A fantasy book review podcast focusing on Indie books.
"The first piece of advice is get a good microphone right of the bat if you can afford it."
Today Cam, Katie, Barry & Chris, the creators of The Nerd Book Review:The Tractor Seasons share their story of books podcast.
► Tell us about you and your podcast
The Nerd Book Review is a book review podcast where we primarily review books from the Self Published Fantasy Book Off (SPFBO) competition. We still review the big books occasionally and one of the hosts, Barry, even brings in some classic Sci-Fi on occasion. I really believe we are in a golden age of fantasy and the rise of high quality self published books has led readers to be able to find a genre that best fits them with just a little bit of searching. Our episodes are spoiler free so you can listen to an episode and hopefully it will help you decide if the book is for you.
This is actually a re-launch of our podcast that ran for several years before taking a 4 year break after life got in the way. I(Cam) originally created the podcast as a way to discuss the books my wife, Katie, and I were already reading. She didn't like to stop reading a series once she started so it pretty quickly became clear I needed to add friends to the podcast. Several of my buddies joined episodes with me, especially Chris and Barry. Once work, kids, and a house remodel got in the way we planned on a short break that turned into 4 years. Now I'm back and will be releasing solo episodes for most of the year as I sit in a tractor for 50-60 hours a week. I will have a few months off in the winter where we will all get together and record episodes again. For most of the year I will be listening to audiobooks and recording the episodes while sitting in my tractor. The content won't change.
Our audience is anyone who loves reading fantasy and wants to find something new to read that they otherwise might not have seen.
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
I got into podcasting as a way to talk about the books my wife and I were reading. We were both reading a ton of books in the years before we had kids, upwards of 100 a year for me, and I just thought it would be fun to start a podcast to talk about the books with Katie. She didn't love having to stop reading a series to go to a new book so it became clear pretty quickly that if I wanted to make a go at podcasting I needed to bring new people in. I was in a fraternity in college and was still friends with a lot of them even 15 years later(more than 20 now!). Casey, Chris, and Barry who have all been on multiple episodes were big fantasy and sci-fi readers as well and I brought them in.
It became clear pretty quickly that we really had a fun time getting together and doing these podcasts. It can certainly be hard to get together when you're in your late 30's and recording these episodes was absolutely a highlight of my week.
The podcast began in 2017 and ran until 2019 and I just released my re-introduction episode. I will be releasing my first new book review episode the first week of August.
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
At our peak we put out a weekly podcast before scaling back to twice a month. In this new format I plan on putting out at least 2 and maybe as many as 4 episodes a month. This is a book review podcast so as long as we can find time to read or listen to an audiobook that's the biggest time sink. For me personally I actually did a lot of reading at work in the early days. I owned a little trucking company and ran heavy equipment. I would spend maybe 15 minutes an hour loading trucks and then sat and read in between pretty often. Now I sit in a tractor for much longer hours and mostly listen to audiobooks. I'm sitting in that tractor no matter what I do so listening to books is as easy to do as anything else.
With this relaunch I will also be recording episodes while I sit in my tractor at work. I just recorded and released my first episode in the tractor and the audio quality was fine so as long as the solo review format works I will continue doing that for most of the year. In the winter I will be off of work for a couple of months and hope to meet up with friends to record episodes.
Doing the podcast has actually saved me money haha. I was reading and paying for upwards of a 100 books a year for years before we started doing this podcast. Even with things like Kindle Unlimited that can be an expensive proposition. If I am doing a review of a book even the biggest publishers are happy to send me a copy to read and review for free. I bought some fairly decent podcasting equipment right off the bat because I didn't want to have to replace everything if we did make a long term go at this and even buying a full setup was paid for within the first year by not having to pay for books. My only recurring costs are podcast hosting and that generally only runs a couple hundred dollars a year. I did recently shell out some money for new portable equipment to record while I'm in my tractor.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
I have not made any money off of the podcast so far unless you count not spending money on books haha. Before the first break I had begun to get inquiries about having ads on the show, I was even offered money from a major publisher to review their books exclusively, but I never seriously entertained that. We quickly found that our niche was the Self Published market. Chris and I prefer the Grimdark genre of books. Grimdark are novels where the good guys don't always win and when they do things don't always turn out well for them. Self Published and small indie publishers put out more of those types of books. The rise of the SPFBO competition ensures that the highest quality books rise to the top and are easier to find.
I will look into adding advertisers and sponsors if the re-release takes off. I used to get a couple hundred downloads per episode in the first month.
The biggest perk to doing the podcast for me is simply how much I enjoy recording episodes. The free books I would have been paying for otherwise are pretty sweet too haha. When I record episodes with friends we always have a good time.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
For recording I used a setup of SM58 mics with a mixing board for the first few years of recording. When I started I had a sweet man cave that was away from everything else so I was able to set up a little recording studio. Now that I am recording episodes in a tractor I am using a Zoom H1n or a PodtracP4 and then using a SM58 mic.
To edit I used Audition for the first 80 episodes but my wife also used the Adobe suite of tools for work. For the moment I'm using Reaper to edit the show but I will probably try a few more programs just to see what I like the best. I add intro and outro music and then edit a little bit for content and when I'm solo I edit hesitations and some um's and whatnot. If an episode is 30 minutes long it usually takes me less than an hour to get it ready if I have the chance to sit down in one go.
I do some interviews and when I do that I will usually speak directly with an author but I have had publishers reach out to me and see if I would like to interview one of their authors. It has been a few years but I interviewed over Skype at the time.
► How do you market your show?
I haven't put out any advertising in the past but I am open to doing so in the future. I find that I have the most interaction with listeners on Facebook and Twitter but the r/Fantasy Reddit forum has also been useful. I use Podbean to host the podcast and they break down the stats for me. Roughly 60% of my downloads come from iTunes and the majority of the rest through Podbean itself.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
I have a couple pieces of advice for aspiring podcasters. The first piece of advice is get a good microphone right off the bat if you can afford it. Use a dynamic mic like an SM58 if you plan on having a mixer or a USB SM57 if you're just plugging into your computer. They are much better if you aren't in a soundproof room. The second piece of advice I have is to pace yourself, especially if your podcast requires reading or research to put out an episode. I got a real rush out of podcasting and at times spent a little too much time doing it, which led to a long break. Play around with editing software to see what you like. Everyone has free trials and finding one that feels intuitive for you can save a lot of time editing software.
► Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?
https://nerdbooks.podbean.com/
https://www.facebook.com/nerdbookreview
https://www.instagram.com/nerdbookreview/
nerdbookreview@gmail.com
@nerdbookreview for twitter