Daily Archives: April 11, 2009

Where have all the Podcasts gone?

by Jina Bacarr

Was it only three years ago I did my first podcast for OCC/RWA? Check out the press release I wrote back then about podcasting at OCC:

Romancing the O.C. with Podcasting

What I find interesting about the state of podcasting since then is that most authors seem to prefer making book trailers. Book trailers are the new basic black for authors, but YouTube isn’t the only site where you can upload your trailers. TubeMogul.com allows you to upload your trailer to several sites at once.

If you want someone else to put together the book trailer for you, Circle of Seven Productions is the “go to” company for book trailers. You can check out their award-winning trailers and get information about the different book trailer packages they offer.

What if you want to make your own trailer?

With companies like iStockphoto.com/ to license photos and a plethora of podsafe music sites like Shockwavesound.com along with the free software like Windows Movie Maker, we can all be directors and let our characters tell the story. But is that enough? Readers love to connect with the author, find out more about her. You can only do that by getting up close and personal with a video or audio podcast.

Romance Novel TV does a fabulous job with author video podcasts and authors Jill Monroe and Gena Showalter’s Author Talk is my favorite video site for fun and informative author podcasts.

Filmmaker Terry Kate with her Romance in the Back Seat author video podcasts is a new face on the horizon with her author interviews in the back seat of a car and, when possible, I interview our local OCC authors and guests at our local monthly OCC/RWA meeting.

All this makes me wonder: what is the future of podcasting for authors? That’s not an easy question to answer. With technology changing every day, I believe it will continue to evolve so more writers can take advantage of this great marketing tool.

I love shooting video and will continue to turn them into podcasts, but like all authors, the writing comes first. That doesn’t mean we can’t promote our work with podcasts, whether we use book trailers, upload video interviews or make slide shows of those great research photos we took in Ireland.

We can’t spend all our time in front of the computer, can we?

Best,
Jina

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jinabacarr

Jina Bacarr is the author of The Blonde Geisha , Naughty Paris, Tokyo Rendezvous, a Spice Brief, and Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs, featuring an Indiana Jones in high heels.

New: Cleopatra’s Perfume “One whiff and every man was her slave.”

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