by Lindsey Brackett @LindsBrac

I hear there are writers who choose this profession because it means they only have to talk to fictional people. 

I’ve never actually met any of these supposed writers. Every writer I know loves to talk to other writers—and not just about writing. Sure we talk craft and dialogue tags and trends and our favorite authors. But we also talk life—recipes and inspiration, faith and forgetfulness, historical trivia and pop culture references. Which is why, dear writer friends, podcasting is a pretty natural outlet for a lot of writers. 

Historical romance novelist Kristi Ann Hunter and I partnered up to create a podcast this year, only a few weeks before we knew what 2020 would really bring. Our show, A Rough Draft Life, is for people like us—“We’re just making it up as we go along.” While this mantra serves us well in podcasting, novel drafting, and motherhood, it’s actually not true for how we began our podcast. 

We did not, in fact, make up how to begin. Rather we listened to the wisdom of others, did some research, and made a plan. 

Three Steps Before You Start a Podcast:

Listen to Podcasts 

I’m continually surprised by writers who don’t read books and podcasters who don’t listen to podcasts. Of course you have less time because you’re creating your own content, but you can’t never consume anyone else’s. Before Kristi and I started recording ourselves, we listened to a lot of various podcasts. 

Some of our favorites include:

The Lazy Genius

The Next Right Thing

Novel Marketing

History Chicks

The Popcast

That Sounds Fun

Enneagram & Coffee

We began to notice some common threads—we like to listen to people discuss life and give practical advice. We like interviews and banter. We appreciate wit and humor, but still want some good nuggets of truth. All this helped us determine the vibe we wanted to bring to A Rough Draft Life.

Research Like You’re Writing a Book

All that attention to detail you give your regency romance? (Kristi recently learned horse trainers rose at 2 a.m. to exercise the horses, no thanks.) Well, you’ve got to give the same to your podcast. This is not as simple as recording yourself talking and uploading it on YouTube. Research matters. 

Our go-to resources include:

Author Media/Novel Marketing with Thomas Umstattd, Jr. 

Fellow podcasters for advice, tips, equipment

Google—you can ask it anything!

Podcast Reviews—you can learn so much from what works (and what doesn’t).

Make a Plan

Before you start a podcast, you need to determine answers to a few questions.

Who is your target audience?

Why should they care?

What are you offering?

How is your podcast different than everyone else’s on this same topic?

If these questions look familiar, you must have written a query letter in your lifetime. They are the same questions we ask ourselves about our stories—who is this for and why do they care? If you don’t know who your audience is, you’ll have trouble finding the right niche and building community. 

Once you have determined who you want to listen, you can start the real fun. 

But that’s for next month’s blog post. 

Until then, I hope you’ll find A Rough Draft Life on your podcast player of choice. Don’t have a podcast player? Good thing there’s this article. The Internet has everything you know. 

Lindsey P. Brackett writes southern fiction infused with her rural Georgia upbringing and Lowcountry roots. Her debut novel, Still Waters, released in 2017 and was named the 2018 Selah Book of the Year. Her latest novel, The Bridge Between, released in 2019. Recently she launched the podcast, A Rough Draft Life, with novelist Kristi Ann Hunter. Someday she hopes to balance motherhood and writing full-time. Until then, she’s very grateful for her public school system.

Connect with Lindsey and get her free novella, Magnolia Mistletoe with newsletter signup at lindseypbrackett.com or on Instagram @lindseypbrackett.