Discoverability. We know that’s the key to selling books—getting your title in front of your intended audience. Your old faithfuls, God bless ’em, will stick with you when you publish. But you want your message, your story, your ministry to gain ground by finding new readers. You want to reach out to folks who didn’t know about you before or have been dragging their feet to buy your book.
So you strive for marketing plans that work, SEO that brings people to your website, favorable algorithms that make your book show up in Amazon recommendations, and the always-valuable Word of Mouth.
I have a website and a blog. I’ve done interviews and guest posts on other websites. I’ve promoted through social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. But if someone doesn’t come to me on the internet, how can I get to them?
Enter three colleagues, women who also write about sexual intimacy in marriage on their blogs. This past year, we sprouted the idea to put together a group podcast. Call it a round table, but we prefer kitchen table. Because that’s what it feels like to us—sitting around a kitchen table with our cups of coffee and talking about one of our favorite subjects, God’s gift of sex in marriage.
As a podcast listener myself, I immediately saw the potential for reaching a new audience. As busy as people are today, it’s often easier for them to plug in earphones, click on an app, and listen to a podcast than to peruse a bookstore, read blog posts, or even follow social media. And listening week after week, they begin to feel that they know the hosts. They’re sitting around that proverbial kitchen table with them and at some point think, I really want to read their book.
Now I’m not involving myself in this podcast merely to sell books. Our main purpose is to spread the good news of God’s gift of sexual intimacy in marriage and to help wives address issues that prevent them from fully embracing that gift. But I’m not oblivious to the fact that this new medium will get my name and title in front of a new batch of potential readers.
In case you’re interested, here’s a summary of what we’ve learned (so far) about podcasting:
You’ll have upfront costs. They include a professionally designed logo, the podcast hosting service, sound equipment, and editing software. Michael Hyatt offers a great breakdown of options for getting started at different tiers. We took the medium-route, with hopes of later adding better recording equipment and a professional voice-over introduction.
There’s a big learning curve. At least for four women with no audio-visual experience. We have spent months researching podcasting, discussing our launch and marketing plans, recording episodes in advance, and learning how to use editing software.
Treat it like a book launch. Remember how you had to write your bio, back cover copy, schedule blog tours, make sure your website was ready, etc.? A podcast launch also requires preparation. We designed a website, set up social media accounts, brainstormed topics, and recorded three episodes before we said boo to anyone else about our plans. And by the time that we launch, we’ll have up to 10 episodes already recorded.
Consider partnering with others. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” Yes, it’s required more flexibility with our schedules to get all four of us together to record, but it’s been lovely to share the work and the costs and to have the encouragement of other Christian women. On the business side, we’re able to cross-promote, with each of us getting access to the other threes’ audiences.
Our brand-new podcast, Sex Chat for Christian Wives, will first air on February 14 and every other week thereafter. We’ll see what God does with this project. But I hope to be able to report this time next year that this endeavor not only sold more of my books, but helped many marriages and marriage beds.
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