June 2, 2025 • 22 mins
Use your podcast content to your advantage -- and turn it into a book!
If you’ve ever felt like your podcast could be more than just a weekly episode—maybe even the start of a book—you’re not alone. This week, we’re explaining how podcasters can transform their content into a published work. From identifying core themes and organizing episodes into chapters to leveraging transcripts and using your show to promote the final product, we’ll walk you through how your podcast can lay the groundwork for your next big creative endeavor. Whether you’re thinking print, eBook, or audio companion, we’ll show you how Blubrry’s tools make the transition from podcaster to author smoother than you think.
Today's Hosts: MacKenzie Bennett and Todd Cochrane
1. Identify the Core Theme in Your Podcast
If your podcast centers around a consistent topic, story arc, or mission, it may already have the foundation of a compelling book.
How to do it:
Review your last 20–30 episodes to find common threads.
Identify high-performing episodes using Blubrry’s IAB-certified podcast statistics.
Use audience feedback and questions to help refine your message.
💡 Blubrry Advantage: Stats help you find your most popular, share-worthy content to shape into chapters.
2. Use Transcripts to Jumpstart Your Writing
Transcripts save time by turning spoken content into editable text—the perfect starting point for a manuscript.
How to do it:
Transcribe your solo episodes or structured interviews.
Highlight and organize segments into written form.
Edit transcripts for clarity, flow, and structure.
💡 Blubrry Advantage: All Blubrry hosting plans offer optional AI-powered transcripts—easy to enable and perfect for repurposing episodes.
3. Organize Episodes Into Chapters or Sections
Turning a group of episodes into a book means outlining and arranging content in a reader-friendly structure.
How to do it:
Group episodes by topic or theme.
Remove repeated content and tighten messages.
Create a clear beginning, middle, and end.
💡 Blubrry Advantage: Use your Blubrry-hosted podcast website to browse episode archives, search by topic, and spot thematic groupings.
4. Choose a Publishing Path
There are many ways to publish your book: digital, print, or audiobook—and multiple tools to help you launch.
How to do it:
Decide on self-publishing (e.g., Amazon KDP), traditional, or hybrid publishing.
Consider starting with an eBook or downloadable guide.
Explore using your podcast as an audiobook companion.
💡 Blubrry Advantage: With full ownership of your RSS feed and content, you can repurpose episodes without platform restrictions or licensing hurdles.
5. Promote the Book Using Your Podcast
Your listeners are your most loyal potential readers—use your show to build anticipation and drive sales.
How to do it:
Tease the book in intros and outros.
Run a short “book launch series” or bonus content episodes.
Offer giveaways or early access to email subscribers.
💡 Blubrry Advantage: Promote your book on your free podcast website, and link it directly in episode show notes using Blubrry’s publishing interface.
6. Use the Book to Grow Your Audience
Books can introduce your podcast to new people, especially in professional, nonprofit, or educational spaces.
How to do it:
Use the book as a lead magnet in speaking engagements or webinars.
Include links to your podcast in the book’s intro and chapters.
Encourage readers to subscribe to your podcast for deeper insights.
💡 Blubrry Advantage: Your podcast site can serve as a central hub for cross-promotion, with direct links to episodes, email capture tools, and stats to track engagement.
7. Stay Consistent With Your Brand and Voice
Ensure your book feels like a natural extension of your podcast so fans stay connected across both mediums.
How to do it:
Keep the same tone and point of view you use in your podcast.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, everyone. I'm Todd Cochran, founder of Blueberry
Podcasting. And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, Blueberry's marketing specialist.
Welcome to Podcast Insider. Today, we're gonna talk
about how your podcast could be the foundation
for your next big project,
AKA
a book.
You're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike
Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the
(00:22):
Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and
insider tips and tricks to help you start,
grow, and thrive through podcasting,
all with the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting.
Welcome. Let's dive in.
Whether you host interviews, teach a process, or
share stories, you might already have the content
(00:42):
that you need to become an author. And
sometimes
you don't.
Yeah. I I remember having started my podcast
in October then getting an email in November
from a company called Wiley Publish. So, hey.
We want you to write a book.
And at the time, I didn't have a
college degree. I had to start my journey
(01:03):
into college and,
hence, I had done later. I got my
bachelor's degree, but I I sent a reply
that was, well,
probably not politically correct.
Because, you know, when I was in high
school, the English teacher had a lot of
fun with the red pen.
Yes.
But now
with Grammarly
and ChatGPT
(01:23):
and all this other stuff,
And just people that tell you how to
do it. Yeah. You know? And I spent,
you know, four months writing a book. I
think things can be turned out. But here's
the thing. If your podcast is set around
centers around a theme,
a topic, story, or mission.
You've already got the foundation
for a compelling book, and
(01:45):
every episode you record,
more stuff, more chapters, more information.
You have this
wonderful
catalog
of content that you've already created.
And, you know, that doesn't that doesn't matter
if you've done three episodes a week or
if you do, you know,
three every other month.
You have something
(02:06):
Yeah. To work off of. And and some
and some shows are gonna resonate more with
others. So maybe, you know, if you have
an episode that as an example, maybe your
baseline is 500
and an episode does a thousand
plays, maybe that that episode
just resonated so well. Maybe that maybe you
can pick and choose Yeah. Which episodes.
(02:28):
Yeah. For sure. You know, maybe you can
turn in those specific episodes into a chapter
or something like that. You know, that's that's
where you're able to look at the stats
of wherever you host your podcast. They're gonna
have that information of which ones do the
best. Yeah. And it's really easy to just
go off of that. And hit because sometimes
what you think
took off really well, like, in your head
(02:49):
might not reflect in the numbers.
Yeah. And and and the next segment of
this is because everyone now or at least
you can at Blueberry get transcripts if you
want. You know, you have a transcript of
every episode, and
this gives you the
the written data to be able to turn
that spoken content into edible text. And, you
(03:10):
know, it's it's it's really awesome because
if here's the key to a book. A
book is not hard to write, but it
what it does, it requires an outline. If
you can do an outline,
let's say you've got 30 episodes and you've
got the titles for those episodes, you might
be able to
develop that outline from those episode titles and
(03:33):
the content to really come up with for
me, it took me a month to write
an outline.
With the tools available today,
you know, I I could foresee get done
in an afternoon or a couple of days.
Especially if it's something that you've already thought
of before Yeah. Where you're like this you
know, you've you've structured your podcast in some
type of format. Yeah. So maybe there was
(03:56):
something that you wanted to do before that
just didn't work for an audio podcast or
a video podcast and but this is the
perfect way to do it instead.
Yeah. So you can organize those segments Mhmm.
That you've got from transcripts and those conversations,
and you can edit the transcripts.
You can get quotes.
So you've got quotes from a guest. Now
this is probably where it's important to have
(04:17):
a release.
You know, if you're gonna be doing a
book, and maybe it's a good idea to
have a re a a a release from
that content when you're
interviewing people.
That's probably something we should cover at some
point in the show. I don't think we've
ever talked about releases.
Mhmm. But have all that
legal available content to be able to use
(04:37):
to
to have this flow, build a flow and
structure.
I I That's a
really good
point. You know, all of your podcast content
is already yours. Yeah. So none of this
is you know, you're not gonna get in
any type trouble for using someone else's type
of content, anything like that.
But, you know, I just in my head,
(04:57):
I'm thinking,
you know, if I've titled the episodes correctly
Mhmm. And I have I, you know, I
could I could probably use chat g p
t to write the outline.
And, of course, then you'd have to go
in and edit it. But if you get
a starting point and, you know, some some
organized
thought that is done automatically,
(05:18):
I think writing a book today just probably
is you can't have ChatGPT write the
book. No. And no one wants to read
a book by
ChatGPT either. And and, you know, there's copyright
issues with that. But you can use it
to organize your thoughts and your segments and
then
go in and use the transcripts which are
legally yours
and take quotes and and information and and
(05:41):
and turn that into a,
again, an organized flow. And and doing that
with AI asking for or, like, buying a
template from someone's website or, you know, from
some publisher or something like that, all of
that can really help people because majority of
the time, they have the content down. It's
the organizing. It's the structuring. It's the making
(06:01):
it into a book Yeah. That is difficult
for a lot of people. Yeah. And, you
know, and that is the key. And to
be honest with you, that was the biggest
part of once it come to writing
Mhmm. The writing went easy. I was just
because I had this flow. That's the part
people like. You know, chapter one, a b
c d e f g, chapter two, and
b and, you know, I just all I
(06:21):
did is sit there and clack clack clack
clack.
Yeah. And
so
because it's all in your head, and you
have all this reference material.
Oh my god. Unbelievable.
So, you know, again, you can group episodes
by topic or theme.
You can remove repeated content.
Tighten Actually, please do that.
(06:41):
And tighten up the tighten up the message.
Mhmm.
I I think that's fantastic, but, you know,
it is not that difficult. And it's always
cool that,
if you're if you're gonna
write a book, at least get one printed
for you, you know, that you can have
in a hard copy that's not digital.
(07:01):
Yeah. You know, maybe hire someone to do
cover art for it. You know, there's always
a few little things that you have to
do.
Yeah. And also, you want that for yourself.
Yeah. You know? If I wrote a book,
I would wanna see it on on my
own shelf. Yeah.
You know, and I was pretty lucky and
and it was a different publishing method because
I signed the contract. They own the copyright,
(07:23):
you know, and I just basic and I
but then it came with a team.
Right. And I had a editor
and, boy, the editor. My god. Did did
she had fun? You know, she was like
my English teacher on steroids.
But,
you know, there was no Grammarly or nothing.
It was just word check then. You know,
I would have saved her a huge amount
of time had I been able to use
(07:43):
a tool like Grammarly then, you know, twenty
years ago. But, again, you can decide how
you're gonna publish this. And, again, you can
put it out as an audiobook
or a,
premium podcast. There's all kinds of
ways to do it. Yeah.
I mean, the the audiobook I've really gotten
into audiobooks recently.
Print is always gonna be around regardless of
(08:05):
what people say.
Digital is great. Probably, it's it's a little
in the middle there. Yeah. It's great to
have kinda with the accompanying
audiobook sometimes
or a podcast.
You know, when I way to do that.
I think now when I'm buying books, if
it's a biography or, you know, like, if
it's, like, a Steve Jobs biography or, you
(08:25):
know, somebody famous, I'll buy the book.
Right. And but I'll actually never crack it
because I'll buy the digital version. But I
want that, you know, that physical copy on
my bookshelf.
Yeah. And at least, you know I don't
know. Maybe it doesn't make me look smart,
but at least you
No. No. No. It does. I I I
like the physical book as well,
(08:48):
but
I you know? And what I found books
are $30 a pop. Yeah. You're reading reading
a book a week. I'm not doing that.
Yeah. And what my what my kids were
always doing is once they got a little
older and they were coming in looking at
my because I had a couple of bookshelves
in my office, and they're coming in and
what's this about? And I'm like, oh, that's
about such and such that happens certain certain
(09:09):
time
and off it goes, and they come back
a couple of weeks later. So I think
there's always this opportunity with the with
the printed, but at the same time,
I just read everything on a on a
tablet now.
And and sometimes I can jump between books.
It's easier. I don't have to carry a
whole book back now. I think Bill Gates,
(09:30):
he has constantly
I think I saw something in his biography
where he has 10 to 12 books consistently
that he's reading,
all the time. Going through. Yeah. So I
I don't know how he gets through that
many, but he must be a speed reader.
But, again, starting with an ebook or downloadable
guide, you know, explore using your podcast as
an audiobook companion to, you know, make it
(09:52):
a premium.
Mhmm. And, again,
with the advantage here at Blueberry, you you
have full ownership of your RSS
and your content,
and you can repurpose episodes without platform restrictions
or licensing hurdles.
When you put stuff up on Amazon,
then, you know, you still own control of
the copyright, but you have to enforce copyright,
(10:14):
and you have to,
you know, whatever the split is with Amazon
and other folks,
you know, you wanted to get out to
a lot of people. You know, the goal
is and I was lucky. I had, again,
I had a publisher.
So we sold 45,000
copies. I made a New York Times bestsell
list. I made something that new with because
Amazon was pretty new at the time for
a tech book. Amazon, you know, there was
(10:36):
no I didn't make the New York Times
top 10 fiction.
You know? I made the New York Times
top 10 technical, which
probably wasn't too hard to break into.
Still.
You know, but it was Who cares? It
was it was bragging rights at the time.
Yeah. And and I I got a free
dinner out of Amazon out of it. So
they Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So that
(10:57):
was good. But,
again,
how was my book successful?
In this, there's a whole story. I won't
get into too much details, but I said
to my aunt, I got this big secret
I'm gonna reveal on, I think it was
episode
76 or something like that. Mhmm. And, of
course, there's a whole other story backstory about
how we were first how I got the
(11:18):
first podcasting book. But and when I told
my audience
and let them know I had gotten paid
to write a book, I lost half my
audience because
at the time,
everyone was like, you sold out. You took
money.
You didn't do it for the love of
the industry. And I'm like, what is this?
So I lost half the audience, and it
(11:38):
it really set me up later when the
sponsor come on
because all the naysayers that didn't want me
to make money were gone. You know? Right.
All the people that were already angry were
Yeah. Were already gone. Yeah. So, you know,
imagine someone being mad because you're making money
on a book. I can't believe it. Yeah.
It was, yeah, a different time for sure.
Well, that does lead us into the next
(11:59):
part, which is you have this book. You've,
you know, decided on a publisher. It exists.
Now you have to promote it.
So that's exactly what you were saying. You're
like, hey. I technically got on the New
York Times list for top 10. That is
part of promotion.
That really is.
So a good way to do this is
(12:20):
tease the intro and the outro, you know,
how you're gonna hook them in and what
they're gonna learn at the end or enjoy
or whatever it is, what content.
A giveaway is a really easy one.
Your podcast,
like your book that you did, Todd, was
about podcasting. Yeah. So that was really easy
to promote. That was
(12:41):
incredibly easy, you know, to promote to your
listeners saying, hey, if this is something that
you wanna do, especially back then when you
put the book out and podcasting was so
new. Yep. That was That's why it was
so successful, and that's why it was important
to be first. So Yeah. Yeah. There was
you know, that was an advantage. And to
that extent,
it really was because we sold, like, 45,000
copies of that. So
(13:02):
I will say, I did find your book
at the Columbus
library. At the library?
Yeah. It was available in Franklin County. That's
funny. There was there was one, and it
was checked out.
So
You know what also happens is later
when books aren't sold
and you have a physical book and they
went out to all the distribution places,
(13:24):
people return those and then you get your
because I was getting a very small amount
of what do they call it?
Anyway, it's it's basically Royalties. Royalty check. Well,
then you go into negative.
Yeah. Then your your royalty report for ten
years shows minus $892,
minus a thousand of the return books. So
(13:46):
yeah. So you there's that side of it
too. But and there's nothing cooler than having
a box
of 10 of your own books where you
or a hundred, and you can go to
an event and hand out.
And that's another thing. It's a big calling
card. Make it a Yeah. For sure. Make
it a prize for your audience or something
to that effect, you know.
Give it away. Do a do a launch.
(14:09):
Depending on the content. Maybe you could even
be one of those authors that's in a
bookstore. Yeah. You know, I've gone to plenty
of those in my lifetime.
And, you know, again, the book can be
a lead magnet. And for me, for many
years, it led to speaking engagements,
paid speaking engagements.
Yeah. And,
obviously, I I had pictures of myself in
the book. You know, I had hair then.
(14:30):
So, you know, and I I you know,
it was very amateurish taking pictures of me
walking around my community with a with ear
pod you know, with earphones and listening on,
you know, a little handheld recorder before the
iPad was so super popular. It's just, you
know, funny, but, you know, it it it
is comical.
It does work. But getting kids of readers
(14:50):
to subscribe your podcast for deeper insights and
in the podcast is is the ultimate
promotional vehicle for your for your book and
actually can lead to book too because then
people wanna be on
and talk to you because you're a published
author now. And Especially because,
you know,
podcast listeners are loyal. Yeah. That's that's been
(15:12):
that way since they,
you know, came to fruition,
and it's still relevant today. And your podcast
site can really serve as a central hub
for cross promotion. And the beauty thing of
it too is if you've got friends that
are podcasters,
giving them a book, and they cross promote
it on their website. It really
you know, it's it's them it's that seven
(15:34):
degrees of separation. It really helps a lot.
Well, and that cross promotion is part of
what we're trying to help with Guestmatch Pro
that we're released later this year is, you
know, if you're already a creator, you could
sign up to be a guest as well,
and that's perfect to promote anything. But, specifically,
promoting a book on a podcast is very
(15:55):
popular. So, hopefully, that'll that'll help some people
out. Yeah. When Wiley came back and asked
me to write the second book and they
wanted to to cover the topics they wanted
me to cover, I
basically couldn't. And it was because at the
time,
we were doing things that I did not
want to be publicly known. I didn't wanna
write this tell all, here's the corporate secrets.
(16:17):
So the reason I didn't have a at
the time, didn't have a book to, which
they wanted,
was largely because I would have really had
to have sold all the secrets company, and
I just wasn't going to do that. So
Yeah. Your situation may be different
in your content, and maybe it's not tied
to something that's that's confidential.
(16:39):
But one thing's for sure is
your book can be a natural extension of
your podcast, and fans stay connected across both
mediums.
And sometimes people will buy it and never
read it. They just wanna buy it to
support you.
Yeah. For sure.
Or, you know, they'll they'll listen to the
audiobook just like you and still buy it
by the physical. Right. Yeah. There's there's a
(17:01):
lot of different ways to do this. But
one thing
is stay consistent with the brand and the
voice and make sure that if you're trying
to relate this to your podcast,
to
keep that level across the board.
There might be something that
you wanna feature
in the book that you can't really do
(17:21):
the way that you want in the podcast,
but
there's only so much leeway that you have
before people are like, Why are these so
different?
Oh, yeah. So the tone. I got it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the tone
and the point of view,
whenever you start to change that,
people are like, Oh, well, this is not
(17:42):
exactly what I was expecting. I was expecting
an expansion
of what the podcast already is. So
if you're gonna change,
I think that's, in my opinion, that's kind
of a go big or go home situation.
Yeah. And I and I, you know, and
I even
unbeknownst to the publisher, I had a Easter
egg in my book.
And, again, it was
(18:04):
typically directed to a group of listeners
in my show. And,
you know, a few of them got it
over over time. But, yeah, if you have
those insider
jokes that your audience will recognize, they'll appreciate
that because you'll feel like you're talking to
them. Mhmm.
And, yeah, there was a a time when
(18:25):
there was listeners of my show that said
that they they called my
destruction of the English language, Tadaisms.
And so the Tadaisms and I think you
were familiar with the Tadaisms in my writing
at some point. But the Tadaisms
made it into the book
and not as a
it was just kind of a fun thing
to put it in there reference to. Yeah.
(18:46):
You can be successful
and and not necessarily
always be the best speaker. So Totally. Yeah.
But, again, I think that you've got the
ability
with, you know, having if if you have
your own website
and it's branded and the book follows the
brand,
you have this consistency
and control
(19:07):
from
podcast to print. I think that's a kind
of a cool
term. We should we should we should make
sure we use that more often.
But Yeah. It's you have a website. It's
probably gonna have your
podcast on it. It might have blog posts.
It might have other, you know, these are
the services that we provide. This is what
you can pay me for. That type of
(19:29):
stuff,
instead of a podcast website, and then a
book website, and then
a whatever website of
some type of content that you do.
I prefer to all just be on one.
I'd rather have, like, a loaded up website
than have to go to three different ones.
You know, I truly believe there's a book
in everyone, and it may not be a
(19:49):
book that would be for consumption of
thousands. You know, I did a biography.
I did, like, a mini book for my
grandparents in the history after like 20 some
in hours of interviews about how they met,
how they, you know, all these things that
really would be lost over time. And I
put that into it's not long. It's like
(20:10):
twenty five pages,
but it's basically
more of a biography historical type thing. And
we never published it, but it's available for
the family. Yeah. It's a family book. Yeah.
So everyone has a book in them. Mhmm.
And I think every podcaster
probably has two books in them. And there's
there's lots of companies out there actually helping
podcasters.
(20:30):
My friend had a company send me an
email the other day that said, hey, here's
the first chapter of your book.
And it was all chat GPT generated and
I kind of giggled
And I, you know, I kinda linked to
my original book. I said, thank you, but
no thank you. I don't need a robot
writing my book or my biography.
But,
you know, I think they're again, everyone has
(20:51):
a book in them. Just, you know, don't
be don't be shy to try.
It's the same as starting a podcast. Yeah.
People are like the they say the podcast
industry is oversaturated.
You could say the same thing
about books and writing. Yeah. And neither of
them are. But it's awful
nice to have that that printed paper and
(21:12):
that smell, that fresh ink.
There's just something about see your name on
print? Yeah. It's fantastic. Yeah. You know? I've
got a copy of it behind me. You
can't see it,
of course. But
and I still have eight or nine,
you know, original copies in a box. Everyone's
thinking, what is that box? I open, oh,
yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, and, you know, who
(21:34):
knows? Just a little piece of history. Yeah.
Just a little. But get your book out
there. Write a book.
Alright. I think that wraps up this episode.
Thanks for listening, everyone. Yeah. And if you've
been podcasting a while, take a look at
your content.
You may be closer to writing a book
than you think.
And please don't forget to follow or subscribe
to Podcast Insider for more ways to grow
(21:55):
your show and repurpose your content with Blueberry.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks for joining us. Come back next week.
And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com
for more information.
To subscribe, share, and read our show notes,
check out the latest suite of services, and
learn how Blueberry
can help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry.com.
(22:17):
That's Blueberry without the ease because we can't
afford the ease.
Hey, everyone. I'm Todd Cochran, founder of Blueberry
Podcasting. And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, Blueberry's marketing specialist.
Welcome to Podcast Insider. Today, we're gonna talk
about how your podcast could be the foundation
for your next big project,
AKA
a book.
You're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike
Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the
(00:22):
Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and
insider tips and tricks to help you start,
grow, and thrive through podcasting,
all with the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting.
Welcome. Let's dive in.
Whether you host interviews, teach a process, or
share stories, you might already have the content
(00:42):
that you need to become an author. And
sometimes
you don't.
Yeah. I I remember having started my podcast
in October then getting an email in November
from a company called Wiley Publish. So, hey.
We want you to write a book.
And at the time, I didn't have a
college degree. I had to start my journey
(01:03):
into college and,
hence, I had done later. I got my
bachelor's degree, but I I sent a reply
that was, well,
probably not politically correct.
Because, you know, when I was in high
school, the English teacher had a lot of
fun with the red pen.
Yes.
But now
with Grammarly
and ChatGPT
(01:23):
and all this other stuff,
And just people that tell you how to
do it. Yeah. You know? And I spent,
you know, four months writing a book. I
think things can be turned out. But here's
the thing. If your podcast is set around
centers around a theme,
a topic, story, or mission.
You've already got the foundation
for a compelling book, and
(01:45):
every episode you record,
more stuff, more chapters, more information.
You have this
wonderful
catalog
of content that you've already created.
And, you know, that doesn't that doesn't matter
if you've done three episodes a week or
if you do, you know,
three every other month.
You have something
(02:06):
Yeah. To work off of. And and some
and some shows are gonna resonate more with
others. So maybe, you know, if you have
an episode that as an example, maybe your
baseline is 500
and an episode does a thousand
plays, maybe that that episode
just resonated so well. Maybe that maybe you
can pick and choose Yeah. Which episodes.
(02:28):
Yeah. For sure. You know, maybe you can
turn in those specific episodes into a chapter
or something like that. You know, that's that's
where you're able to look at the stats
of wherever you host your podcast. They're gonna
have that information of which ones do the
best. Yeah. And it's really easy to just
go off of that. And hit because sometimes
what you think
took off really well, like, in your head
(02:49):
might not reflect in the numbers.
Yeah. And and and the next segment of
this is because everyone now or at least
you can at Blueberry get transcripts if you
want. You know, you have a transcript of
every episode, and
this gives you the
the written data to be able to turn
that spoken content into edible text. And, you
(03:10):
know, it's it's it's really awesome because
if here's the key to a book. A
book is not hard to write, but it
what it does, it requires an outline. If
you can do an outline,
let's say you've got 30 episodes and you've
got the titles for those episodes, you might
be able to
develop that outline from those episode titles and
(03:33):
the content to really come up with for
me, it took me a month to write
an outline.
With the tools available today,
you know, I I could foresee get done
in an afternoon or a couple of days.
Especially if it's something that you've already thought
of before Yeah. Where you're like this you
know, you've you've structured your podcast in some
type of format. Yeah. So maybe there was
(03:56):
something that you wanted to do before that
just didn't work for an audio podcast or
a video podcast and but this is the
perfect way to do it instead.
Yeah. So you can organize those segments Mhmm.
That you've got from transcripts and those conversations,
and you can edit the transcripts.
You can get quotes.
So you've got quotes from a guest. Now
this is probably where it's important to have
(04:17):
a release.
You know, if you're gonna be doing a
book, and maybe it's a good idea to
have a re a a a release from
that content when you're
interviewing people.
That's probably something we should cover at some
point in the show. I don't think we've
ever talked about releases.
Mhmm. But have all that
legal available content to be able to use
(04:37):
to
to have this flow, build a flow and
structure.
I I That's a
really good
point. You know, all of your podcast content
is already yours. Yeah. So none of this
is you know, you're not gonna get in
any type trouble for using someone else's type
of content, anything like that.
But, you know, I just in my head,
(04:57):
I'm thinking,
you know, if I've titled the episodes correctly
Mhmm. And I have I, you know, I
could I could probably use chat g p
t to write the outline.
And, of course, then you'd have to go
in and edit it. But if you get
a starting point and, you know, some some
organized
thought that is done automatically,
(05:18):
I think writing a book today just probably
is you can't have ChatGPT write the
book. No. And no one wants to read
a book by
ChatGPT either. And and, you know, there's copyright
issues with that. But you can use it
to organize your thoughts and your segments and
then
go in and use the transcripts which are
legally yours
and take quotes and and information and and
(05:41):
and turn that into a,
again, an organized flow. And and doing that
with AI asking for or, like, buying a
template from someone's website or, you know, from
some publisher or something like that, all of
that can really help people because majority of
the time, they have the content down. It's
the organizing. It's the structuring. It's the making
(06:01):
it into a book Yeah. That is difficult
for a lot of people. Yeah. And, you
know, and that is the key. And to
be honest with you, that was the biggest
part of once it come to writing
Mhmm. The writing went easy. I was just
because I had this flow. That's the part
people like. You know, chapter one, a b
c d e f g, chapter two, and
b and, you know, I just all I
(06:21):
did is sit there and clack clack clack
clack.
Yeah. And
so
because it's all in your head, and you
have all this reference material.
Oh my god. Unbelievable.
So, you know, again, you can group episodes
by topic or theme.
You can remove repeated content.
Tighten Actually, please do that.
(06:41):
And tighten up the tighten up the message.
Mhmm.
I I think that's fantastic, but, you know,
it is not that difficult. And it's always
cool that,
if you're if you're gonna
write a book, at least get one printed
for you, you know, that you can have
in a hard copy that's not digital.
(07:01):
Yeah. You know, maybe hire someone to do
cover art for it. You know, there's always
a few little things that you have to
do.
Yeah. And also, you want that for yourself.
Yeah. You know? If I wrote a book,
I would wanna see it on on my
own shelf. Yeah.
You know, and I was pretty lucky and
and it was a different publishing method because
I signed the contract. They own the copyright,
(07:23):
you know, and I just basic and I
but then it came with a team.
Right. And I had a editor
and, boy, the editor. My god. Did did
she had fun? You know, she was like
my English teacher on steroids.
But,
you know, there was no Grammarly or nothing.
It was just word check then. You know,
I would have saved her a huge amount
of time had I been able to use
(07:43):
a tool like Grammarly then, you know, twenty
years ago. But, again, you can decide how
you're gonna publish this. And, again, you can
put it out as an audiobook
or a,
premium podcast. There's all kinds of
ways to do it. Yeah.
I mean, the the audiobook I've really gotten
into audiobooks recently.
Print is always gonna be around regardless of
(08:05):
what people say.
Digital is great. Probably, it's it's a little
in the middle there. Yeah. It's great to
have kinda with the accompanying
audiobook sometimes
or a podcast.
You know, when I way to do that.
I think now when I'm buying books, if
it's a biography or, you know, like, if
it's, like, a Steve Jobs biography or, you
(08:25):
know, somebody famous, I'll buy the book.
Right. And but I'll actually never crack it
because I'll buy the digital version. But I
want that, you know, that physical copy on
my bookshelf.
Yeah. And at least, you know I don't
know. Maybe it doesn't make me look smart,
but at least you
No. No. No. It does. I I I
like the physical book as well,
(08:48):
but
I you know? And what I found books
are $30 a pop. Yeah. You're reading reading
a book a week. I'm not doing that.
Yeah. And what my what my kids were
always doing is once they got a little
older and they were coming in looking at
my because I had a couple of bookshelves
in my office, and they're coming in and
what's this about? And I'm like, oh, that's
about such and such that happens certain certain
(09:09):
time
and off it goes, and they come back
a couple of weeks later. So I think
there's always this opportunity with the with
the printed, but at the same time,
I just read everything on a on a
tablet now.
And and sometimes I can jump between books.
It's easier. I don't have to carry a
whole book back now. I think Bill Gates,
(09:30):
he has constantly
I think I saw something in his biography
where he has 10 to 12 books consistently
that he's reading,
all the time. Going through. Yeah. So I
I don't know how he gets through that
many, but he must be a speed reader.
But, again, starting with an ebook or downloadable
guide, you know, explore using your podcast as
an audiobook companion to, you know, make it
(09:52):
a premium.
Mhmm. And, again,
with the advantage here at Blueberry, you you
have full ownership of your RSS
and your content,
and you can repurpose episodes without platform restrictions
or licensing hurdles.
When you put stuff up on Amazon,
then, you know, you still own control of
the copyright, but you have to enforce copyright,
(10:14):
and you have to,
you know, whatever the split is with Amazon
and other folks,
you know, you wanted to get out to
a lot of people. You know, the goal
is and I was lucky. I had, again,
I had a publisher.
So we sold 45,000
copies. I made a New York Times bestsell
list. I made something that new with because
Amazon was pretty new at the time for
a tech book. Amazon, you know, there was
(10:36):
no I didn't make the New York Times
top 10 fiction.
You know? I made the New York Times
top 10 technical, which
probably wasn't too hard to break into.
Still.
You know, but it was Who cares? It
was it was bragging rights at the time.
Yeah. And and I I got a free
dinner out of Amazon out of it. So
they Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So that
(10:57):
was good. But,
again,
how was my book successful?
In this, there's a whole story. I won't
get into too much details, but I said
to my aunt, I got this big secret
I'm gonna reveal on, I think it was
episode
76 or something like that. Mhmm. And, of
course, there's a whole other story backstory about
how we were first how I got the
(11:18):
first podcasting book. But and when I told
my audience
and let them know I had gotten paid
to write a book, I lost half my
audience because
at the time,
everyone was like, you sold out. You took
money.
You didn't do it for the love of
the industry. And I'm like, what is this?
So I lost half the audience, and it
(11:38):
it really set me up later when the
sponsor come on
because all the naysayers that didn't want me
to make money were gone. You know? Right.
All the people that were already angry were
Yeah. Were already gone. Yeah. So, you know,
imagine someone being mad because you're making money
on a book. I can't believe it. Yeah.
It was, yeah, a different time for sure.
Well, that does lead us into the next
(11:59):
part, which is you have this book. You've,
you know, decided on a publisher. It exists.
Now you have to promote it.
So that's exactly what you were saying. You're
like, hey. I technically got on the New
York Times list for top 10. That is
part of promotion.
That really is.
So a good way to do this is
(12:20):
tease the intro and the outro, you know,
how you're gonna hook them in and what
they're gonna learn at the end or enjoy
or whatever it is, what content.
A giveaway is a really easy one.
Your podcast,
like your book that you did, Todd, was
about podcasting. Yeah. So that was really easy
to promote. That was
(12:41):
incredibly easy, you know, to promote to your
listeners saying, hey, if this is something that
you wanna do, especially back then when you
put the book out and podcasting was so
new. Yep. That was That's why it was
so successful, and that's why it was important
to be first. So Yeah. Yeah. There was
you know, that was an advantage. And to
that extent,
it really was because we sold, like, 45,000
copies of that. So
(13:02):
I will say, I did find your book
at the Columbus
library. At the library?
Yeah. It was available in Franklin County. That's
funny. There was there was one, and it
was checked out.
So
You know what also happens is later
when books aren't sold
and you have a physical book and they
went out to all the distribution places,
(13:24):
people return those and then you get your
because I was getting a very small amount
of what do they call it?
Anyway, it's it's basically Royalties. Royalty check. Well,
then you go into negative.
Yeah. Then your your royalty report for ten
years shows minus $892,
minus a thousand of the return books. So
(13:46):
yeah. So you there's that side of it
too. But and there's nothing cooler than having
a box
of 10 of your own books where you
or a hundred, and you can go to
an event and hand out.
And that's another thing. It's a big calling
card. Make it a Yeah. For sure. Make
it a prize for your audience or something
to that effect, you know.
Give it away. Do a do a launch.
(14:09):
Depending on the content. Maybe you could even
be one of those authors that's in a
bookstore. Yeah. You know, I've gone to plenty
of those in my lifetime.
And, you know, again, the book can be
a lead magnet. And for me, for many
years, it led to speaking engagements,
paid speaking engagements.
Yeah. And,
obviously, I I had pictures of myself in
the book. You know, I had hair then.
(14:30):
So, you know, and I I you know,
it was very amateurish taking pictures of me
walking around my community with a with ear
pod you know, with earphones and listening on,
you know, a little handheld recorder before the
iPad was so super popular. It's just, you
know, funny, but, you know, it it it
is comical.
It does work. But getting kids of readers
(14:50):
to subscribe your podcast for deeper insights and
in the podcast is is the ultimate
promotional vehicle for your for your book and
actually can lead to book too because then
people wanna be on
and talk to you because you're a published
author now. And Especially because,
you know,
podcast listeners are loyal. Yeah. That's that's been
(15:12):
that way since they,
you know, came to fruition,
and it's still relevant today. And your podcast
site can really serve as a central hub
for cross promotion. And the beauty thing of
it too is if you've got friends that
are podcasters,
giving them a book, and they cross promote
it on their website. It really
you know, it's it's them it's that seven
(15:34):
degrees of separation. It really helps a lot.
Well, and that cross promotion is part of
what we're trying to help with Guestmatch Pro
that we're released later this year is, you
know, if you're already a creator, you could
sign up to be a guest as well,
and that's perfect to promote anything. But, specifically,
promoting a book on a podcast is very
(15:55):
popular. So, hopefully, that'll that'll help some people
out. Yeah. When Wiley came back and asked
me to write the second book and they
wanted to to cover the topics they wanted
me to cover, I
basically couldn't. And it was because at the
time,
we were doing things that I did not
want to be publicly known. I didn't wanna
write this tell all, here's the corporate secrets.
(16:17):
So the reason I didn't have a at
the time, didn't have a book to, which
they wanted,
was largely because I would have really had
to have sold all the secrets company, and
I just wasn't going to do that. So
Yeah. Your situation may be different
in your content, and maybe it's not tied
to something that's that's confidential.
(16:39):
But one thing's for sure is
your book can be a natural extension of
your podcast, and fans stay connected across both
mediums.
And sometimes people will buy it and never
read it. They just wanna buy it to
support you.
Yeah. For sure.
Or, you know, they'll they'll listen to the
audiobook just like you and still buy it
by the physical. Right. Yeah. There's there's a
(17:01):
lot of different ways to do this. But
one thing
is stay consistent with the brand and the
voice and make sure that if you're trying
to relate this to your podcast,
to
keep that level across the board.
There might be something that
you wanna feature
in the book that you can't really do
(17:21):
the way that you want in the podcast,
but
there's only so much leeway that you have
before people are like, Why are these so
different?
Oh, yeah. So the tone. I got it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the tone
and the point of view,
whenever you start to change that,
people are like, Oh, well, this is not
(17:42):
exactly what I was expecting. I was expecting
an expansion
of what the podcast already is. So
if you're gonna change,
I think that's, in my opinion, that's kind
of a go big or go home situation.
Yeah. And I and I, you know, and
I even
unbeknownst to the publisher, I had a Easter
egg in my book.
And, again, it was
(18:04):
typically directed to a group of listeners
in my show. And,
you know, a few of them got it
over over time. But, yeah, if you have
those insider
jokes that your audience will recognize, they'll appreciate
that because you'll feel like you're talking to
them. Mhmm.
And, yeah, there was a a time when
(18:25):
there was listeners of my show that said
that they they called my
destruction of the English language, Tadaisms.
And so the Tadaisms and I think you
were familiar with the Tadaisms in my writing
at some point. But the Tadaisms
made it into the book
and not as a
it was just kind of a fun thing
to put it in there reference to. Yeah.
(18:46):
You can be successful
and and not necessarily
always be the best speaker. So Totally. Yeah.
But, again, I think that you've got the
ability
with, you know, having if if you have
your own website
and it's branded and the book follows the
brand,
you have this consistency
and control
(19:07):
from
podcast to print. I think that's a kind
of a cool
term. We should we should we should make
sure we use that more often.
But Yeah. It's you have a website. It's
probably gonna have your
podcast on it. It might have blog posts.
It might have other, you know, these are
the services that we provide. This is what
you can pay me for. That type of
(19:29):
stuff,
instead of a podcast website, and then a
book website, and then
a whatever website of
some type of content that you do.
I prefer to all just be on one.
I'd rather have, like, a loaded up website
than have to go to three different ones.
You know, I truly believe there's a book
in everyone, and it may not be a
(19:49):
book that would be for consumption of
thousands. You know, I did a biography.
I did, like, a mini book for my
grandparents in the history after like 20 some
in hours of interviews about how they met,
how they, you know, all these things that
really would be lost over time. And I
put that into it's not long. It's like
(20:10):
twenty five pages,
but it's basically
more of a biography historical type thing. And
we never published it, but it's available for
the family. Yeah. It's a family book. Yeah.
So everyone has a book in them. Mhmm.
And I think every podcaster
probably has two books in them. And there's
there's lots of companies out there actually helping
podcasters.
(20:30):
My friend had a company send me an
email the other day that said, hey, here's
the first chapter of your book.
And it was all chat GPT generated and
I kind of giggled
And I, you know, I kinda linked to
my original book. I said, thank you, but
no thank you. I don't need a robot
writing my book or my biography.
But,
you know, I think they're again, everyone has
(20:51):
a book in them. Just, you know, don't
be don't be shy to try.
It's the same as starting a podcast. Yeah.
People are like the they say the podcast
industry is oversaturated.
You could say the same thing
about books and writing. Yeah. And neither of
them are. But it's awful
nice to have that that printed paper and
(21:12):
that smell, that fresh ink.
There's just something about see your name on
print? Yeah. It's fantastic. Yeah. You know? I've
got a copy of it behind me. You
can't see it,
of course. But
and I still have eight or nine,
you know, original copies in a box. Everyone's
thinking, what is that box? I open, oh,
yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, and, you know, who
(21:34):
knows? Just a little piece of history. Yeah.
Just a little. But get your book out
there. Write a book.
Alright. I think that wraps up this episode.
Thanks for listening, everyone. Yeah. And if you've
been podcasting a while, take a look at
your content.
You may be closer to writing a book
than you think.
And please don't forget to follow or subscribe
to Podcast Insider for more ways to grow
(21:55):
your show and repurpose your content with Blueberry.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks for joining us. Come back next week.
And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com
for more information.
To subscribe, share, and read our show notes,
check out the latest suite of services, and
learn how Blueberry
can help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry.com.
(22:17):
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