How to Publish: The Best Podcasts About Independent Publishing

September 8, 2022

2,157 5 minutes read

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Have you ever thought about writing a book? Sure you have! Well, most likely you have because according to a writer named Joseph Epstein, exactly 81% of all humans believe they have a book in them that needs to be written. While we cannot be certain of the facts behind these numbers or the research involved, we can go ahead and take Mr. Epstein’s word for it because it sounds about right. Reducing that down, it means about four out of every five people have an idea for a book. From there it’s up to them whether they want to tackle that great endeavor.

Now here’s the thing—at the turn of the millennium, most of these aspiring book authors would have been discouraged. While the technology was there to write a novel on word processing software, which most writers believe makes authoring simpler than writing on a typewriter, the obstacles that needed to be overcome in order to publish a book were relatively insurmountable. Sure, you could submit your manuscript to publishing houses (and of course, authors still do this), but the competition is fierce, and the rejection may be endless. For those that would want to skip all of that anxiety, publishing independently through a vanity imprint was an option—but a very expensive option. Not only would you need to pay for the publisher to publish your book, you would also need to commit to paying for a certain number of copies. And once you had those copies, you’d need to store them somewhere.

It was discouraging, to say the least.

And then came the advent of print on demand, which changed the game. Today, authors need only to write the manuscript, export a print file, acquire an eye-catching book cover image, and upload it to one of a number of print-on-demand services. With the major obstacle of self publishing removed, it is more likely now that ambitious first-time authors can get their work out there. As it goes for any first-timers, any help or assistance, or mentorship is accepted with open arms, and now we have a number of great self-publishing podcasts to help new authors navigate this journey into the indie publishing world.

So with no further ado, here is a list of some of the best independent publishing podcasts to help you finally publish that book!

Self Publishing School: How To Write A Book That Grows Your Impact, Income, And Business

The Self Publishing School podcast is meant to be just that — a podcast that will guide an aspiring author through the journey of writing and independently publishing a book. Host Chandler Bolt interviews successful authors that have published independently and traditionally, and these writers provide anecdotes about what worked and what didn’t work, tips for best practices when approaching a novel or a work of nonfiction, and the pitfalls that a writer ought to look out for. There is also insight into the business of independent publishing once the book has been published.