trying to keep up with what's going on in 3D printing or what's going on in Bitcoin or what's going on in, you know, wherever your niche may be, what's going on in healthcare, right? It's... Whatever's happening in that area is happening so rapidly because of the change of AI, because of digital influences, because of the social media sort of shift and influence that's going on there. Everything is happening at such rapid speed that it is hard to find a source that is keeping up. But podcasts recording week over week are keeping up. And so they become invaluable resources and people rave about them. I mean, I still go to events and people go, what podcast are you listening to? And they don't know that I own a platform, but they'll go, what podcast are you listening to? They care about finding that out, too, because they care about where the value is. Who's the most valuable host? Who's the most valuable? And it's not the top 13 because there's actually a top 13. You know, the Kelsey's podcast, you know, it's a weird number, but it was it's the top 13. And they make all the money in the marketplace. But that does not mean that the rest of us aren't making money in our business because it's driving traffic to it. So when I produce my podcast and I have a lot of information out there, my goal is to get somebody to want to work with me. And I'm warming them up without doing anything that I wouldn't already do because I use my podcast to serve my clients. So I've already got 800 clients. I need to serve them all. How can I serve them with content that keeps them current, keeps them managed, and then repurpose that them as a lead generation? So there's always a path to doing it. But the key factor is I don't make a podcast that is unfocused. It is absolutely diving into the niche. For me, that niche is even more focused on the perfect client I want to attract out of it. So I've gone even deeper on it and I've learned that over the years because I'm, you know, like three, four hundred episodes into that podcast. Right. I learned that you get a lot of leads and then they don't have money for what you have or they don't aren't a right fit for what you have. And so my goal is to find podcasters who are already podcasting. So they already know if they like it or not. So they're past that stage of quitting. So have 20 episodes or more and would like to get more out of their show. They want, they realize they're onto something, they like it, but what else could they do with this? How could they make it into something more? That's my core audience. So I don't talk to newbies. I just don't even do it anymore. There's information for it on our website, but it's not my core daily thing that I'm doing. I'm driving deep expert information. So I made this thing that I used with you guys. It's called a content gap analyzer. And I... analyze the content gap. So I say, what is your podcast about? What's your YouTube about? Or what's your website about? Or all three. You can look at all three. And when you use it, what it's analyzing is where you fit in the marketplace compared to your top competitors. And it lets you choose your competitors and you choose the top three. And then it does a comparison to where you could outrank them. It is not looking at emulating them. It is looking at what's special about you. that you could dive so deep in and have some blue ocean territory of your own.

00:32:07 SPEAKER_03
And I think all of this, obviously, we've taken a deep dive into podcasts. But for authors, you can do the same thing with your blog posting or your sub stack that you post to your blog or create your own podcast. Tracy does really cool things with podcasts and with podcasts. Well,

00:32:25 SPEAKER_02
we work with tons of authors. So yeah, let me talk about that. And because you put this book out. Or you're about to put this lookout. And you have to have a touch point. You can't just say, I've got this book for sale week over week over week. You can't just do that. You've got to have some kind of content plan that drives them into a story that might be in the book, entices them with an interview that you did somewhere. There's got to be a continuous thing that is constantly giving you a reason to be written about in any kind of publicity. to talk about on different podcasts. The thing that I don't always love interviewing authors on my podcast because they say it's in the book. And whenever you say that, you've lost me already and I'm not buying your book. That's what happens in a lot of media nowadays is that we think that it's a sales pitch and it's not. It's a story. It's a connection that I'm making to you to decide to buy your book. And any way that we can do that, that's what makes it more valuable. So we do a lot of author podcasts that are a limited series, if you want to think about it. So I'm going to market my book for 20 weeks. So we'll do a 20 -episode limited series. But at the end of it, a lot of them like it. And they want to continue and they find ways because now they can use it with their fan base and they turn it into something else. And the great part about podcasting is it's so flexible. You can change your show name. So you use it for the marketing piece for 20 weeks and then you change it over and now it's a fan piece from that point forward. Or now it's helping you figure out what to write in your next book and your follow -up. in the next in your series, whatever that might be. So sometimes it can be come and turn into nurture. We also have promotion pieces because it's not always likely that an audio listener on other people's podcasts, when you go and do an audio tour of all the different podcasts that you could be on to promote your book, that translate into actually buying books. That's a harder leap because they're very used to the audio platform. Could I get them to transfer from somebody else's podcast that I'm being interviewed on to my show? And then from there to buy a book? Yeah. So that's kind of the path we take with that. So we do a lot of these promotions of the show. And we do audience boosts. We do other things that help the show itself grow, which then in turn sells the book. So we just don't do it with a direct book sell as often. We find that warming them up into the book and you telling those stories and you getting to have them like you. is huge in getting them to not just buy the book, but to actually read it. And then that means in our nonfiction readers, right, that they're going to buy from your business or they're going to get your coaching or download your course or program or whatever you wrote that book for.

00:35:11 SPEAKER_01
Right. Well, that would be great, too, though, if you have an audiobook. Yes. Because if they're listening to podcasts, they'll like audiobooks. Yes.

00:35:19 SPEAKER_02
But so often I find that authors aren't. going all in on the audio right away, they wait. And I think that's a mistake. If you're going to go and do a tour, you should do it all at one time. So I don't know about how you guys plan with that, but I find that it's a lot easier to bring an author on who does have an audiobook already.

00:35:36 SPEAKER_03
I think everybody should do their book, their ebook, and their audiobook, and then publish. I get it, especially for our indie and self -published authors. There's an expense to all of that, but... I also think there's this, if you're going to spend the money to publish your book, you might as well spend the money to do all of the book platforms so you have a chance of making that money back. Well,

00:36:01 SPEAKER_02
I promised your audience that I would tell this story at the beginning that I have a book. It's actually sitting right behind me in one of those black boxes if you were on video, right? And so I have it. It's on my shelf. And it's never been produced. And here's what happened. I wrote the book. hired a publisher. And then as I got into it, I realized there is no way I'm going to be able to reach the audience that's right for this book without the right platform. And then I started diving into how was I going to build the platform before I launched this book? And the next thing I knew, I was a platform expert.

00:36:35 SPEAKER_01
I had a platform expertise. And I never got around because by the time it took me to figure that out,

00:36:39 SPEAKER_02
by the time it took me to figure that out, I felt like the book was old. And so it never got produced. And now I have a completely different business. So that book would never be valuable at all. But I absolutely want to. And I'm working on a book plan by myself right now. So it's coming around full circle again. I finally was like, I have the perfect platform to write this book.

00:37:03 SPEAKER_03
Funny, because I feel that's kind of how I got here. I've always wanted to be an author, like since I was a little kid, and I was fascinated by copywriting because I thought copywriting would be this kind of door into publishing. And here I am, and I am a published author. I have published a book, but I feel like I've become much more, let's get other people published than publish myself. Who has time to write your own book? Well, who has time to? for the same kind of reason, which was working on her own book and realizing she didn't know anything about book marketing because that's not what she worked in before.

00:37:41 SPEAKER_01
And it's been a journey where, and like with our friend Jose Ramirez at Pendonella's Publishing, we both wrote books and then realized, well, people need help doing this and people need help doing that. And, you know, 16 years later, I still haven't written that second book.

00:37:58 SPEAKER_03
We have created a whole company, Pro Book Launch, that helps people. Launch their books. Yeah.

00:38:05 SPEAKER_02
Right. Which is brilliant, by the way. I completely, this is how we totally connected over it because I think that is, you know, these are the missing pieces that make it so hard to do some things. And, you know, that's why I have a business in what we're doing here because it's so hard to promote your podcast, right? So we're heavier on the promotion side and diving. you know, and sort of kind of declining on our production side of it because that's not as important anymore. There's so many production tools and we have so many incorporated in the way that we do it. And that used to be the hard problem a decade ago. But now the hard problem is how do I get more listeners? So how do I get more readers? How do I get more people to actually buy the book, right, instead of just read the summary? And so we want those things to have an evolution from all the services and all the people who are expert in it. And that's the part that I think is missing so often is that there's always these five by night people who go like, I just published a book. So I'm an expert in book marketing. Yeah. And I'd rather work with you guys who publish book after book after book. a lot more information that's diving into whatever tool you develop and whatever you do that's the difference right there yeah it you know like you you can set a course of what you want to do i always thought the last year's you know few decades of my life i'd be in publishing and writing well i am writing but i'm writing blogs i'm writing things for other people and you know news stories i've you know got press releases going out and it's like

00:39:19 SPEAKER_01
it you know like you you can set a course of what you want to do i always thought the last year's you know few decades of my life i'd be in publishing and writing well i am writing but i'm writing blogs i'm writing things for other people and you know news stories i've you know got press releases going out and it's like You know, I've been doing this stuff for 50 years. I started writing press releases. So it's, you know, it's interesting, but I enjoy it. So why would I change?

00:39:48 SPEAKER_02
Right. Well, and I always like a new challenge. So so, yeah, not only am I planning, this is my 2027. So every year we start a new podcast. That is what we've done in this business. So I started 10. And this this year, it's all about promoting. Right. So it's a promotion podcast and it'll launch.

00:39:51 SPEAKER_01
only am

00:40:06 SPEAKER_02
launch. in the fall and I do that because there's certain times a year to launch things that are different and a lot of times I'll launch in January but this time we decided to launch in September because that's a bigger it's a bigger launch time for back to business and that's kind of what this is about and so it's coming out a little later in the year and so I always have to go I'm always thinking of what's the next idea what's the next podcast that I'm going to launch well the next podcast is actually kind of be a author fiction based podcast. So I've never done one of those. And so I was like, I want to challenge myself and see if I can do it. So the book that I'm planning to write is a fiction book, which I've never dove into doing that before. And I would have to start my platform completely from scratch for this particular niche and area of writing it. And I want to do it because I think that that's where a lot of my clients would come from. Maybe a lot of your clients too. Right. They'd come into this with, I don't have a platform yet. What am I going to do? How am I going to build it? And how am I? And what I want to try to do is see if I can build the podcast and the book at the same time so that they that by the time I launched the book, it's like it's really ready. They're both ready at the same moment in time to nurture each other. I think you're going to find what I did when I started writing this novel.

00:41:17 SPEAKER_01
think you're going to find what I did when I started writing this novel. I'd had four books published, but they were nonfiction and I'd written for papers and magazines. That's all nonfiction. Fiction is a whole different world of writing. And it took me a few stops and starts to really make the transition in my head because I was writing from a... you know, observing from afar, well, that isn't how you do it anymore. You know, that isn't what they want. And it is a challenge. It's definitely a challenge.

00:41:47 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

00:41:48 SPEAKER_01
to it.

00:41:48 SPEAKER_02
I think it'll be something new for me and all of the new AI integrations into our portal will finally be done and I'll be through the tech side of the stuff that I have to manage on a day -to -day basis. And I'd like to just do something creative to kind of like cleanse my mind and move on to something different, right? And then come back to it. Like, what did I learn? And how did I do it? And then be able to share that with a sort of fresh perspective. I'm a creative person. So my husband and I both went to art school. We met there. And we went to Rhode Island School of Design. And, you know, I need to come back to the creativity side of it. And I have to say, AI has been a tremendous creative outlet for me. Technical creative outlet, but still a creative outlet. But I can only go so far without, you know. Painting, drawing, weaving, embroidering, whatever it might be is in my wheelhouse's textile design. So I'm always looking for patterns. And so that's really where I intend to go.

00:42:45 SPEAKER_03
to go. It sounds fascinating and massively beneficial to an audience that is also starting from nothing to... journey with you over the course of writing a book and working on that foundational stuff that you have to do before you launch a book. So when you launch, you can sell it.

00:43:05 SPEAKER_02
Yes, exactly. I know. Well, yeah, it's that's what I I get these wonderful authors who come to us a lot and they're like, oh, I just want a guest on podcast. And I was like, that's great. That's not what we do. I'll send you to. I'll send you some resources. Go do that. But it's not going to do you a whole lot of good if you haven't got your website even done yet. Like it was like you've got to have, you know, you're missing a lot of pieces. You should go see all of my partners and friends like you guys. So, you know, that's what's missing. So often I think the DIY is really the self -publishing. It's such a disservice in that it gives them buy this one course, do this one thing. And they're missing the bigger. bigger picture pieces. Well,

00:43:50 SPEAKER_01
that's one thing. Yeah, that's one thing. I just, I'm finishing the last blogs on one year launch program of, and the first thing is website, you know, when you're out. Yes, Adana, I know. And it's like going through all of the steps, but giving yourself a year to, you know, get ready and understand it instead of, all right, now I've written a book. Now I got to do everything in three months. You know, it's not going to work that way. You haven't been building and they and this is a, you know, it's a building operation that's sales. You know, you have to find customers. I think it's so like podcasters should be at an advantage.

00:44:25 SPEAKER_02
it's so like podcasters should be at an advantage. And this is what I keep telling them is that they should be at an advantage because you've been creating content for a while. So let's assume somebody has a podcast that has a year's worth of content or a blog that has a year's worth of content, a video channel with, you know, 50 videos, right? Something where you already have content you've created. What you really should do is go ask it, where's my expertise? Where's my niche? And then what book should I write from that? And that is one thing. Juliette Clark is who I think you're going to have her on your show. And she and I met a while ago. I mean, gosh, we've been friends for I don't even know how long, but we've been partners for at least four or five years now. And we we put together a pod to book model. That really analyzes your podcast, but it could do your YouTube or your blog and tells you this is the book you should write. This is the content you already have that's really valuable. This is the audience that you're writing it to. And now go for it, right? So I'm thinking that when you jumpstart with something where you already have a solid ground in, whether you realize it or not, and I think that that's really the hard part for us, is that it's really hard to analyze ourselves. Yeah. And so if you can have this outside, and in our case, it's a gem, it's a tool, this tool analyzes you and take a look at this and says, here's what I see. Here's the most valuable audience you could be talking to. Here's the most valuable content you already know and have. Write this book first. Because you'll have to do less work on the other side of audience building. You'll have to do less work of convincing people that you're an expert in it. What I'm asking to do, I'm asking people to, you know, to be convinced that I'm a fiction author when I've never written a fiction book before. Like, that's harder, right? And you're going to need a year to build up for that. I'm going to need a year to build up for that. So I better start on your course right now, actually. So sign me up, Kathleen. I need to get started. I'll send you the link.

00:46:26 SPEAKER_01
send you the link. I'll meet it with you. You see, this is wonderful. This is really, really wonderful. The lot of insights. You are an active, busy woman, you know, and now you're moving. Great luck over the next two weeks getting from one house to the other. Thank you so much.

00:46:42 SPEAKER_02
you so much. It's been a joy being with both of you. I love being with women who. know what they know and are sharing it with others?

00:46:50 SPEAKER_01
Well, if you don't share it, how are others going to learn and succeed? None of us are a repository of all knowledge. They used to be that they were the master of something or the master that those days are gone. They've been gone for three decades. Even Mensa said it back in the mid 90s. No one will ever be the one keeper of all knowledge on one subject. It's impossible nowadays. So if you learn and you grow, like with the Writers and Publishers Network, we share information, we share leads to things, we share contacts. These are all things that need to help and get done. And what you're doing is a perfect example of helping people take their ideas and create with it and really appreciate it.

00:47:32 SPEAKER_00
appreciate it. It was a fun conversation.

00:47:47 SPEAKER_03
talking book publishing is brought to you by writers and publishers network the resource for writers and indie publishers at every level and offers tools to be successful in their writing career writers and publishers network .com

00:48:00 SPEAKER_00
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