Bo Bennett On Building Author On Air

HOST: It's good to have you back, Bo. Last time we were talking about the BookReelz launch, and you mentioned that "video does not sell books directly," and that it's more about getting people talking. Today, I want to look at AuthorOnAir.com, because it feels like another one of those tools where the author isn't working on the book itself, but presenting it to an audience. You've been working with authors since eBookIt launched in 2011. Before AuthorOnAir existed, when an indie author had everything set, the cover, distribution, mailing list, what was the piece that still felt out of reach? Was podcast access the obvious missing link, or did you stumble into it? GUEST: Well, back in 2011, podcasting maybe was just getting started, so it wasn't that common, but it was certainly there. And the whole interview process existed long before podcasting. So, I remember when I first started, when I was marketing my book back in 2004, with a high-priced firm in New York City, the goal was to get me on interviews. So, we were talking either television or radio. And that was somewhat successful. I did get on a handful of radio programs, but that cost me, oh jeez, probably like well into the $20,000 range to get to get me on some like a handful of radio stations, which were not major radio stations. These were just like small little programs. Many podcasts far outweigh the reach of these stations that I was on. So, it was a different time, and it was certainly something that authors wanted, but it just wasn't there. It was out of reach. Um, uh, past 2011, there were a lot of podcasts, but the problem was getting lined up with the right podcast, making sure that has good distribution, um, making sure that the host was the right fit, because many of the podcast interviews that I did, the host had no idea what I was talking about. And and you could tell they were just asking some generic questions about my book, uh, that they they probably just looked up on Amazon, read the description, and asked away. And the conversations felt like waste of time, and the audience, the listening audience wasn't getting the right information, the information they needed. That's why I created, uh, that's why I created Authors on Air, um, Author on Air, because it was important to be able to create a system where the host knows everything about the book, and can ask very intelligent questions, and more importantly, ask follow-up questions. So that the conversation, like this one that we're having, it's not set, like you're going to ask one question, then the next one, then the next one. You sort of pivot off of my current answer, and if a follow-up is needed, then you'll come up with that follow-up, and the the conversation could go in any direction. Um, and and that kind of spontaneity, that's what people like to listen to. HOST: That makes sense, that you're trying to avoid the sort of superficial conversations that happen maybe with human hosts who are over-scheduled and haven't had time to do research. But you made a similar argument with BookEditor.io, that AI holding the full manuscript in memory simultaneously catches things a human editor systematically misses. Does that same principle apply to the host side? Is an AI that's read your whole book actually a *better* interviewer for an author than, say, that under-researched human host? GUEST: Definitely, definitely the way that that you worded it. Uh better than an under-researched human host. Now I I I I don't know if I'm qualified to make the judgment call what's better, a fully qualified, the kind of AI that we use that reads the whole book and has the whole book in context while giving an interview, or a human who's read the entire book and has wants to have some deep philosophical or marketing, whatever kind of discussions with the author. I'm not sure what would produce a a better quality, but the fact that they're similar is is good enough. HOST: That's interesting. And you've mentioned before, specifically with the BookVoices tool, about how AI has that incredible capability for consistency and speed. Is that something you're seeing as a primary attraction for authors? That maybe they don't have to worry about schedule constraints or waiting for a human interviewer to be available? What's the main draw you're seeing from the author feedback you've gotten so far? GUEST: It certainly is the the hassle of setting up a podcast interview, arranging the time, coordinating the time, especially with people all over the world, with with accents, with technical issues. I mean, the list goes on and on and on with all the different problems that occur with this kind of arrangement that that um our site basically solves all of those problems. And that is something that authors are going to start to experience and see how easy it is when they do an interview with Author on Air, that all of the problems that they had in the past with human hosts, they're all of a sudden gone. And it's it's a a much better, much smoother process. And the fact that at any time, an author can say, you know what, this isn't working out. I'm just going to stop recording and I'm going to start over again. They could do that. You can't do that with a human host. Well, I guess you could, but the human host would get annoyed pretty quickly, whereas the author could do this dozen times if they want in order to get the perfect interview. So they have that flexibility. HOST: That flexibility, you've got that mid-interview re-record feature, which sounds like a game-changer for people who get nervous on mic. What has that feature shown you about how authors prepare? Is it helping them present their message more confidently, or are they using it to go deeper on certain topics? How are they actually using it? GUEST: Well, I don't have that information for sure, for certainty, but I I can say that especially after doing so many of these these interviews, that it does do something for confidence. Because you know that well, confidence and nerves, because you know that if you do mess up in such a way where you don't want to host that interview, you know you don't you don't want that to air, then you just start over. It's not a big deal. So that that confidence makes it a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable to actually put out these episodes. HOST: That makes sense, and you can see how that would make people more at ease as they present their message. Now, the product isn't just a single interview, it's twelve monthly episodes from one book upload, and you're saying the AI surfaces twelve distinct interview-worthy themes from that one source. For a non-fiction book that might hold together, but what about a fiction book, or maybe a shorter business book? Do you ever find that the AI comes back and says, honestly, this book only has four themes worth talking about, and you might want to space those out differently? Are there ever any content limitations? GUEST: If there are limitations, we haven't run into them yet. AI has been able to do a fantastic job with getting themes out of even short books or fiction books, it doesn't matter. Being able to get 12 different themes worthy of discussion. And that's another thing that many humans can do. They just don't have that kind of insight to to to get those different themes. Uh typically, in fairness to human interviews, a lot of the interviews for books would be like a half hour, sometimes you even go like more than an hour. In which case, you would have all of those themes kind of worked into one interview. With with our system, the interviews are generally between uh eight and 10 minutes per interview, which makes it much more easy to prepare for, uh much more enjoyable for the listener because it gets boring after a while, and uh much more focused for both the host and the guest focusing on a certain topic. So, it's just a better overall experience. And by spacing them out, you're getting better uh um a marketing advantage to that as well. Rather than just one huge interview, you've gotten now have 12, all of which have their own SEO and uh their own audiences and their own links all over the internet. And people could if they're interested in a certain aspect of your book, maybe like one of or two of the podcasts, but not all of them, they're going to have a much better choice to be able to listen to one or two as opposed to having to listen to one and trying to pick out the one theme that they're interested in, and they may get bored and stop playing it if it were one really long interview. So, this way has a lot of marketing advantages as well. HOST: That's a really sharp point about spacing things out for continuous reach. Bo, we've covered a lot of different rungs on your author pipeline across these episodes, from BookBud to messaging. This AuthorOnAir piece feels like the one where the author actually gets to show up in public. Is that a philosophical shift in the product line, or just the next logical step? GUEST: The next logical step. I guess you could argue it has to do with philosophy as well, but really this is kind of where things are headed and I want to make sure that we are at the top, the pinnacle of this technological boom. HOST: That idea of staying at the technological pinnacle is clearly driving a lot of what you're doing. Bo, we covered a lot of ground today. Before we go, for listeners who want to follow up on what we've covered, where can they find you and the work you're doing? GUEST: Well, you could go to archieboy.com. That's our main website where we have all of our different companies listed and what they do. And then of course, the the website we've been discussing is authoronair.com. HOST: Go check those out. Bo, thanks so much for coming back on and breaking down AuthorOnAir, especially seeing how it connects to that spontaneous conversation you mentioned from earlier episodes. And thank you for spending part of your day with us. We'll have to do another one soon, but until next time — that's a wrap.