Being a Podcast Guest by Tammy Euliano

In preparation for the launch of my debut novel last March, my publicist lined up several podcast appearances. They were low stress conversations with someone who knew at least a little about me and my book and offered innocuous and sometimes fascinating questions.

After the launch, I had to take over my own publicity. Not my strong suit. In fact, I may not have a weaker suit…unless it’s my dog parenting, at least according to my husband. But I digress.

I’m a professor at the University of Florida and a physician, so talking to people, both in small groups and lecture halls, is second nature. I’ve created YouTube teaching videos and so am not fearful of technology for the most part. Or I thought I wasn’t, until I realized that in those videos I am conspicuously absent. Except for my voice of course. Does anyone like their recorded voice? Surely audiobook narrators must. But I digress again.

I decided to pursue more podcast guest opportunities, though I had no idea whether it would result in sales or improve my brand. First, I watched several YouTube videos of podcasters explaining what I needed: appropriate lighting, a better camera, a microphone, headphones, a green screen. I bought all of those, spending as little as possible, and wasted most of that.

Lighting: I bought a set of 3 LCD lights on poles. One is still in the box, the other two have been turned on to provide fill-in lighting, then turned off because I look better with less lighting.

A green screen: This came in two versions: the first was six sheets of green posterboard I taped together and hung from the wall. For the record, if you’re going to wear green scrubs, the whole green screen thing is a REALLY bad idea. But even when I wore other colors, the seams between the sheets screwed things up. Instead I invested in a white pop-up screen which I tried to use a few times, never got it to work right because it probably needed a stand so it wasn’t at an angle. Then I spent a crazy amount of time trying to wrestle the stupid thing back into its bag (I even watched YouTube videos on how to do it, but nearly injured myself and definitely scared the dogs). Anyway, now I’m afraid to open it again.

Microphone: The external mic seems to confuse my speakers, probably because I over-estimated my tech prowess and can’t get the apps to address the right equipment, but when I finally bought headphones, they had their own microphone, so I don’t need the external one anyway (yep, that was the single most expensive of the items I purchased).  

Headphones: See above.

Camera: I purchased a very inexpensive webcam with guess what, another microphone! I have an enormous screen for my computer--literally a 45-inch television screen. When I mount the webcam on the top of the screen, it looks like I’m expecting a meteor strike. But when I put it on the measly three-legged stand it came with, the angle is…let’s call it unflattering. Oh, and the design is top-heavy and it tips over at inopportune moments. Enter my amazing son and his 3-D printer. I mentioned this in a prior post. He made me a hanger that puts the camera at whatever level I want. I can put it right near the face of my interviewer so I appear to be looking right at them while we talk.

Then I had to get on some podcasts. So far I’ve had the best luck with PodMatch—a free service, though their automated matches aren’t all that great, and I don’t know how to be sure I’m spending time on widely viewed podcasts, it’s a good experience and I’ve had a few people comment that they heard about my book from a podcast. Now that I’ve done a dozen or so, I can be more choosey and am getting on podcasts with wider distribution and more skilled interviewers. It can be really fun to talk to people about their experience of my novel and answer questions about the process and future plans.

So if I were starting over and wanted to be on podcasts, here’s what I would/wouldn’t do:

1. Do get headphones with a built-in microphone, by separating the speaker from the mic, you don’t get feedback/echo during interviews.
2. Do have a quiet place to record, though pets seem to be welcome. Hint: remove all squeakie toys from the vicinity or your dog will most definitely choose that moment to pick that toy he hasn’t touched in weeks and serenade your audience.
3. Do have decent lighting, maybe a cheap ring light that goes around your camera would suffice.
4. Don’t invest in a green screen or other popup, just blur the background. Personally I’m not crazy about the image backgrounds people use because it does strange things to their hair that I find distracting.
5. Don’t invest in a separate microphone, the one on the headphones is adequate.
6. Don’t invest in an expensive camera, but do experiment with the camera location to optimize both your appearance and where you are looking during the interview.
7. Do consider PodMatch or the Facebook group: Podcast Guest Collaboration Community - Find a Guest, Be a Guest. I’m sure there are others, these are the only ones with which I have experience.
8. Do listen to a couple of your interviewers previous podcasts to know what kind of questions to expect.
9. Do place links to your podcast experiences on your website so other podcasters will know you are experienced.
10. Oh, and ASK whether there will be photo/video taken at the time. I now have two quite awful images of me forever in the ether (which is appropriate since I’m an anesthesiologist…if only I’d been wearing an OR hat and mask at the time!)

What are your favorite author or book review podcasts?

PS, thanks so much to the WWK team. I've thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the group and appreciate the opportunity. Best wishes to each of you.