Hiring a publicist is often a waste of money, and I can prove it with math. A typical book publicist charges between $3,000 and $10,000 per month, with a three-month minimum. That’s a $10,000 to $15,000 investment.
At $3 of profit per book, you need to sell 5,000 copies just to break even. Most PR campaigns don’t sell 5,000 copies. They rarely even sell 500.
The publicist gets paid regardless of how many books sell, and the author takes all the risk. Yet many popular books emerge from successful media tours where the author does a lot of media, which generates a lot of revenue.
So, is it just a roll of the dice?
Publicists used to sell access to media outlets, but now that access is mostly free. You don’t need a gatekeeper to get booked on radio, and there are tens of thousands of podcasters hungry for guests.
To get booked on radio, podcasts, and other media, you simply need to know how to pitch them, what hosts are looking for, and how to turn an interview into book sales instead of just a pleasant conversation. That is a skill you can learn from podcasters like Dave Jackson. He’s been podcasting since 2005, is a member of the Podcast Hall of Fame, and is the founder of the School of Podcasting.
What do podcast hosts look for in a pitch?
Thomas: You’ve been podcasting for 20 years and you’re constantly receiving pitches from people who want to be on your show. What do you look for? What mistakes do you see people making?
Dave: The first one is to address the pitch to me. I don’t mean to sound like an egomaniac, but I expect the pitch to say, ‘Hello Dave’ or ‘Hi Dave.’ It just proves that they’ve listened to at least 10 seconds of my show, because within the first 10 seconds I always say, ‘I’m Dave Jackson.’
Thomas: I also want to know which of my podcasts you’d like to be on. I’ll often read an entire email pitch and still not know which podcast they mean, because they’ll just say, ‘your podcast.’
Not only do I not know if you’ve ever listened to my podcast, I don’t even know if you know I have more than one.
Dave: It’s all about specifics. If you can prove you listened to the show, it will put you miles ahead of anyone else. I’ll get pitches that say, ‘Hey Dave, love what you’re doing over there on your show,’ with nothing specific about which show or what they love.
It’s, ‘I love what you’re doing. I wanted to know if you’ve ever thought of talking about [some subject] because I have this expert.’ The rest is all about them.
I will sometimes reply, ‘Which show are you talking about, and what really stood out to you?’ Those are the people who don’t write back.
My absolute favorite is a pitch that starts with ‘Hello, first name,’ with the mail merge field right there in the greeting.
Another giveaway that it’s an AI pitch or from a template is when they use my tagline that I rarely use. Everybody calls my show The School of Podcasting, but there’s a tagline few people know. So, if the pitch says, ‘Hey, I love what you’re doing over at School of Podcasting, tips and tricks,’ or whatever my tagline is, I immediately know it’s a database pitch, and it’s not a real person.
Can I save time by pitching multiple podcasts at once?
Thomas: There’s a view that pitching podcasts is a numbers game. Send enough pitches and you’ll have a successful media tour. This is flawed in several ways.
First, it doesn’t work. The carpet-bombing approach just doesn’t yield many interviews.
Second, while there are a lot of podcasts, they’re not equally popular. The most popular podcast in your genre probably has more listeners than all the other podcasts in that genre combined.
Your one appearance on that popular show will have a bigger impact on your book sales than all your other appearances put together. The second most popular podcast in your genre probably has more downloads than the 100 podcasts ranked below it. There’s a steep power curve, and the carpet-bombing approach is particularly ineffective on the popular shows.
I built a tool called the Podcast Host Directory in the Patron Toolbox. People have asked me for a CSV download for years, and I always say no. The friction of interacting with the directory is the whole point. This is not to help you spam podcasters. It’s to help you find the one podcaster who would be a really good fit for your book.
Dave: When I’m looking for shows to go on, I’m asking whether their audience is made up of people looking for more exposure or interested in marketing. A lot of shows say, ‘We’re here to inspire and uplift.’ I need to know whether that means marketing uplift, because the question is always, “Does this podcast have my target audience as listeners?”
I’ll listen to a full or partial episode, and I can usually tell if it’s a good match. If a podcast is about podcasting, I’ll appear as a guest regardless of how many listeners they have. It’s not so much the number of listeners, it’s whether they’re the right people for me.
I once heard about an SEO session at a library and thought, “Who goes to an SEO course? People who want more exposure on the internet. What’s a great solution for that? A podcast.” I went to the session, and when they asked for questions, I said, ‘Hey, I’m Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting,’ then I asked a real question, and had four people come up to me later and ask, ‘Are you the podcast guy?’ It’s about getting in front of the right audience, not merely the largest.
Thomas: This is particularly true for novelists, because the podcast world maps pretty closely to the book world. The kind of people who listen to podcasts typically also read books. If you’re writing sci-fi you may find an audience on a Stargate SG-1 podcast.
People who still care about Stargate SG-1 are probably reading sci-fi books, but they’re not necessarily interested in an interview about your sci-fi book.
Your pitch must always demonstrate that you’re familiar with the show in some credible way. Your familiarity earns you the right to say, ‘Here is a topic that would be interesting for your audience.’
Almost every pitch I get jumps straight to the third part, which is, ‘Here’s why I’m credible on the topic.’ That’s really common in pitches from PR firms. Three paragraphs about why this person is an expert and how successful they’ve been, and none of that answers the question I need answered first. You pitch must first answer the podcast host’s question, “Why would this topic be interesting to my audience?”
If you want to go on the Stargate SG-1 podcast to talk about sci-fi, lead with, ‘Here is why Teal’c is an interesting character in such-and-such way.’
Pitch topics that are similar to but also distinct from topics they’ve already covered. If they’ve done a lot on Teal’c, come at Teal’c from a different angle, or pitch a Samantha Carter topic.
While most of the discussion is about Stargate SG-1, you have to demonstrate that you know the show, that you’ve seen all the episodes, and that as a sci-fi novelist you bring a special perspective. At the end of the interview you can say, ‘If you love Stargate SG-1, you’d love my book that has gates in it, but characters fly through them in spaceships.’
That one approach can unlock your pitching. Lead with knowledge of the show, then good episode topics, then your credibility.
How can you help a podcast host say “yes” to having you on the show?
Dave: Every good podcaster is trying to deliver value to their audience. When your pitch says, “You’ve talked about this topic before, but you’ve never covered this angle,’ the host realizes you have something new to contribute. It proves you’ve listened and you’ve come up with a topic idea, and they start to feel like you’re on the same page.
You’ve basically told the host, ‘I know it’s hard to do a podcast. I’ve got an idea for a show, and I’ve done most of the work for you. All you have to do is have me on, ask me a couple questions, and we’re good to go.’
What host wouldn’t say yes?
My favorite bad pitch came from someone whose reason for being on my show was that he was a submarine captain. I thought, “Thank you for your service, but what does that have to do with growing a podcast?”
Thomas: Your pitch is an audition. It shows whether you can speak our language, whether you’re enough of a Stargate SG-1 fan to connect with the audience, or whether you’re an outsider who won’t make sense to our tribe.
I respond to pitches where people demonstrate they get the inside jokes and mention things only listeners of the show would know. On Novel Marketing, we often reference ancient Rome, and those references have become somewhat of an inside joke. But none of our branding references ancient Rome. You’d have to be deep in the community to know about it. That signals you’re already a member of the tribe.
That said, you don’t have to listen to five hours of a podcast before pitching it. That’s unscalable. But for some shows, it’s worth the investment.
Where do you find podcasts to pitch?
Thomas: Some people don’t know where to look. What’s the Dave Jackson method for finding podcasts to pitch?
Dave: There are two tools I use. One is PodMatch, and the other is PodcastGuests.com. You set up a profile describing what you’re looking for and who you are, and it matches you with shows. They’ve almost gamified it. You get a notification like, ‘You have six new matches,’ and you click through them.
If I look at a match and it’s clearly not right, I can pass on it and the system learns what I’m passing on so it doesn’t pitch me the same type of show again. I look at the target guest description and if that’s clearly me, I dig in. If it’s not a ‘heck yeah,’ it’s a no.
I also look at the host’s website. If I click the link and it goes to a Spotify page, I take that as a sign that this host hasn’t invested $10 in a real website. That tells me something about the quality of their podcast. I’ll also look at episode titles to see what they’ve already covered, and I’ll try to find the host’s name from a recent episode so I can address them by name in the pitch.
Thomas: Two tools I find useful are Listen Notes and Podchaser. Listen Notes gives you a sense of how popular a podcast is. It won’t tell you exact download numbers, but it will tell you if a show is in the top 10% of all podcasts. That matters because of how the power law works. The top 10% of podcasts probably get 90% of total downloads. The bottom 90% are sharing a handful of downloads or have pod-faded and haven’t published in years.
I have several tools in the Patron Toolbox to help with this. The first is the Media Hook Brainstormer. You upload your book, push a button, and it analyzes your book and generates a list of media hooks, topics, angles, and news events you could newsjack. The news event hooks require waiting for the right moment, but the topic and angle hooks are immediately useful because they point you toward the kinds of podcasts worth pitching.
The second is the. Influencer Finder, which helps you find BookTokkers, BookTubers, Bookstagrammers, and podcasters. It uses an LLM to search popular podcasts, so it skews toward well-known shows rather than niche ones.
Listen Notes is useful for screening out podcasts with no listeners. Podchaser gives you even more data, including audience demographics, but you have to pay for it. For most authors doing their own PR, it’s not worth the cost.
Dave: A note on ListenNotes rankings. Because they rank against every podcast ever published, including ones that haven’t posted in a decade, being in the top 10% doesn’t mean as much as it sounds. It’s consistent, so it’s good for comparing shows to each other, but don’t put too much weight on the percentile itself.
Thomas: Also, expand your definition of media as you’re doing your tour. Radio shows still need guests. YouTube interview shows reach a different audience. Readers don’t know or care about the RSS feed debate between YouTube and podcasting. They just know that an influencer they trust had this author on, and they want to check out the book.
You’ll quickly run through every podcast in your genre. There may only be five military sci-fi podcasts. It’s tempting to think you’ve exhausted your options, but the Stargate SG-1 podcasts might have you on to talk about Stargate SG-1, and that gives you an opportunity to mention your book. That angle can introduce you to an audience that may only be adjacent to reading. You may have an opportunity to convince someone to give reading a try.
Dave: If your book is good, expanding the pie is beneficial for everyone.
How do you nail the interview once you get it?
Thomas: Another problem with the carpet-bombing approach is that if you go on a podcast you’re not a fit for, you won’t get invited back. The real goal for every podcast guest is to become a friend of the show.
Not every podcast has a formalized system, but Novel Marketing does. You have to be interviewed twice to be a friend of the show, and we have everyone’s face on the Friends of the Show page. You can click on Dave Jackson’s face and see all his interviews, and it becomes like a mini course on podcasting from a Hall of Famer.
Because Dave is a friend of the show, he’s already established credibility with my audience and me. If Dave had a new book coming out that would interest authors, all he’d have to do is send me a quick note. He wouldn’t have to do a formal pitch because we’re already friends. I already know my audience likes Dave Jackson. I’d ask when his book comes out, and we’d coordinate the episode to drop on launch day. That kind of coordination doesn’t happen with strangers.
Popular podcasts tend to invite their “friends of the show” as much or more than they invite new guests. If you had that status with several podcasts, then for every book launch, you’d have five or six guaranteed interviews and an audience with every show where you’ve become a friend.
Dave: When you have a great guest who delivers value, you know where to go back. Thomas is my book guy, and now he’s also my AI guy. I know he’s got a decent microphone, he’s ready to go, and he knows my audience.
When you get done with the interview, don’t let that be the last time you talk to that person. Share the episode, tag them on social media, and thank them. A few weeks later, reach out with something specific. For example, you might listen to 10 minutes of a recent episode and mention what stood out to you. You want to be that person who comes to mind when a host thinks, ‘My cousin loves sci-fi. I should recommend this author.’
What kind of gear do you need before you give a podcast interview?
Thomas: I have an entire Podcast Gear Guide. I have tested all of the equipment I recommend and have suggestions for every budget. Additionally, I’ve recorded an episode called Watch This Before Your Next Podcast Interview, where I’ll demonstrate how to get good audio and be a good podcast guest.
Avoid using condenser microphones and get the microphone as close to your mouth as you can.
The biggest thing people overlook is using a microphone arm. Don’t use the little desk stand your microphone came with. Get an arm that pulls it in close. Microphone arms cost $10 or $20, and you’ll get better sound from a $100 microphone with a $20 arm than from a $300 microphone on a desk stand. I recommend one in my Podcast Gear Guide.
The arm is for audio what lights are for video. Good photography is all about good lighting. Everyone wants to buy an expensive camera, but if you get the lighting right, you can get great photos from a cheap camera. Get that microphone in close.
Wear good podcast-looking headphones. It signals that you’re a real podcaster. It also helps the host do technical things on their end so they’re not having to use software noise cancellation.
Dave: Taylor Swift wore headphones on her boyfriend’s podcast. If Taylor can do it, you can do it.
Thomas: She cares deeply about her image, being pretty is a big part of her brand, but she respected the medium.
People argue about RSS feeds and enclosures, but the real difference between a YouTube show and a podcast is the headphones. If you’re wearing headphones, it’s a podcast. If you’re not, it’s a YouTube show.
Dave: I have in-ear monitors I could use instead, but headphones are just easier and they sound better. Unless you’re spending hundreds of dollars on in-ear monitors, there’s no bass to them. Whatever you choose, you need something in your ears.
Thomas: You can have a good microphone and good headphones and sound great, but still say all the wrong things. So let’s talk about the performance of the interview itself.
Podcast Interview Tips and Tricks
Thomas: Before the interview, listen to a whole episode. You may have done this when pitching, but you need to do it again. This helps you catch any standard questions the host asks every guest at the end, things that might catch you off guard if you’re not ready.
The Fantastical Truth podcast asks every guest, ‘When did you ask Aslan to be your Lord and Savior?’ If you’ve listened to the show, you know to expect it.
Tip #1: Ask about the audience.
During the pre-interview chitchat, ask the host two questions. First, ask about the audience. You got close enough in your research to land the interview, but the host knows that audience better than you do. Understanding who’s listening will help you tune your examples, stories, and vocabulary, and you’ll know how technical to get.
I ask podcast hosts, ‘How advanced is your audience on AI?’ If they’re beginners, I avoid terms like MCP server. If they’re advanced, I can go deeper. I don’t want to bore an expert audience or talk over a beginner one.
Tip #2: Ask about the goal of the interview.
Second, ask about the goal for the interview. Some hosts haven’t articulated this clearly, and asking about the goal will help them do a better job with the episode. Maybe they want listeners to understand a concept or to feel encouraged about some part of your story. Understanding the goal helps you know which part of your story to lean into.
Dave: You’re almost certainly going to get hit with, ‘So tell us a little about yourself.’ I could start, ‘Well, I was born in Akron, Ohio,’ but the audience doesn’t care about that. Practice your answers to the questions you know are coming. You don’t want to sound like a robot, but you should have a clear idea of what you want to say.
Tip #3: Ask about the length of the interview.
Dave: I always ask how long they want the interview to be. If it’s 20 minutes and I give an 18-minute answer to the first question, there’s nothing left. Knowing the length helps you calibrate how detailed to be. The more you understand who you’re talking to, why you’re talking to them, and what to expect, the better you can shape your answers.
Tip #4: Write down questions.
Dave: Sometimes I’ll jot down the question as it’s being asked so I don’t lose track of it halfway through a long answer.
Remember, it’s not live radio. If you realize mid-answer you’re blowing it, just say, ‘Hey, can I start that again? I have a better answer.’ Wait five seconds and go. The host will usually say yes.
Tip #5: Ask if they edit the show.
Thomas: I’d also ask at the beginning whether they edit the episode. Some shows are live to tape, and the host has no interest in doing cleanup. But a lot of hosts do edit, and they’re happy to make a cut if you stumble.
Tip #6: Reference your book only when it fits the conversation naturally.
Thomas: Internalize that the goal of the interview is not to sell your book. A common mistake is to shoehorn your book into every single answer. That comes across as salesy and makes hosts nervous. Listeners tune it out the same way they tune out ads.
But failing to mention your book is just as bad. Learning how to work in those references organically, where it doesn’t feel forced, is a skill. That’s one reason why going on podcasts with small audiences first is so valuable. You’re not going to learn that skill on the first try, and you don’t want your first try to be the number one show in your genre. Work your way up.
Often the last question will be something like, ‘Tell us about your book.’ For that moment, practice your answer out loud, many times, with real people if possible. Selling books at a fair or farmers market gives you a lot of practice pitching in front of real faces, and you can see immediately when someone gets bored. You also learn to tailor your pitch to different people. I sell my book differently to different audiences, and I lean into whatever aspect of the book is most relevant to the audience in front of me.
When it’s your turn to pitch your book at the end of the interview, pick the one angle that’s most interesting to that specific audience, and then stop talking. You have a sci-fi book with space marines and you’re on a Marine vet podcast? Talk about the Marine aspect. On the Stargate SG-1 podcast? Talk about the one time your characters go through a gate. Figure out which feature would be most interesting to that audience.
Tip #7: Say your website slowly.
Dave: Say your website slowly. There are no awards for rattling it off fast.
Thomas: If you can, buy the domain for YourBookTitle.com. Every time you say the book title, you’re saying the website. Every time you say the website, you’re saying the book title. If the domain you want isn’t available, keep it simple, without dashes or weird extensions. Buy the domain and redirect it to the right page on your site with Cloudflare, for free, or through your domain registrar.
Tip #8: Practice your pitch.
Dave: Be ready for that pitch moment. I saw a clip of Macaulay Culkin on Ellen promoting his podcast. They spent 15 minutes talking about Home Alone, and finally Ellen said, ‘I hear you have a podcast.’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’s called Bunny Ears.’ She asked what it was, and he said something like, ‘It’s me and my friend, and we talk about stuff.’ He used the word ‘stuff.’ He couldn’t describe his own show.
We are not naturally good at self-promotion. We get weird and squirrelly. So practice it in the mirror if you have to. When someone says, ‘Tell me about your book,’ you should be able to say it confidently in a way that leaves people wanting more. Then you say where to find it.
I had a guest on who was getting 300,000 downloads an episode. I asked how he did it, and he said he slowly, specifically, and confidently asks people to share it at the end of every show. He’d say something like, “We’re at the 29-minute mark. If you’re still here, you obviously like this. Do you know someone else who’d enjoy it? Can you go to your phone right now and share it with that one person?” That’s a strong, specific call to action. Practice yours so it comes out the same way.
Tip #9: Offer a lead magnet.
Dave: Having a lead magnet can really pay off. A free gift like ‘go to mywebsite.com/gift’ is valuable because it gets you an email address. With that address, you can ask them to listen to your podcast, buy your book, or tell a friend. An email subscriber is worth more than a social media follow because you can reach them multiple times over time.
Thomas: I recommend having multiple reader magnets. You don’t need one for every podcast, but if you have three or four, you’ll usually have one that’s a good fit for any given audience. Don’t mention all of them. Mention only the one that’s the best match for the people listening right now.
Reader magnets work a bit better for nonfiction, but fiction authors can get creative with quizzes, personality tests, or surveys tied to the themes of the book. These can work really well during a podcast interview. If none of that appeals to you, it’s perfectly fine to just send people to buy the book.
Learn more about offering lead magnets in the following episodes:
- How to Create a Reader (Lead) Magnet
- How to Grow Your Email List Using Delicious Reader Magnets
- The Strategy Behind Reader Super Magnets
- Reader Magnets Are Dead? Why Most Reader Magnets Fail
Check out my Reader Magnet Brainstormer tool in the Patron Toolbox. It generates tailored reader magnet ideas for your book so you can grow your email list with a magnet readers actually want to download.
What advice would you give to a first-time podcast guest?
Thomas: If an author has a book release coming up and wants to start some PR for the first time, what would you tell that person?
Dave: Talk to your cousin. Say, “Hey, can you do me a favor? Pretend you’re a podcaster and come up with six questions.” Practice with a real person before you pitch real shows.
When I played in bands, our goal was to play Fat Fish Blue, a well-known blues club in downtown Cleveland. We didn’t pitch them for two years because we wanted to be good when we showed up. Don’t make your first pitch the number one show in your genre. Start small.
Remember, it’s not live radio. If you lose your train of thought mid-answer, just say, ‘Hey, hold on, can I start that answer over? I want to deliver a better answer for your audience.’ Wait five seconds and go again. The host will always say yes.
Thomas: The skills you build in podcasting transfer directly to YouTube, radio, and TV. There are more podcasts than there are local TV shows that interview authors, so you’ll get far more reps. Take the opportunities that are available, start with the smaller shows, and work up.
One more thing. Podcasting is good for SEO because shows link to your website, which helps your site rank in search engines.
Dave, tell people about The School of Podcasting and why they should check it out.
Dave: I help you plan, launch, and grow your podcast. If you want to monetize, my book Profit From Your Podcast (affiliate link) can help with that.
Thomas: If Dave and I ever disagree about podcasting advice, listen to Dave. He knows what he’s talking about.
Give podcast guesting a shot. Don’t write it off as a strategy. A good podcasting microphone can also be used for your audiobook. It’s a solid investment in your toolkit overall.
Podcasts need guests, and once hosts find out you’re a good guest, they’ll want to have you back.
Connect with Dave Jackson
- School of Podcasting
- Book: Profit From Your Podcast (affiliate link)
- Ask the Podcast Coach (live Saturdays)
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