I was thinking about my writing and my podcasting the other day and I came to realize how much benefit my writing actually gets from being podcast. It might stem from that advice you hear many professional authors give to “read your work out loud”, but there are definite positive outcomes to doing it:

• You end up with a much cleaner manuscript. That is a direct advantage to podcasting. I know, when I did GalaxyBillies, I would take a scene that I thought was pretty clean, especially the dialogue parts, and find little niggly errors that interupted the flow. I was able to clean up many of those problems during recording. Now that I’m preparing GalaxyBillies for submission, I’m amazed at how little in the way of changes are necessary. The areas where I have to do more are already known to me because I did read and listen to the work. I’m also experiencing the story in a different way (now that I’m reading for comprehension) than when I podcast it. I’m gaining a brand-new appreciation for it.
• You give yourself something additional in terms of motivation. Writing a story, whether it is a short or a novel can be daunting. Getting started on it is great, but how do you keep the writing going? In fact, sometimes the question is, “How do you find the time to fit it into your schedule”? For example, that is a story I’ve wanted to write for quite a while. I call it “Boy Scouts of the Apocalypse”. I’ve written it in a few, shorter forms, but never the novel I wanted. Something else has always taken precedence. Now that I have committed to the Action Pack Podcast (www.actionpackpodcast.com) I have a project where it fits and fits perfectly. I have the motivation to write it because I don’t want to let my co-contributors or listeners down. I will finally have that story written. The same was true of GalaxyBillies. I knew I had another episode coming up so I couldn’t let anything get in the way of the writing.
• You can actually get an audience interested in your work before it is ever done. That is very gratifying and motivating when you see people subscribing to your story AND commenting on it. Feedback is important and it is very nice to know when things are working and when they are not.
• Similar to the previous point, you can get your name out there in another way. As I noticed while revising GalaxyBillies, the experience of reading a story versus listening is different. People who like one method of consuming a story may not use the other. By podcasting, you are tapping into an entirely new audience.
• Content is King. You want people to visit your website and keep coming back. Constant and varied content is important to keep that happening.
• Networking. When you start podcasting you become a part of the Podcasting Tribe. The Podcasting Tribe is an incredibly creative and interesting group that you need to know. Take the time to interact with them and you never know what opportunities may come from it.

I know I’ve probably missed a number of advantages to podcasting your work. Don’t get me wrong, it IS work and takes time. But I have found the rewards much higher than the costs. If you have had benefits I haven’t mentioned or have questions about how to do it, please drop me a line.

Last week I thought I was hitting all the important places to get word out on my work and ongoing projects. Then, out of the blue, without so much as a “By-your-leave”, a good friend of mine asked me if I had spent any time on Wattpad.

I had to reluctantly admit that, no, I had not spent ANY time on Wattpad. As in none whatsoever.

That lack may not surprise those of you who don’t know what Wattpad is. In a nutshell, and borrowing a line from their About section:

Wattpad is a revolutionary way for readers to discover and participate in the creation of new stories.

Okay, that’s great, but why do I care? Let me put it to you this way, my friend has two of his novels up there for comment (for free) and currently has 16,000+ readers. That number alone caught my attention.

Then he mentioned that the work was protected, could not be downloaded or copied. That was cool.

THEN he mentioned the discussion forums about anthologies and how someone started to talk their anthology up and immediately got a ton of interest in it. Now we are talking about something that has an immediate value. Since I am looking for submissions for the Mad Scientist Anthology, it might be a very valuable thing and, who knows? I might just put one of my older works up for comment too.

So, despite thinking I had everything in hand and all the major media covered (in plan if not in action yet), I learned how very wrong I am. All because I finally listened to the hype that this friend has been pitching to me for a few months now.

Have you heard any useful information that you haven’t acted on that could be helpful? Maybe it’s time to start hearing and seeing what’s being thrown your way. Like me, you might just find something useful.