Promoting your book can be a tough road – I know because I’m currently on it. On top of establishing trust, you need to demonstrate that you’re worth investing in. Plus, unlike online courses, it can be tough to build and keep an audience if people are just buying your book off Amazon. Luckily, a podcast can help. We’ll get into all of that in this episode. Plus, in Build Something More I’ll tell you all about my experience with both self-publishing and going through an actual publisher.



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Joe Casabona: Real quick before we get started, I want to tell you about the Build Something Weekly newsletter. It is weekly, it is free, and you will get tips, tricks, and tools delivered directly to your mailbox. I will recap the current week’s episode and all of the takeaways, I’ll give you a top story, content I wrote, and then some recommendations that I’ve been using that I think you should check out. So it is free, it is a weekly, it’s over at howibuilt.it/subscribe. Go ahead and sign up over at howibuilt.it/subscribe.


Hey, everybody, and welcome to Episode 217 of How I Built It, the podcast that offers actionable tech tips to small business owners. I’m your host Joe Casabona. Today we are continuing a small miniseries I started a few weeks ago about why certain people in certain industries should start a podcast. Now back in Episode 154—I will link that in the show notes over at howibuilt.it/217—I talk about why everybody should start a podcast. This was a kind of general point episode. It was just before the pandemic started, and it seemed like lots of people were going to get into podcasting in 2020.


As we wade into 2021, I think that there are specific use cases and benefits for people who I am looking forward to helping specifically. So certain niches that I believe I can help because I have strong experience in those areas. A few weeks ago, it was course creators and why course creators should start a podcast. Today it is why authors should start a podcast.


I’m an author myself. I’ve written five books, four with an actual publisher. So I guess I’ve written six books, four with actual publishers. I’ve been through the process a lot. And reluctantly, with my most recent book “HTML and CSS: Visual QuickStart Guide“, I actually didn’t start a podcast where perhaps I should have. So we’re going to get into all of that today. Our sponsors for today’s episode are TextExpander, Restrict Content Pro, and Mindsize. You’ll hear about them later in the episode. But first, let’s get to it.


Now, again, in Episode 154, I covered all the reasons. It’s called All the Reasons You Should Start a Podcast. And I rehashed them a little bit a few episodes ago, I think that was Episode 214, where I talked about why course creators should start a podcast. But just the gist, it’s easier than ever to start a podcast. You no longer need thousands of dollars’ worth of recording equipment. For probably 100 bucks, you can get up and running. You can get relatively cheap audio hosting. You can also get free audio hosting, but you can get relatively cheap audio hosting, which is what I would recommend.


It’s the next great content plane. It’s where lots of people are going to get content because a podcast doesn’t require you to sit in front of a screen and read. You can multitask while you listen to a podcast. You can do it while driving or commuting. You can do it while cleaning the house or mowing the lawn. So it’s a convenient form of content. And then it’s a way to grow your business because it’s a lot more intimate than other forms of content. People have your voice in their headphones while they’re listening to a podcast. It allows your listeners to get to know you better. But those are the general points for why anyone should start a podcast, why should authors start a podcast.


Again, I have experience here. I am an author. I’ve written a bunch of books. In fact, in the extended episode of build some