The Publishing Performance Show

Victoria Gerken - Turning Pages into Performances: The Art of Audiobook Publishing

• Teddy Smith • Episode 10

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Victoria Gerken, Publisher at Podium Entertainment, discusses the audiobook industry and Podium's role in publishing audiobooks for independent authors.

In this episode:

  • Victoria's journey from traditional publishing to audiobook publishing
  • How Podium works with authors to produce high-quality audiobooks
  • The differences between Podium and self-publishing platforms like ACX
  • Advice for authors considering entering the audiobook market
  • The importance of quality in audiobook production
  • How Podium handles cultural differences and accents in narration
  • Success stories of authors working with Podium
  • Podium's expansion into print publishing


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[00:00:00] Teddy: Hi everyone, welcome to the publishing form show today I'm speaking to Victoria Gherkin, who is from podium entertainment now podium entertainment are specialists in creating audio books, and they basically work a bit like a publishers, you give them the rights to books and you get royalties but they create.

[00:00:23] Teddy: All of the audio books, they do it really professionally. So in this episode, what we're going to be talking about is some tips for you about [00:00:30] if you're thinking about doing audio books for your books, then how can you create a book that is really professional. But if you are going to use someone like podium to do that whole process for you, we go through exactly step by step everything you would need to know and need to do in order to get your books ready for someone like podium to go and create your books.

[00:00:47] Teddy: It's absolutely fascinating episode because I've only ever done my audio books. Entirely by myself. You know, the books have been, I've hired someone to do the speaking and do the narration. And then I've done a publishing myself, but in this episode, we're [00:01:00] talking about how you can do that more professionally.

[00:01:01] Teddy: So it's been really fascinating. And I think you're going to get the most out of it if you are thinking about doing audio books. So I hope you enjoy the episode and we'll speak again soon.

[00:01:12] Teddy: Hi everybody. And welcome to the publishing format show is Teddy here. And I'm here with Victoria Gherkin, who is the publisher at podium entertainment, welcome Victoria. 

[00:01:20] Victoria: Thanks for having me. Delighted to be here. 

[00:01:23] Teddy: Thank you. So I know you're in the US at the moment, but you're from the UK So have you when did you move over to the [00:01:30] US?

[00:01:31] Victoria: Oh, gosh. About a million years ago. Uh, no, not quite. 30 years ago. It's right in the middle. A lot in dog years. Yeah, I moved to the States in 1994 for a for a job, very different kind of job and thought I was going to be here for five years. And here I am 30 years later, so yeah, it's been it's been an adventure.

[00:01:54] Victoria: I am American now and I sound. a bit American, which my English family [00:02:00] gives me a lot of grief for, but, uh, I will probably start to sound more British as I speak to you over the course of this this conversation. 

[00:02:07] Teddy: I'm the same, but I moved north. So, and I don't, haven't got a northern accent yet. So, uh, I get the same out of, I guess, um, 

[00:02:19] Victoria: Yeah, I was thinking about coming here.

[00:02:23] Teddy: American listeners aren't going to know what that means but we'll, we'll let them look, we'll let them Google it. So how long have you been in [00:02:30] the audio book industry or the publishing industry? 

[00:02:33] Victoria: So I I started out 22 years ago, um, working for Little Random which is the Random House publisher.

[00:02:42] Victoria: Imprint, that is now part of the huge Penguin Random House I started working in sub rights, selling audio, funnily enough, uh, and foreign rights and other subsidiary rights that the publisher gets, you know, as part of a book publishing deal. We can talk [00:03:00] about that if you have questions about sub rights.

[00:03:02] Victoria: So I did that for a few years in New York at Penguin. Little Random, and then at Knopf, A. A. Knopf, um, which is the publisher of, you know, all kinds of very literary greats, um, including actually Bill Clinton, not to get political, but we did Bill Clinton's memoir when I was there and I was in, I had moved into publicity a publicity role as well as selling serial rights or [00:03:30] selling magazine excerpts.

[00:03:33] Victoria: And from that, I kind of, well, A, I moved to Denver for a job, for my husband's job. And so it was kind of an opportunity to do something different. And my former boss, who was the head of publicity, I had always had a nagging annoyance that in publicity, we would build up authors, help their careers, get them on the Today Show, and then [00:04:00] they would get a speaking agent and then the agent would book them out and the book would be nowhere to be seen.

[00:04:06] Victoria: And this was really, really hard. big annoyance for him. So he had the idea and I joined him in starting the Knopf Speakers Bureau. And we started from nothing with no authors and no, no deals, no gigs, and build it up into, you know, like a going concern. And it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed working so closely with our authors and, um, [00:04:30] you know, helping them expand their audience into doing paid speaking engagements and booking them you know, lectureships and that sort of thing.

[00:04:38] Victoria: And so that was sort of like the natural more. I guess that has kind of taken me to where I am at Podium. Um, and I joined Podium in 2016 on the other side of the rights conversation. So instead of selling rights, I'm now buying audio rights from authors and [00:05:00] publishers. And so it was kind of a natural progression.

[00:05:03] Victoria: And I think my time working really closely with the authors that I represented At the Speakers Bureau, very closely, you know, helping them build their platform really put me in good stead for working very closely and very directly with our authors at Podium who tend to be unrepresented, tend not to have agents, and so we provide A lot of [00:05:30] advice and, you know, some close we have close relationships, which I really enjoy.

[00:05:35] Victoria: Sorry, long answer to where it came from. , but it was 20 years. 

[00:05:39] Teddy: So basically in summary, you know a lot about the book publishing process that your credentials are very clear. , 

[00:05:47] Victoria: I know a thing or two, I know a thing or two. I've seen a thing or two, although I have to say. You know, being, you know, having been in traditional publishing and I think I may even have this in my bio, the website, potentially, [00:06:00] I can't remember, I haven't looked at it recently, but you know, I came from that world and I'd been out of it for a while when I joined Podium, but it was like a revelation of what was happening in the independent author space that was amazing.

[00:06:17] Victoria: It was really amazing. And I had. Little to no understanding of that until I joined Podium. And it was, I mean, it's just, I sort of [00:06:30] came into Podium a few years after, you know, the real revolution started. Like with 

[00:06:36] Kindle 

[00:06:36] Victoria: in sort of 2010, 2012. So by the time I arrived, it was well underway in 2016.

[00:06:46] Victoria: But what it has done. To allow authors and, you know, people with a story that deserves to be read and enables them to get it out there and get it in [00:07:00] front of readers is just amazing. I mean, the slush piles at Random House, as we called them, you know, they get looked at like once every six months or something.

[00:07:08] Victoria: So, you know, I know that there's a lot of stories. And the fact that people can get them in front of readers now is, it's just fantastic. 

[00:07:19] Teddy: No, it's amazing. There's so many opportunities out there for different types of books. Like I totally agree. Tell me a bit less. Let's talk about a bit about podium.

[00:07:25] Teddy: Like what is podium? Like I, I know you do lots of audio book [00:07:30] productions and stuff, but I think a lot of. People won't necessarily have heard of no, that's the thing, you know, they'll know about audio production through, you know, the doing it through themselves or doing it through ACX or something like that.

[00:07:39] Teddy: But how does podium work? Like what, give us an overview of like what it does and how it does it. 

[00:07:45] Victoria: Yeah. Yeah. So we I mean, we saw a great opportunity in 2012 when podium was founded, which is. You know, a lot of, a lot of independent books being published by KDP. I don't think [00:08:00] ACX existed at that time.

[00:08:01] Victoria: So there wasn't really a good way for authors to get their books into the audio book format. And honestly, the market was much smaller. I mean, it was a much. Much smaller demand for audiobooks and the expense of producing it and everything was complicated. So, the founders of Podium Realized that there were a lot of really good books that could be made into really good audiobooks [00:08:30] that people will then, you know, buy And so that was really the genesis of the company for being a Audiobook publishing provider to specifically independent authors, mainly publishing in the sci fi, fantasy and romance spaces.

[00:08:47] Victoria: I mean, that is where Indies come in. Are really successful. Yeah. 

[00:08:53] Teddy: And you're predominantly fiction books? 

[00:08:57] Victoria: Predominantly. Yes. We do. We [00:09:00] definitely do. Some topical nonfiction. Again, working with a lot of Indies that the Indie content doesn't seem to hue very much to nonfiction sort of books. I mean, we've definitely got a lot of.

[00:09:15] Victoria: Self help. I mean, we've partnered with Bambela on a few books, which is they're a really great nonfiction publisher. We've sub licensed some of their books. And we have The Millionaire Mindset is a recent book, Brian Preston's book, [00:09:30] um, that we've published in audio. We did a book about Bitcoin, very well timed, um, when Bitcoin was very much in everybody's interest.

[00:09:39] Victoria: So yeah, we do, I'm not saying we don't do non fiction, but yes, it's definitely a lesser portion of what we do. So, you know, audio book publishing involves acquiring that right from the author. Um, we you know, we do a license, we do a con, that's a contract and it's [00:10:00] for a fixed term and we pay for all the production, all the marketing, everything is paid for by the publisher.

[00:10:09] Victoria: So we're not like a for hire house and we're certainly not like a vanity press or something like that where you're, an author is being asked for money. We do, that is not what we do. And then we pay royalties to the author. Based on sales of the book, audio book. So this is what I was going to come 

[00:10:28] Teddy: on to next.

[00:10:28] Teddy: So it's, so you're, it's [00:10:30] different to using a service such as like ACX or even like finding your own, uh, narrators through Upwork or something because you're kind of, you're, well, you are publishing the book in, in, in a certain way. You're taking the book, you're buying the rights to it, and then you're doing the work to get those books published.

[00:10:45] Teddy: Um, correct. 

[00:10:47] Victoria: So yeah, I mean, we're taking on the risk and the investment of, of creating this other edition. Whereas if you are going, you know, [00:11:00] through ACX or other, you know, channels to get your audio book made, you're either paying for the narrator yourself, which tends to be a per finished hour amount.

[00:11:13] Victoria: Yeah. Obviously then you're paying for everything, but you get to keep all the royalties that are garnered by the sales, right? So, yes, you pay for it, but then you get everything. Or you do you know, ACX offers up a royalty share [00:11:30] deal, wherein you are paired with a narrator who's willing to work under these, under those terms meaning you don't pay them anything.

[00:11:44] Victoria: But, or that you may have to pay for like post production, I don't totally know how that works in practice, but it, but fundamentally, the deal is, the narrator takes a risk, the author takes a risk, and then you split [00:12:00] the royalties, and that's, ACX, you know, manages the money side of it which is again, like, that's a big deal.

[00:12:08] Victoria: A pretty good option, right? If you can pair up with a narrator who is willing, who believes in your work enough to say, I'm going to give my time, I'm not going to get paid for my time, but I'm going to, I'm going to record your audiobook and we're going to market it together. I mean, the thing to remember with that is you are then connected to that person.[00:12:30] 

[00:12:30] Victoria: For the life of the contract. And I'm not sure what the term is, but it's going to be several years. So if things don't work out, you want to get the rights back, then you're going to have to negotiate with your partner, basically your narrator on that deal. 

[00:12:51] Teddy: So with podium, you've got, I've been through the website.

[00:12:55] Teddy: You've got loads and loads of artists and like really, they look like really skilled, like, [00:13:00] like readers and no, he's called them, I suppose. How's we do? How's that working with performers? Sorry, performers. Yeah. How is that? How's that work with? Um, so they all, they're all like professional performers. Is that's kind of like the way you stand out from other platforms.

[00:13:19] Victoria: Yeah. I mean, I think, um, you know, working with podium provides authors with a team. Which you don't have for [00:13:30] yourself, right? It's like making a movie, you know, would you make your own movie, you'd be doing everything, like, are you really going to do that? You could and an audiobook is obviously not as complicated as a movie, but it is not a simple process, and I think one of our greatest skills, we have a wonderful casting team, and they have many years of experience.

[00:13:56] Victoria: in taking the text [00:14:00] and an author's notes and putting it into their cauldron and then pulling out best performer for the characters, the world, and who might be the best performer. Also of interest to, you know, listeners who love that narrator on somebody else's books, which we don't hew super closely to because I'm definitely of the belief that if you've [00:14:30] got a great production, it, I mean, yes, a narrator will bring audience to it, but You know, compromising and saying, Oh, I want this narrator because they're really, really popular in this type of genre and, and not looking at it.

[00:14:45] Victoria: Anyone else I think is a mistake because there's a lot of really good performers out there. So that's sort of our, one of our secret sauces is matching the story to really great [00:15:00] performers, and then having a top quality production because it's, it's not just. the recording. You've got to make sure it's edited properly.

[00:15:09] Victoria: It's all the things like when you're writing a book, you know, you've written the book, but all the other stuff that has to happen to it, it's got to be proofed, got to be edited. Mistakes have to be corrected. You know, if so that all is something that if you were doing it yourself, you've got to make sure that The narrator that you are [00:15:30] working with either has their own post production or plan for it, at least, you know, like, that would be my advice for authors listening to this potentially who haven't entered the audio world and are thinking, okay, for my first one, I'm gonna, I found this narrator, they're keen to do it, they want to help me, like, ask some questions about how they manage their, you know, Post production.

[00:15:57] Teddy: Okay. And so given that you do all [00:16:00] this stuff, like, like do all the production, handle the royalties and stuff like that. I'm guessing you must have quite strict requirements about the sorts of books you take on, not just the genres, but as in the quality of the book and say how many sales or something like that.

[00:16:14] Teddy: What would it be? How could someone become a podium? Narrated audio book 

[00:16:19] Victoria: come join the family Not like we're a cult or something Yeah, I mean because we are we are taking a risk and we are making an investment. We when we look at [00:16:30] titles, that we have thinking about offering on we're looking at Has this story connected with an audience and is it an audience of a size that we think will then translate into enough audio book sales for us to make our money back at least on production and hopefully make much more than that and make, you know, a success for the author so that I mean that's not a fixed number so I [00:17:00] can't say like you need to have X thousand sales in order to be considered.

[00:17:05] Victoria: I mean we have published. debut authors, I mean, with minimal time on the market. Um, but we, we've seen, you know, we obviously know the market and we can tell by looking at also boughts, you know, of that author, like, is it hitting an audience that we recognize and we know is voraciously looking for the audio [00:17:30] book edition.

[00:17:31] Victoria: So that's sort of how we look at titles that are already on the market. And that's The majority of the new authors that we work with will have published a self published a book on and have it on Amazon and we'll want to look at that. That listing. 

[00:17:48] Teddy: Kind of want to see a bit of their sales history, even if it's not necessarily with the very book that they're suggesting.

[00:17:53] Teddy: It's like you want to see kind of their history as a writer, the quality of the content, like that. Yeah. And then you get a feel for whether it's going to sell yourself. [00:18:00] 

[00:18:00] Victoria: Yeah, and we look at ratings, we look at the reviews. Yeah. Um, we obviously consider, we do a lot of romance, so we look at trigger warnings and things that we think won't go over great in the audio medium, because that's you know, that can be kind of a tricky area.

[00:18:16] Victoria: Like, something that will work on the page becomes much more visceral and, Unavoidable, I guess, in audio, like if you're reading a book and you're not, you know, there's some something [00:18:30] like wigging you out, you know, or like, you know, some, some final thing, you know, something, just something that is, um, is not your cup of tea.

[00:18:38] Victoria: You can just cage through it. Like you can jump to the next paragraph. You can turn the page. It's. easy to do, but in audio, just the active listening, there's no there's just no way to do that. And so it's such an immersive medium that sometimes [00:19:00] there, there is such a thing. It's a little too spicy, um, for us, but not, not often.

[00:19:07] Victoria: Yeah. Again, it comes down to what we think will work in the market. 

[00:19:13] Yep. And, um, 

[00:19:15] Victoria: we have a pretty good sense. I mean, we published, we'll publish 2, 600 audio books this year. 

[00:19:20] Teddy: Oh, wow. Okay. 

[00:19:21] Victoria: So we are, we're definitely acquiring a lot of rights. And of course we're a series. A lot of our titles are in series.

[00:19:29] Victoria: So, [00:19:30] You know, some series we've been publishing for five years and we were up to book, you know, 25.

[00:19:41] Victoria: So, uh, yeah, it's, it's our, our authors just like keep giving us material to publish, which 

[00:19:47] Teddy: is great. So if it's not, say one of the, the listeners is has got some books really interested in doing some narration, but maybe they're not quite at the level yet where they were with podium. Where, like, what's the best place to start and what tips have you [00:20:00] got for people who would be like starting doing it themselves?

[00:20:04] Victoria: Yeah. I mean, I think taking, you know, just really thinking about this as you're off of business, like taking a step back and like, not necessarily. Like there's so much advice. It's like, you've got to have an audio edition, got to must. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I mean, you want to have the right audio edition.

[00:20:26] Victoria: You want to have an audio edition that's going to [00:20:30] maximize your story. And if that isn't something that you can. afford yourself or, you know, you, you haven't got to the readership level that a publisher like us or, you know, recorded books or any of our competition, Audible Studios, you know, would be looking at.

[00:20:51] Victoria: There's no, There's, I don't think there's a downside in just waiting and writing the next book [00:21:00] and keeping going. So say you're, you know, you're starting a series. The issue with audio is, you know, it's a more expensive product fundamentally. If you're publishing in KU, there's a very low barrier to entry for somebody to pick up a work by a new author and just say, Hey, I'm going to give this a go.

[00:21:21] Victoria: It's in KU, I haven't, I'm paying my 10 bucks a month, I'm not gonna, you know, it's not costing anything. Kindle But an audio [00:21:30] book, what's that? 

[00:21:33] Teddy: So when you say KU, oh, sorry. Sorry. Yes. 

[00:21:38] Victoria: Which is, you know, a great, great space for for launching yourself as an independent author. You know, KU is fantastic because the barrier to finding your readers is so low.

[00:21:53] Victoria: I mean, you can really, readers who are experimenting and trying new things in [00:22:00] that Kindle Unlimited environment are they're voracious. And if they find something that they really love, they're going to tell everybody about it and it's really going to hit. So that's a different ballgame to audiobook publishing and finding an audience in audio.

[00:22:16] Victoria: So I just think remembering that it is, it is a very different world, I'm not saying this to be, this is not scare tactics, this is just, I want to be, you know, very, I want to be helpful to your listeners [00:22:30] who are embarking on this journey and to kind of rush to maybe do like a AI voice, because it's free.

[00:22:39] Victoria: I don't know. I mean, I personally don't love what comes out. Um, and I'm not sure, you know, I don't think the quality is amazing. You know, it's free. So I'm sure a lot of money was spent to develop the technology to make the voices. But I just don't [00:23:00] think the result is Going to help build your audience.

[00:23:04] Victoria: And that's what this is all about. It's all about expanding your listenership, your readership, and your followership, and I just don't think right now that that going for that option is It's going to maximize the quality of the audio book you're going to get out. So 

[00:23:25] Teddy: it's, as you said, you've got to see your book as a business and not just as like a book that you're launching [00:23:30] out.

[00:23:30] Teddy: Yeah. Makes perfect sense. Yeah. 

[00:23:32] Victoria: And it's something that you've spent so long writing, right? I mean, and if you do that, you're sort of making this first impression. That I'm not sure is optimal. I mean, listen, lots of people are doing it. And I think it's you know, it's a solution for some people. I just I really feel like the quality of the audio book is vital.

[00:23:55] Teddy: 100%. Now, this is quite a broad question. And but what, how do [00:24:00] you see that as like a general, when people have an audio book and obviously a paperback book at the same time? Do you see a general ratio between like how many of the sales would be or through audio and how many would be through the book or or is it just too broad to pin down?

[00:24:16] Victoria: Yeah, it's sort of, it is a small, the audio book market is a smaller market than the print market. I think the audio plus ebook in the states equals print. [00:24:30] So, I think audio sales may have overtaken e book sales this year, I think in terms of like volume of revenue. So if you think about that kind of, that dynamic, that you're, the bulk of your consumers of your story are going to be reading.

[00:24:52] Victoria: So I tend to think, and I don't know how accurate this is, like if you have, I don't know, three to 5, 000 [00:25:00] readers, something like that, you can probably think that you may have a third of those. A third might, will likely be your audio book listeners. That's the sort of, if you think about sizing the market like that, just, you know, purely statistically.

[00:25:19] Victoria: nothing to do with, well, you know, this is, you know, more of an audio audience than this one, whatever. That's, that is kind of the math that I would. I would do and suggest your 

[00:25:29] Teddy: listeners do. [00:25:30] But that, that, that audio audience would be an additional audience that you wouldn't have had otherwise. Because some people are just listening to the audiobooks.

[00:25:37] Teddy: They're kind of, they are different listeners. So whilst it is smaller, it is like, it's people you wouldn't have otherwise. It's not like taking away from your readership. It's different people. 

[00:25:47] Victoria: Oh no, absolutely. Yeah, it's, it's coming back. I remember early days of doing this job, and I was, you know, pitching to authors to say, hey, let Podium publish your audiobook, and some were very [00:26:00] reluctant and thought that this would be cannibalistic of their, of the readers.

[00:26:04] Victoria: I think people definitely now get, and that some readers will be listening at the same time. They will do both. In fact, they will want, and they'll do get the audio by WhisperSync to add to the Kindle if they're reading in KU Audible upsells KU readers to get a discounted audiobook edition. So that's another way they're kind of trying to draw in listeners as well as readers.[00:26:30] 

[00:26:30] Victoria: Yeah. So I definitely, it's additive for sure. There's crossover for sure. But yeah, it's a kind of a different market. 

[00:26:35] Teddy: Um, so the next question I had was actually quite a bit of a different one because this has come from my own personal experience, so. When I go to sleep, I often listen to Harry Potter cause I'm a bit of a nerd, but I love listening to Stephen Fry's version of it.

[00:26:50] Teddy: But, um, when I've listened to the American version, I don't, I can't remember his name, but basically it doesn't resonate with me anywhere near as much. Um, so with those sort of cultural differences [00:27:00] and I'm not, this isn't like a anti American thing. It's more just like, are there, do you have that sort of cultural difference that you recommend people have?

[00:27:09] Teddy: Is there anything people should bear in mind with that sort of thing? 

[00:27:13] Victoria: But yeah, well, it's funny if you say that about Stephen Fry, because I think a lot of Americans also like Stephen Fry and Audible actually just published or they're, they distributed, I think it was through, um, Pottermore. So J.

[00:27:26] Victoria: K. Rowling's publishing company. His voice is the Audible 

[00:27:29] Teddy: voice, isn't it? [00:27:30] So I think. 

[00:27:31] Victoria: Yeah. So they, yeah, they had Jim Dale is the American, um, narrator and they just also put on the market, the Stephen Fry. As well. Right. So it's weird that like, not often do you have like two of the same book. Yeah. Um, available in the same market, but with different narrators.

[00:27:49] Victoria: In fact, it's, you know, not Yeah. It's like a against it's an example anyway. Yeah, yeah. . Yeah, so I guess again, it comes back to costing, [00:28:00] right? It's, um. What is the, what's the right story? What's the right voice for the story? So say, you know, we've, we published a lot of Australian and New Zealand authors and some of their stories are sort of American based but some of them are, you know, um, Yeah.

[00:28:18] Victoria: local, uh, Australian or New Zealand ish stories. And so we find a native speaker who can deliver the story in the [00:28:30] correct accent. Um, because it's, I mean, I, when I hear a bad British accent, which I know is what I myself have, but I hear that, 

[00:28:40] Teddy: it is 

[00:28:40] Victoria: like male, Yeah, it's Nails on the Blackboard. Exactly, exactly.

[00:28:45] Victoria: Um, I can't, I can't stand it. So I feel a lot of empathy with our non American authors to make sure that we are respecting the world [00:29:00] of the story, whether that world is based on us, you know, or in the UK or there's a French character. Those are, those like characteristics are really important to tease out.

[00:29:18] Victoria: And, and this would be another piece of advice. to your authors, to the authors listening to this, is not to gloss over the preparation part of [00:29:30] audiobook publishing. So whether you're doing it with a publisher or yourself, really helping the narrator understand where the characters are coming from. Are they, you know, old, young, the gender, the, but these native accents.

[00:29:54] Victoria: Suddenly, you know, you've got a narrator who starts voicing a character in a certain way. [00:30:00] And then like on page 60, it was like, Oh, and he said in his, you know, guttural Dutch accent, something like that. And they're like, Oh goodness. I have just spent 60 pages not doing a Dutch accent. Ha ha ha. That can all be avoided by just keeping in mind and you may even make notes as you're going along as you're writing the book and just having like a maybe an audiobook notes document open to say this is the accent I'm giving this character [00:30:30] and I'm going to be helping my narrator by being so prepared.

[00:30:34] Victoria: So that's how we think about those kind of native Um, you know, there's some like epic fantasy sort of lends itself to a British accent. And we have, you know, some fantastic fantasy narrators like Simon Vance and Tim Gerard Reynolds who are, you know, they're just, they've sort of [00:31:00] got that voice of that sort of I don't even know how to describe it, but this sort of other worlds, like middle earth kind of, uh, kind of world.

[00:31:08] Victoria: And they, but then they'll do, you know, accents of the characters and there could be characters who were sort of, you know, from the low countries and they'll come up with the appropriate accent or in their creativity, they, they characterize based on the words that you have written, these characters that then come to life in the [00:31:30] audio book.

[00:31:30] Victoria: And that is the sort of, like, alchemy that occurs when you've got a really great narrator who can get their teeth into a really great story. And some of our authors will be like, you know, this was amazing. And like, some of them are crying, you know, they're so, um, they're so pleased with, with how the audio book has turned out.

[00:31:50] Victoria: Um, so I guess that's all I, that would be my long answer to, you know, how we handle those kinds of [00:32:00] things. It's, it's, All about the story, of 

[00:32:02] Teddy: course, and do you work with the authors as well, like in terms of like choosing the casting and things like that can help like to the native to the authors get to help you with choosing the right person for that as well as a case of you're taking.

[00:32:14] Teddy: Yes, yes. Right. 

[00:32:17] Victoria: The beauty of it is they don't have to come to us with ideas because we are full of ideas. If they do, if they have somebody in mind, you know, some of our authors. I work with Sean Inman, who I don't know if he's in your [00:32:30] group, but he's pretty active in, in sort of the self publishing world.

[00:32:33] Victoria: He's got a long series Middle Falls Time Travel, that each book is a different point of view and a different character. They're tied together. All the action goes on in this town. But each main character from whose perspective the story is told in each book is different. 

[00:32:51] Yeah. 

[00:32:51] Victoria: And. He comes to me with a new book and he'll say, and he also listens to a lot of audio books.

[00:32:59] Victoria: And he'll be [00:33:00] like, this would, this is who I love. And so we put it to our casting team and they're like, yep, we agree. Let's go get that person. And we have, we definitely have an all star array. It's like the firmament of the gods on his, on his series. But sometimes he'll come and say, You know, I don't really know.

[00:33:23] Victoria: You know, this is the character. I've listened to an audio book by such and such a person and they kind of reminded me of that. [00:33:30] And then we'll find somebody that he hasn't named. So from our perspective. Yeah. Bring us your ideas and tell us. Who you like, if you've, especially if you listen to a lot of audio books, but a lot of authors read and they don't listen to audio books.

[00:33:46] Victoria: So like coming to us, the whole point of us helping with casting is that you don't have to have all the answers. Um, and we love, you know, making authors really happy and delighted with [00:34:00] the choices that we make. 

[00:34:01] Teddy: That's, that's really, that's really useful. Thank you. So the last question was the going through a couple of success stories you've had, like, have you got any specific examples of, of success?

[00:34:10] Teddy: Some guys that have done really well, like, um, that maybe you can share to give us some inspiration to the new people. 

[00:34:17] Victoria: Yeah, I mean, well, I guess Sean Inman again would be my example. I mean, this is an author who, yeah, we're like on book 21. 

[00:34:24] Teddy: What's the name again? Sean Milligan. 

[00:34:27] Victoria: Sean Inman, I N M O N. [00:34:30] Yeah.

[00:34:31] Victoria: You know, we have long term partnerships with authors like J. N. Cheney, um, is an example. He's a sci fi author. We've published, I mean, probably a hundred books with him at least. Wow. One of my early mystery thriller authors is Sally Rigby, she's from the UK. Yes, I know her. And, oh, she was living in, do you know her?

[00:34:53] Victoria: Yes. She was living in New Zealand when we first contracted but she's a Brit and she writes a Brit mystery [00:35:00] series police procedural. And again for her, so, you know, she didn't have a ton of ideas of, you know, who should be the narrator but we found a woman called oh God, now I'm not going to remember, Claire Corbett who is a TV actress in the UK and has been in various things and just has done an amazing job.

[00:35:19] Victoria: I think we're on 13 with her, looking at 13. So you know, it's, it runs the gamut. I mean, we've, we have books, audio books that [00:35:30] sell more than the ebook performs. And then we have the other way around, but. Our ideal is that we are, you know, we're bringing home the bacon for Yeah, definitely.

[00:35:42] Victoria: For, 

[00:35:42] Teddy: for our authors. Yeah. Well that was really helpful. I mean, there's been loads of great tidbits there, especially for people who are just starting out to, uh, to pick up on. I think that's, um, there's, there, there's loads takeaway from there. So thank you very much. So just before we go, just got one, the one last question.

[00:35:57] Teddy: So what is the book, you know, that you recommend that everyone [00:36:00] should be reading at the moment that maybe isn't. 

[00:36:03] Victoria: Uh, well, okay, so I, thankfully you told me I was going to have this question. So I have a minute amount of preparation. I have a prop, which I guess if you're listening to this, you won't see if you're listening through the podcast.

[00:36:16] Victoria: We can describe it. We can describe it. I'm going to describe it. So Podium doesn't just publish audio books. So we we launched a full publishing operation like three years ago. And [00:36:30] we, it's a lesser part of what we do, but it's really a very important initiative for us. And earlier this year, we signed a distribution deal with Two Rivers, which is an Ingram company.

[00:36:41] Victoria: And one of our first titles that they've been distributing for us is, um, The Pucking Wrong Number, C. R. Kane. Right? This is part of a series, it's a hockey romance series. That wasn't a typo by the way. It does 

[00:36:55] Teddy: actually say Pucking for people who can't see the title. It does say Pucking. 

[00:36:57] Victoria: Yeah. It's [00:37:00] key. Um, it's uh, and Hockey Romance is on fire.

[00:37:06] Victoria: Wow. And it's really fun to be publishing such a great series. The author is amazing. So that's been a lot of fun. We've been talking about it a lot internally over the last few weeks and we're, we're bringing back. Oh, sorry. We're bringing out all four books in the series that are, have been available in POD.

[00:37:26] Victoria: We are publishing in print. The author has the [00:37:30] ebook rights and we also publish the audio. So we're doing these kind of hybrid arrangements with authors, you know, we have a relationship with and. Some we don't, you know, that are new authors to us, but where we see the opportunity to really help them expand their audience.

[00:37:45] Victoria: And that is, that's what we're doing here with this print book. In terms of what I am addicted to in terms of reading, I don't get jealous a lot of other publishers because I feel like we do got a great thing going here, but one of the series [00:38:00] that I really, really wish we had in our house is Mick Herron's Slough House.

[00:38:05] Victoria: Oh, amazing. Amazing. He's so good. 

[00:38:09] Yeah. 

[00:38:09] Victoria: Um, my stepmother recommended this series to me a couple of years ago and I actually started with the audio books. Um, Jared. Doyle is the, is the narrator and he is amazing. 

[00:38:23] Teddy: He's 

[00:38:23] Victoria: so good. So good. And then when the Apple TV show came, I was like, Oh, surely it's never [00:38:30] going to be as good as the audio books.

[00:38:32] Victoria: Anyway, it is, it is amazing. Really good. Yeah, it's pretty 

[00:38:35] good. 

[00:38:35] Victoria: Gary, Gary Oldman is Jackson lamb and he's fantastic. So yes, the Slough House series by Mick Herron. It's my, um, it's my go to right now. 

[00:38:45] Teddy: Great. That's really good. Really good recommendations. I can highly recommend those second books. I've read them, not listened to them, but they're really good.

[00:38:51] Teddy: Yeah. Yeah. Very English. 

[00:38:56] Victoria: Yes, indeed. 

[00:38:57] Teddy: Yeah. Well, brilliant. No, thank you so much that there's been [00:39:00] loads of great stuff there. If anyone wants to get in touch with podium or follow you personally, where's the best place for them to get in touch or to follow you? 

[00:39:08] Victoria: Yeah, so go to podiumentertainment. com, which is our website, and we have tabs on there for if you are an author and you want to get in touch with us or if you are a narrator and you want to work with us, there are different forms to fill out and, but follow us in all the places.

[00:39:26] Victoria: So, we are very active on Instagram at Podium [00:39:30] Entertainment. 

[00:39:30] Yep. 

[00:39:31] Victoria: And we are building our tick tock situation. I'm all in on saving but our we have a lot of fun on Instagram and Facebook, so I would definitely recommend checking us out there and seeing all the fun stuff that our marketing team does.

[00:39:48] Victoria: I haven't even mentioned them. I've been talking about casting, but our marketing team is absolutely fantastic. 

[00:39:52] Teddy: So you go. What's that? One for another time. 

[00:39:56] Victoria: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We've talked about audio book marketing. [00:40:00] Brilliant. 

[00:40:02] Teddy: Well, thank you so much, Victoria. Yeah. We'll speak soon. Bye.