Create Once, Publish Everywhere: How to turn your podcast into a book

I’m a big fan of the Create Once, Publish Everywhere model. It’s really the only way to get the most out of our content anymore. This can include publishing your book based on your podcast, which is what Jared Johnson did. More about that in a moment, but here’s how Create Once, Publish Everywhere usually works for me:

1. I publish a blog post.
2. It goes out to my email list. <<< Subscribe at that link! 
3. I hack that post up and publish soundbites on all relevant social channels. Currently, that’s Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram for me. I use Facebook some but to a lesser degree.
4. Reshare articles on social and other channels.

To a lesser degree I also repurpose blog posts for print articles and also into my books. (I’m currently finishing up my second book using this method). I basically wrote my entire first book (30,000-plus words) on my phone – one blog post at a time. Jared Johnson did something similar. He now leads digital marketing at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, published his podcast for a while and is a Top 100 digital health social media influencer.

Get a copy of Jared’s book here

My setup when I’m a guest on a podcast

For every podcast, Jared posted a transcript, which of course is exactly what should be happening when we share podcasts. Don’t forget about the people who can’t listen because of a disability or because of the current situation they are in – like in a meeting where no audio is possible.

[Tweet “”Every podcast should have a transcript with it.” – @ctrappe #ux #contentmarketing”]

He then picked some of his podcasts and made them into chapters of his book. He wrote an intro to each and did some editing. Each chapter follows this format, which is repeated several times per chapter:

1. Question by Jared
2. Answer by subject matter expert

I enjoyed this format because it allowed me to easily skip questions and answers that weren’t as relevant to me. The next question was just a page or so away. It was easily skimmable. In an attention-starved world, being able to skim is appreciated.

[Tweet “”There’s nothing wrong with people skimming content. Cater to them!” – @ctrappe #contentmarketing”]

What I learned from the blog-to-book strategy

Get a copy of my book here

It’s great to see that Jared found another avenue to spread the messages already delivered in his podcast. A book is a perfect way to centralize content and share it in a way that people can consume it in a traditionally structured way.

[Tweet “”Repurpose content for all the relevant channels. Always. Could include a book.” – @ctrappe “]

Note: All links to books in this post are affiliate links, meaning that I get a cut if you buy them on Amazon. As a reminder, I only endorse products I enjoy or want to highlight for one reason or another.