Posts or podcasts?
When I launched this website not long after my first novel Full Medical was published (the website was largely the work of Monkey C Media, always helpful in my marketing efforts), podcasts didn’t exist. Tech users had barely become used to email after the physicists at CERN invented the worldwide web, after all. Websites then became the new tech toys, and they’re still the most important and ubiquitous marketing tools on the internet by far.
One could argue that podcasts are better than websites, audiovisual instead of just visual, for example. They’re also often “live,” and people can really get to know the podcaster “in person.” That’s the next best thing to a live book event for authors, some might argue.
But wait! Let’s take a look at those successful podcasters. They all have good audiovisual skills that often can attract a crowd interested in the topics and products discussed (writing and books, in the case of authors). One can argue that such skills are a necessary condition (like many things in book marketing, they’re not sufficient).
Many authors don’t have those skills, though. Too many of us are reclusive introverts (guilty as charged!) who often are uncomfortable talking about their creations. (When I gave a talk to a large audience at a local women’s club about Rembrandt’’s Angel, recorded for posterity by a local TV station, one could see I was nervous as hell and only survived the experience because I used to teach large lecture classes. I preferred the much smaller advanced courses, of course!) In most cases, authors often lack those public-speaking skills that so many podcasters seem to have (including that burning motivation to “put it out there” and get viewers excited).
Moreover, who can guarantee that viewers of a book-marketing podcast are actually readers interested in books and not just curiosity-seekers who like to make fun of authors, whatever the trolls’ motivation? Websites seem to be the better alternative for authors wanting to market their books considering all the negatives podcasts have.
This doesn’t mean an author can create their website and then proceed to ignore it. People will visit, many of them readers, only if there’s often new content: listings of new novel and short-fiction titles, posts that interest and inform other authors and curious readers (like this one, hopefully), and comments about the ins and outs of the writing business. I often spend time tinkering with this website too, and it’s full of links to others that might assist readers and other authors as well as those that might offer free fiction like I do here. Try doing that with a podcast!
It’s not hard to do all this with your website once you get into the habit. And it can become an enjoyable, leisurely paced activity to complement your storytelling activities. Finally, websites can offer unlimited content compared to any podcast.
I’m convinced an author must have a website where they’re active and informative. Podcasts aren’t so much a necessity for an author and can easily become a bad experience for viewers and creators alike.
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“Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy. And here’s another advantage of a website’s blog: In your posts, an author can advertise an entire series! No book marketing “guru” does that (why not?). This trilogy about evil, Legacy of Evil, Cult of Evil, and Fear the Asian Evil, can be considered a continuation of the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. (That series contains nine novels, including the two free PDF downloads. In fact, novel #8 in that series introduces Steve Morgan as he arrives as a transfer from London’s Met to Bristol’s PD.) These are all British-style mysteries that often involve worldwide criminal activities. You’ll find a lot of mind-bending plot twists and turns in these novels.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
