Are you an author? Congratulations!
Now that the hard work of writing is over, it's time for the book marketing to begin. That's intense in a different way, but what could be better than promoting your new book than on a podcast?
The question remains - where do you find podcasts looking for authors? And which podcasts would put you in front of your ideal readers or boost your book reviews?
Check out our YouTube video below to see the process we used to find over 100 author interview podcasts using Rephonic. Or read on to discover some of our favorite shows that interview authors.
Nerdette
Nerdette is an interview show from WBEZ Chicago and has been putting out weekly episodes for ten years.
Each month is a special book club episode where podcast host Greta Johnsen talks to author guests and friends about their books. In these interviews, writers describe the ideas that inspired them and offer their best writing tips for aspiring authors.
Rephonic Insight:
Nerdette enjoys a highly engaged, primarily female audience, so it could be an excellent podcast to pitch if your novel is written for or about women.
YA Book Chat
Young Adult books may be aimed at the teen market, but they're loved by plenty of adults, too. In some episodes, Leah's friends join her to discuss books they've read, but there are plenty of author interviews, too.
Rephonic Insight:
Leah interviews a range of new and experienced authors. For example, recent episodes include an interview with a brand new author about her first book and a conversation with a NYT best-selling author.
This podcast has an audience of several thousand, so if you're serious about writing for the young adult genre, it could be a great one to contact.
The Marketing Book Podcast
Many podcasts that interview authors are about novels or other fiction books, but this podcast offers insightful advice from authors of new business and marketing books.
Past episodes have included a wide range of books. For example, "Never Lose an Employee Again: The Simple Path to Remarkable Retention," "The Insight Book: Enhancing Your Creativity By Learning To See Things Differently," and "33 Ways Not to Screw Up Your Business Podcast."
Rephonic Insight:
The Marketing Book Podcast is a long-running and trusted podcast with more than 700 five-star reviews from listeners worldwide.
Bad On Paper
Avid book lovers Becca Freeman and Olivia Muenter enjoy conversations with some of their favorite authors about cookbooks, novels, short stories and everything in between. Bad on Paper broadcasts monthly book club episodes and includes author interviews about the club's book of the month.
Rephonic Insight:
A healthy social following can indicate that a podcast has an engaged and committed audience.
Instagram is Bad on Paper's social platform of choice, and the podcast and book club have 26.8k followers there. The podcast also has a private Facebook group with 8.7k members.
Between The Covers
Tin House has been publishing books since 2002 and embraced podcasting 11 years ago with Between The Covers, hosted by writer David Naimon.
The podcast features in-depth interviews with novelists and poets, interspersed with "Tin House Live" episodes and a series called "Crafting with Ursula," based on the works of award-winning author Ursula Le Guin. Many of these interviews are well over an hour long and explore the psychology and inspiration behind each author's work.
Rephonic Insight:
Using our Related section can throw up other podcasts potentially looking for authors and poet interviews. In Tin House's case, two of the first four shows in the related podcasts section feature author interviews.
Books and Boba
If you're an Asian or Asian-American author, then Books & Boba is the podcast for you. This podcast highlights books by Asian-American authors and covers various fiction and non-fiction genres. It features conversations with authors and avid readers, book club discussions and news from the publishing world.
Recent episodes include a conversation with a first-time author, a discussion about a contemporary fantasy romance novel and an intriguing interview with the author of a graphic memoir about growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in the USA.
Rephonic Insight:
Our interactive 3D graph shows related podcasts as a visual representation. Click on a podcast icon to bring up details, then click on more info to find all the podcast stats, episode links, and contact details.
Just the Right Book with Roxanne Coady
Roxanne Cody owns "RJ Julia Booksellers," a well-known Connecticut bookstore. Her podcast features authors of contemporary non-fiction books in many genres, e.g., memoirs, psychology, business and social issues (to name a few.)
Episodes alternate between author guests and JTRB Shorts, where friends and hosts Roxanne and Bill discuss six books they're excited about.
Rephonic Insight:
Clicking our Listen button brings up several interviews and their associated show notes—a quick and easy way to hear and see what happens in each podcast episode.
Here, we can see that the bookstore sells the book discussed in each episode (and gives a discount to podcast listeners.
The Bestseller Experiment
Author and screenwriter Mark Stay and entrepreneur Mark Desvaux have decided to write and self-publish a bestselling book in one short year. It's a massive challenge, and they need all the help they can get.
So, in the Bestseller Experiment, the two Marks talk to indie authors, book marketing and other self-publishing experts to learn all they can about writing, editing, and selling books.
In their interviews, writers discuss their books and characters, the craft of writing a story and how they overcame their writing hurdles. Other interviews explore the power of self-publishing and offer thoughtful advice on how authors can get their stories in front of the right readers.
Rephonic Insight:
Our data reveals that this podcast's primary audience is male listeners in the United Kingdom. However, episode links show that the interviews offer a good spread of male and female writers over many different genres.
Geek's Guide to the Galaxy
The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy could be worth pitching if you're into writing science fiction books. The podcast features conversations with some of the giants in the writing world, including Neil Gaiman, Ursula LeGuin and George R. R. Martin.
Other episodes feature interviews with other geeks and writers discussing movies, games, short stories, novels, memoirs, poetry, and more. Every so often, the show throws in a panel discussion and movie review.
Rephonic Insight:
We pull chart rankings from Apple and Spotify to show how each of our podcasts ranks in each country in its nominated categories.
Our information shows that Geek's Guide to the Galaxy's audience is US-based and skews male, but our chart rankings show it's #56 in Australia in the Arts/Books categories (and #17 in Denmark.)
Smart Podcast, Trashy Books
If you're a romance novelist, this podcast was made for you.
Host Sarah Wendell is a big romance fan, and each week, she makes reading recommendations and talks to friends, authors and fellow podcasters about romance novels. They discuss how the genre is changing, the issues romance readers raise and the "brilliant and interesting people who read, write, and produce" this popular, best-selling genre.
Past episodes include conversations with authors, readers, reviewers, bloggers, publishing and marketing professionals, editors, and librarians.
Rephonic Insight:
Whether you want to publicize your first book or your 20th, Rephonic makes it easy to pitch a podcast host or producer. Our data includes contact details, and we have handy pitch templates so you can write and send your pitch directly from our site. Just add the podcast to a list, then select Pitch to get started.
The Talking Book Podcast
Audiobooks are on the rise. They help to make books accessible and are fantastic for readers when they're on the move.
In this podcast from indie audiobook publisher The Talking Book, we can listen to conversations between the host and a diverse range of audiobook writers, together with excerpts from their books.
Rephonic Insight:
The Talking Book podcast began six years ago and has recorded around 80 episodes (at the time of writing.) New episodes drop once or twice a month.
Book Fight
The Book Fight podcast has 500+ episodes where writers and people involved in the publishing world discuss their books, writing, and the literary world. The podcast puts out free episodes every fortnight or so and publishes extra episodes for their Patreon supporters.
Rephonic Insight:
Some interviews feature writers talking about their own books and writing process, while other episodes discuss intriguing books by their favorite authors. Some even combine the two, as we see in the blurb from Episode 427:
We're joined by Irish author Mark O'Connell (A Thread of Violence, Notes from an Apocalypse, and To Be a Machine, which won the 2019 Rooney Prize for Irish literature) to discuss a John Banville novel, The Book of Evidence, a fictionalized account of a famous Irish murder. O'Connell's newest book is actually a nonfiction exploration of that same murder, which took place in the early 80s and made headlines around the country, in part because the murderer was a well-known Dublin socialite.
Final thoughts
We hope at least one of these podcasts looking for authors caught your attention. Here's a list of 25 more author interview podcasts to kickstart your search.
But don't restrict yourself to shows that are dedicated solely to interviewing authors. There are plenty of others that cover topics relevant to you or your book that you could provide value on. You just need to think out of the box.
Try Rephonic's 3D graph tool to find shows that share a similar audience. Start a free trial to get full access to data like listener numbers, contact info, and so much more.
