by Chris Harris
Podcasts, social media and a redesigned blog should all help me find readers for my first book. Unfortunately, mastering the technology has involved more confusion, wasted hours and ChatGPT rabbit holes than I ever imagined. But despite the occasional technological catastrophe, the foundations are slowly taking shape — and I’m beginning to see a little progress
Podcasts can potentially be a superb source of attracting readers. Even better, they are easy to do. I can witter on for ages, with Eloise or Louise, and with three books to talk about including, twenty four short stories, my blogs to discuss and all my marketing successes and fails. Delivered with, fun, humour and self-deprecation, they should be really good.
I can generate six podcasts a week of ten minutes length and keep them interesting. Louise set up the book podcast a few months ago and we trialled a few, with videos. They are more than acceptable. Of course, as the process of publication dragged on, podcasts were something else that went to pot and forgotten.
The problem is I only have meetings to do content etc at most fortnightly, with Louise, so I decided I needed to learn to operate one myself. So, a few weeks ago, on Spotify, I set up a new podcast called He Knew He Was Right, the content of which will be connected to my main blog and will be about other interests of mine. It was gruelling setting up Audacity, the software for producing the blog. Chat GPT forever sending me down rabbit holes, including an editing farce on the first episode that didn’t even need editing. But I eventually produced my first blog episode, Punk Rock Cash in the Attic, posted it live. Nobody read it, but I did not promote it.
A few weeks is a long time in learning how to do podcasts in that you forget everything. This week I went through the forgotten process; this time I wanted to add video.
It just amazes me that within a couple of hours myself and my wife had produced a first podcast with a video, to date without a view. But that’s not the point. You always have to picture how good it maybe in a year’s time, and with podcasts people will always delve into the back catalogue and you can always reuse the content.
Besides, now they are just unplanned ramblings. I will need to think episodes out and write down prompts to keep it flowing. I want them to be ‘live’ to keep them authentic and energetic. I bought a proper microphone, better sound and the videos will look like I have a semblance of an idea with a microphoine. In am lucky in that my writing is ‘alternative’ and therefore expectations of a beautifully produced podcast will be very low.
Easy, so far so good, then it turned into a bit of a nightmare!
It seemed to work out well. When I had finished I went to put it on He Knew He Right and the book podcast came up instead, two hours of screenshots and faffing saw me load the podcast on that instead. So a few beers, and the memory of setting up the podcast misery evaporated in a splurge of ale!
Sadly, putting it on the blog was more difficult than producing the bloody thing. Not Chat’s finest hour as we went around in futile circles, we eventually got it linked, but imperfectly.
But another brick in the wall in the development of the campaign.
The struggle to master the social media and other platforms moved at a glacial pace. I have two large diaries winging their way to me. One for general book stuff and one for posting content. Posting a blog onto four social media platform in one go is five to fifteen minutes, At the moment it is over an hour. Perfectly normal, I have just reset them all and nothing is synchronised and I am at an early stage of trying to learn how to do everything.
It is frustrating though, all of the effort and faffing but very little follower traction, but the regular content breeds the traction through the algorithms so it is a painful but necessary skill to master. Besides, once the blogs are sorted, and that will be a couple of months, not the week I was hoping would do it, I will work on curating far better written and presented content, so for now it is just laying the groundwork. Still there are already stirrings with some sporadic likes and occasional new follower. Again, you have to project yourself to where you are in a year’s time with a thriving collection of output. Hopefully!
We are off to France for a few days, and before we went, the blog is now fully functional. If uninspiringly presented and not brilliantly navigable, the blog is now drawing in a few views and likes. I turned my attention to sorting out the category content, an unenviable bore, but I was also able to paste the book link at the end of these historical blogs in the process. With the blogs in the correct section and the miserable task of putting them in the correct order, God smiled at me, for some reason they already were. I’ll take the win, but heaven knows how.
We are going to give the blog a website appearance, so I got Chat to generate the potential layout with the images so it will be easily navigable, and it will look something like this:
Blog fully working, albeit at a very basic level and the podcast linked in. Social media on the up, well working and some minor growth. My business has been through the roof, so I am pleased with the progress as I have had to fight to find the time with some very early 2.30 am starts!
Make both our days by buying a copy of my book!
Something About England: Amazon.co.uk: Harris, Christopher, Turner, Louise: 9798174255661: Books
Welcome to Denham, a fictitious Sussex village where behind respectable doors, well-tended gardens and familiar faces, things have a habit of going badly wrong.
Obsession, ambition, deception, jealousy and petty rivalry run through this collection of tragi-comical and satirical short stories. From poltergeists and lottery winners to cricket club feuds and environmental disasters, ordinary people embark on discovering just how quickly an ordinary life can unravel into an extraordinary mess.
Darkly funny, occasionally poignant and populated by characters who are rarely quite what they seem, these stories explore the peculiarities of Middle England, and the uncomfortable territory between respectability and ruin.
