Photo by Los Muertos Crew

More than ever, podcasts are moving the needle on sales, better in some cases than an author appearing on TV. Podcasts intersect significantly with conversations on social media, and someone can listen to a podcast months after the fact, offering a long tail of visibility.

At the US Book Show this year, a top book podcaster, two veteran publicists, and a PR agency CEO discussed what authors and publishers need to know before sending a podcast pitch. The panelists included:

• Lauren Cobello, CEO and Founder, Leverage With Media PR (moderator)
• Pip Davidson, publicist and influencer strategist, Hay House (PRH)
• Meghan Athey, Leverage With Media PR, podcast publicist
• Zibby Owens, CEO of Zibby Media

Start earlier than you think

The single most common mistake Meghan Athey sees? Publishers coming to her the week before a book launches.

“Podcasts are not an overnight thing,” she said. “You aren’t going to get them scheduled, recorded, and released the next day.” Her recommendation: begin outreach four to six months before the book’s release date. That creates the flexibility to record episodes early and ask hosts to hold them until launch week.

Lauren Cobello’s agency has established an in-person podcast tour format for nonfiction business and leadership clients. They identify the major podcast hubs—Los Angeles, New York, Miami—and send authors on one- to two-day in-person recording trips, booking as many shows as possible in each city. The result looks a lot like a traditional book tour, with better returns.

Bigger isn’t better, it’s just bigger

One of the panel’s most consistent refrains was pushback against chasing follower counts: “The niche shows outperform the larger shows,” Cobello said. Pip Davidson put it in even starker terms: some of his favorite partnerships are with podcasters who have 10,000 followers, because their audiences are deeply engaged. “Larger hosts become more unreachable to their audience,” he explained. “It removes a sense of intimacy. … People with smaller followings respond in the comment sections—it creates a sense of trust.”

Athey connected this to something broader about why podcasts work at all. Unlike social media, a podcast requires sustained attention, sometimes an hour or more. “Book people and podcast people are often in a Venn diagram,” Davidson said. That overlap is why a passionate, niche audience can drive more sales than a massive but diffuse one. Raw listener numbers don’t necessarily translate to books sold. The quality of the match does.

As always, do your research

Publicists who blast their entire client list to every podcast they can find are wasting everyone’s time and damaging relationships. Owens said she gets pitched books she would never cover, constantly. “It shows they don’t really care what I’m doing,” she said.

Consider: What does the host actually talk about? What’s their tone? Are they more irreverent, or more values-driven? Would this author fit naturally into a conversation with them, or would it be awkward for everyone?

Owens has a simple filter for her show: she has to love the book. (Helpful to remember: her podcast is specifically about books. Most podcasts aren’t.) “When I have an author on the show, I want to either be so excited that I just want to talk to them about everything, or there’s really something I want to learn,” she said. She actively looks to see which podcasts authors have appeared on and listens to those episodes to evaluate whether the conversation would work.

Build the relationship first when possible

The most durable piece of advice on the panel was also the most obvious one that gets ignored: don’t let the first time a podcast host learns you exist be the moment you ask them for something.

“The host should feel that the person is invested in them,” Davidson said. Follow the show. Engage genuinely. When your pitch arrives, the host who already recognizes your name is far more likely to open the email. Athey noted that a significant amount of podcast booking now happens not through formal pitches at all, but through DMs, texts, and WhatsApp—the organic byproduct of actual relationships. She said the use of social media for pitching (versus cold pitching) is the biggest change for her in recent years.

Davidson says, “Be brave enough to introduce yourself to people … slide into their DMs.” Owens herself uses Instagram DMs frequently. Cobello can text certain high-profile hosts directly and get a response within five minutes (while that email inbox sits unread). But she was quick to add the caveat: “You have to know the best communication style.” What works for one host is spam for another. (Owens, for her part, would prefer you not text her.)

Regardless of how the pitch is sent, Cobello said if your podcast pitch is longer than two paragraphs, you may have already lost most hosts. A top 20 podcaster on her radar has more than 100,000 unread emails. Concision is a must.

Don’t stop at placement: authors need to be prepare for the conversation

Owens raised something that doesn’t come up often in publicity conversations: What actually happens once the author is on the podcast? Do they understand the difference between an interview and a sales call?

Her advice was pointed: authors should listen to the podcast before appearing on it. They should have conversation topics they’re genuinely comfortable with, not a recitation of talking points they’ve never said out loud before. They should come prepared to talk about their book without dreading (or sighing about) the question, “What is your book about?” Then publicists and publishers should listen in on an author’s first few podcast appearances to assess how it’s going. “Are they really nervous? Are they talking about the right things?” she said. If the answer is no, that’s something you can fix—before it becomes a pattern.

The mindset shift she recommended for authors themselves: “Tell your authors to enjoy being on the podcast. This is your opportunity to shine.” A podcast is a conversation, not a performance. Authors can ask the host a question back.

Davidson argued that authors should be playing the long game. A first-time author who gets placed on a few well-matched shows isn’t just selling this book, they’re building a brand, establishing podcast fluency, and setting themselves up for the next book. “So much of publicity and pitching is going out there and making friends,” she said.

Should authors pitch themselves for podcasts?

The panel’s consensus was that self-pitching works best when the author already has a genuine relationship with the host. Otherwise, the risk is that the author pitches the book rather than the topic or conversation inside the book, which is what podcast hosts typically care about.

Cobello suggested that even if authors aren’t doing the outreach themselves, AI tools can be useful for the research phase: identifying relevant shows, understanding what hosts have covered recently, and drafting concise pitches. The goal is always the same: a short, relevant, specific ask from someone who has clearly done their homework.

Bottom line

In one example offered by Cobello, a client went on 20 podcasts, coordinated them all to go live within a two-week window, and sold 2,400 copies of his book from that tour alone. That’s what was characterized as the new book tour and it shouldn’t be treated as a supplementary channel. For many books, they are the channel for marketing and promotion.