Kate Lyons- Podcast Booker
- Why podcasts are doing so well: convenient, personal- creating relationship and building trust in speaker, social outlets are pushing short form clips, they have a loyal listenership
- Katie’s podcast: Dame Jenny Murray (looking for over 50s actors), Jenny Falconer (household names), Manor Live (household names for men’s health), James Smith podcast (more wide-ranging and open to authors), All the Saints (religious), Wayne Rooney podcast (sports)
- Guests can be booked last minute, and Katie has more flexible lead times
- Mainly recorded in London studio- it’s just ‘The Entrepreneur Experiment’ and ‘The Problem With’ that are the only ones done over zoom
- Pitch author for a specific podcast, rather than just to Katie in general
Phil Williams- Books on the Beach podcast
- Phil has over 30 years’ experience on national radio, recorded BBC 5 Live ‘Bestsellers’
- Starting a new podcast ‘Books on the Beach- asking authors the best book they’ve read on holiday and why
- Looking for broad commercial fiction and non-fiction, not necessarily big names, keen for debuts too and happy with paperbacks
- Likes crime, science fiction, rom-com is fine but no romantasy
- Based in Manchester but prefers to use zoom to record, likes longer-form recordings (approx. an hour)
- Easier to contact on WhatsApp or email
- Phil prefers to receive PDFs, knows within the first 30 pages if he wants a book for the podcast
Sophie and Chaya- The Bibliophiles
- Launched their new podcast on Monday, growing from their ‘The Bibliofiles’ account on Instagram
- Film podcast in studio in NW London, but happy to record remotely too
- Moved into podcasting as Instagram wasn’t accommodating for getting longer form conversations out there to audiences
- Encompass every sort of fiction and non-fiction titles, stressed that they’re very all genres, love indies and open to paperbacks
- They look at publishing trends too when considering guests
- Format: podcast is split into seasons
- Host a monthly book club episode with the authors (2 title picks each month- one newer title and one older title that may not have received hype at the time)
- ‘The Books that made me…’ episodes
- More topics-focused episodes (e.g. mental health)
- Love connecting with publicists over coffee, at events, in person meetings- personal connection
- They have 1.8 million views from just 2 carousel posts in the last month, where they show their authentic passion for books across all genres
- Open to partnerships
- Wants to know what the publicist is excited about with a specific book, or a demographic/trend you think it’d appeal to- that’s what gets their attention
Philippa Hall: The Quick Book Reviews podcast
- Records 2 author interview episodes per week, all online
- Flexible on recording dates/times, records 2 weeks in advance of them going live
- Goes for commercial, front of bookshops, bestsellers/big names, occasionally debut titles
- The author’s personality matters as much as the book, wants them to be relaxed and the conversation to really flow
- The highest conversion sales from an episode have been 70% of listeners buying the book
- Open to all genres, fiction and non-fiction
- Her book reviews are always honest and fair, to maintain the trust of her audience
- Uses all social platforms- make sure to send the author’s socials over to Philippa when you’re pitching them
- Very booked up until October 2026 but still open to big names
- Loves being sent a catalogue and physical copies in the post, but NetGalley/PDF is also fine
- Apple Podcasts are starting to include video as well as audio from the Spring, and she will be following this- make authors aware they’ll be on camera
- Doesn’t encourage authors to start their own podcasts, but rather get them booked onto other, more selective book podcasts
- Philippa is happy to provide some training for authors taking part in a podcast, just get in touch with her about this