How To Turn A Podcast Into A Book

If you’ve already taken the time to research, plan and script a podcast, then why not get some extra value out of all that hard work and turn it into a book?

If you have listeners really enjoying your podcasts and engaging with them, then the chances are that readers would also engage with the same content in the written form.

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Understand how to write a book

The way that a book keeps a reader engaged differs from the way that a podcast does. Before getting started, it’s important that you ask yourself the question: how do I write a book? Understanding what’s involved in the writing process will mean that you are in a much better position to turn your podcasts into something that people actually want to read.

Take the time to read what existing authors have written about writing, and when you’re reading books, pay attention to what you’re enjoying and what you’re not. This is a great way to understand what works in a book.

Turn your episodes into a manuscript

It’s worth taking the time to roughly plan what you want the overall message of your book to be before you start transcribing. If you were to simply write down all of your episodes in any old order then your book could appear disjointed and this wouldn’t be engaging to a reader.

When you know what the overall message of your book is going to be, you can start choosing which episodes best represent that message and in which order.

Thanks to the wonders of technology you won’t have to sit there laboriously typing out all of your episodes by hand either. There are some great transcription services out there that will do the job for you, so all you’ll need to do is write a few lines to contextualize the episodes and string them together.

Get it edited professionally

There’s nothing more irritating than trying to read a book that’s full of errors, so it’s important that you get your book professionally edited once you’re happy with it.

The second pair of eyes will be able to see things that you can’t, and an experienced editor will be able to suggest improvements that you may not have thought of. When you’re looking for your editor, try to find one who has experience with turning podcasts into books, as this will mean that they can also bring the benefit of their experience in this area.

Release both a paperback and an e-book

It is a good idea to publish your book both as an e-book and as a paperback. A lot of people do read books digitally but print is definitely not dead. A few reasons for also creating hard copies of your book are:

  • Legitimacy. If your book is available in print in signals to people that you have put the effort in to create a hard copy, which makes it seem more worthy of reading. 
  • Greater profit. Generally, paperbacks have a higher purchase price, and their readers are OK with this. This means that you can build in more profit.
  • More readers. Some people actively oppose books on e-readers, and you don’t want to alienate people for this reason.

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