Blogs/Podcasts

Many authors are creating blogs instead of or in addition to web sites. Blogs are immediate because they’re created weekly, daily or even several times during the day, and some have a wide following. Regular readers can subscribe and be alerted to updates whenever they appear. Blogs can be customized, just like web sites, to pick up the look and feel of the author’s brand.

If you choose to use a blog instead of a web site, make sure your blog has a place to attach free articles and your media kit.

One of the advantages of a blog is that Google searches pick up blog information much faster than they pick up web site updates and changes.

Two places to go to set up free blogs are www.typepad.com and www.wordpress.com.

Podcasts are short, free audios that can be downloaded and listened to on your computer or MP3 player. You could interview someone or have someone interview you—or you could just pontificate on a subject that might interest your readers. Podcasts can be created from your computer, using a hand-held digital recording device, or they can be recorded over the phone or through the computer.

A simple way to create teleclasses is to use the telephone conferencing and recording services of Free Conference Call (www.freeconferencecall.com). They will record the call and make it available to you via an MP3 file format.

You can also record audios and make them available to others using Audio Acrobat (www.audioacrobat.com). To edit your audio, use Audacity (www.audacity.com).

The resulting MP3 file can be posted to your Web site or added to iTunes to be downloaded by subscribers. Past radio interviews can be repurposed as podcasts as well.

Tanyab 08:49, 5 December 2008 (UTC) | www.publishing-store.com