C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

I was really looking forward to using ACX.com to get my crime novel, Bigger Than Jesus, out there as an audiobook. Unfortunately, ACX isn’t ready to deal with non-US citizens yet. (Dang! Don’t hate me because I’m Canadian!) If you are a US citizen and an indie author, definitely consider ACX. It’s a great set up I learned about through Jeff Bennington.) Until then, I’m going to take the Scott Sigler approach to book promotion and podcast my books.

Scott Sigler was one of the first indie authors to podcast his books, chapter by chapter, and leave it up for free. He found, as he doled it out week by week, that lots of readers couldn’t wait a week for the next instalment. They wanted to buy the whole thing immediately. The strategy works and, despite all his success, Sigler continues to give the books away in audio form even though he’s now published traditionally. This podcast strategy flummoxed his publisher, whose sales force couldn’t understand how his sales kept going and going. Traditional publishing strategies don’t allow for free and expect spikes of sales followed by doldrums. That doesn’t happen with Sigler because he stays out there, available and free to sample and enjoy and building his fan base with, among other things, books as free podcasts. I should add that he’s a clever marketer, but the books are strong. No marketing strategy works if the writing isn’t strong. In fact, if your book is weak, good marketing may hasten its trip down to oblivion. That said, Sigler is a brilliant guy who keeps the free coming, but to maximum advantage. This isn’t Dumb Free: Give It All Away and Hope. This is Smart Free: Give it Away and Bank On It.

There’s another benefit to podcasting your book. The ebook of my crime novel is out now. I plan to release the Bigger Than Jesus paperback at the end of the month. Despite all the editorial eyes on the manuscript, there’s still a bit of tinkering I want to do before the print version is released. Last night, as I recorded another chapter, I realized there were still a couple of minor edits I wanted to address. Nothing that’s a huge deal, but we all want to get a little closer to perfection. Over the next two or three days, I’m doing a podcast marathon so I’ll have the whole book banked in its audio form. If there are any further niggles to tweak, I’ll find them. Reading your book aloud can be a powerful editing tool and, by podcasting the book a chapter at a time, I make the podcast do double duty.

Listen to Chapter 1 of Bigger Than Jesus now.

Related articles

• Ultimate Blog Challenge: Top 10 Things I know I don’t know (yet) (chazzwrites.com)
• PODCAST: The In Defence of Dumb Edition (allthatchazz.com)
• Ultimate Blog Challenge: Top 10 What I’ll soon do differently with my book promotion (chazzwrites.com)
• Ultimate Blog Challenge: Top 10 things I wish I didn’t know about readers (chazzwrites.com)
• Ultimate Blog Challenge: I am an artist, not a beggar (chazzwrites.com)
• Author Blog Challenge 17: How to talk with your graphic designer about your book cover (chazzwrites.com)
• Ultimate Blog Challenge: The Warm Chocolate Chip Cookie Exposition (chazzwrites.com)
• Ultimate Blog Challenge: How to avoid signal fade on your blog and in your books (chazzwrites.com)
• Ultimate Blog Challenge: Can you blog a book? Sure you can. (chazzwrites.com)
• Podcasting Tools to Create Podcast (bloggingtips.com)
• Building Your Podcast Audience is a Marathon Not A Sprint (davidjackson.org)
• 6 Steps to Creating an Audio Book (podiobooks.com)

Filed under: publishing, Amazon Kindle, Bigger than Jesus, book, crime fiction, crime novel, free podcasts, Podcast, Publish, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, Scott Sigler, self-help for stoners, thriller