5 Proven Ways to Land High-Impact Podcast Interviews with Alice Draper

What if the fastest way to grow your author visibility had nothing to do with social media? 

Allison Lane is joined by podcast pitching expert Alice Draper, who shares why landing podcast interviews is one of the most effective book promotion strategies for authors. And how you can start pitching yourself even if you don’t have a book yet.

If you want to reach more readers, position yourself as an authority, and make podcast guesting part of your book launch strategy, this episode is packed with practical insights you can apply right away. Tune in and learn how to pitch smarter, show up better, and grow your audience through podcasts.

In this episode, Allison and Alice discuss:

• [0:00] Why podcast guesting is more effective than social media for authors
• [2:00] The biggest mistake authors make when pitching themselves
• [6:00] What makes a great interviewee that hosts love to invite back
• [8:00] How to find podcasts that actually want to hear from you
• [11:00] Essentials of a strong pitch (and what to avoid)
• [15:00] Why a clear strategy beats a “spray and pray” approach
• [18:00] How to craft a simple, effective call to action
• [20:00] The truth about time, priorities, and pitching consistently
• [24:00] Why podcasting only works if it feels good for you

Alice Draper is the founder of Hustling Writers and host of My Rejection Story, where bestselling authors share how setbacks shaped their success. She’s on a mission to make publicity accessible, has placed clients on top 0.5% podcasts, and her work appears in HuffPost, Business Insider, VICE, and Refinery29.

Resources Mentioned:

• Alice Draper’s Website: https://hustlingwriters.com/ 
• Alice Draper’s Pitch Template: https://hustlingwriters.com/template/ 
• Connect with Alice on IG:https://www.instagram.com/alicedraper/ 

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Transcript

Alice: 0:49

The essentials, have a good pitch. Have a good story. Have good speaking points. Have a good mini bio. And creates your credibility in a very easy way. So, if you've ever been on past podcast episodes, have an easy to access link.

Allison: 1:17

People are tired of chasing visibility on social media that barely moves the needle or anything. That's why I offered this podcast to give you all the insights in a nice little package. Now you can be doing the same thing whether you have a book out. Or not, and that I think is a big secret. But today's guest is going to give us the goods and tell us how to light a fire under ourselves so that you can land high impact podcast interviews that grow your audience even before you have a book. And that's exactly what Alice Draper is going to tell us about because she helps experts do this through her company, hustling writers. And also she's here to help you and me pitch smarter and show up better and make the most of your on mic moments. So Alice, thank you for being here. You are tremendous, and I've been stalking you for a while in a nice social way, not in person.

Alice: 2:26

I'm so happy that our path crossed and thank you so much, Allison, for having me. I'm a huge fan of your work as well.

Allison: 2:32

Yeah. I think that very smart people, because they're busy doing the thing that they're smart at, it doesn't occur to them. Maybe I should pitch a podcast, and they think that there's some milestone that has to happen for them where they then now earned the right to be a guest on a podcast, and what could we say to those people? What do you need to have?

Alice: 3:00

So, I think it's a common belief, is that you need to have achieved something in order to be someone worthy of getting appearing on podcasts or appearing in the media, appearing in the press. But what I would say to that is that I didn't, so I can start with myself as a case study. My first podcast, my first media was me pitching. I always say that pitching was shortcut to authority. I was young and I had done nothing cool with my life, and I had achieved nothing. Cool. But I knew how to write a pitch and so I started collecting bylines with publications that people recognized and then that became the like authority I had to work at PR was like, I know how to pitch my own stories to the media so I can help you pitch yours. And the clients I was serving were far more impressive than I was. They had actually done things and achieved things, and so it was like a natural fits all. If I can pitch myself, I can pitch you. So, yeah, start with that as my case study. I think that if you are a human being who has lived on this planets, you have stories. And one of the biggest mistakes people make and they're pitching is they pitch their buyers and we fall asleep when we see a buyer. You could have done the coolest things ever, right? You could have worked with the president and done like crazy things, but when you're just listing a bunch of accomplishments, we fall asleep. We are intrigued by stories and everyone has a story. So if you have lived a life, you will have stories and you can start pitching right away.

Allison: 4:35

What a relief. You can start pitching right away. Do you think that it's because people think that they're pitching themselves as an interview subject, like they're a celebrity? That they feel like they need to have some bright shining star next to them. Or do they realize that when you're on a podcast, you're offering something, yes, are the interviewee, but you're not talking about yourself necessarily. You have to convert or translate, interpret for the listener. I'm off. I'm sharing at my story, but really it's a message for you. It's a, here's some insight. Otherwise, you're just talking about yourself.

Alice: 5:25

Yes. Yes. I feel like you hit the nail on the edge. So, two things. One, I can completely understand the discomforts because it feels like you're pitching yourself as a celebrity, especially if you're new to pitching. It's like, who am I? I'm just, you know, worked as a teacher for the past few years and I didn't like win the Nobel Peace Prize, so why would I be someone people want to interview? So I want to normalize anyone who's listening and feels that like initial discomfort, that it could, like a gross feeling. It's totally normal. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but I feel like you can acknowledge that feeling. And then you offered, Allison just a fantastic reframe, which is to think instead of thinking me, like you're going to interview me and everything I've ever gone through. It is, how can I be in service? And that service might be tied to your story. You might have been gone through something, maybe you were bullied at work and now you are in service of helping other people, like combat workplace bullying. Your speaking points with things that I would talk about in a pitch of listing. The points that you would talk about after you've kind of opened up that story as the hook would be the service. It would be what are you offering people? What are you offering listeners who might be going through something similar? So, if you are a expert of workplace bullying, you would be offering them steps on what they could take to address the situation that they might be going through. So, I just think that's a brilliant reframe, is to really think like, how can I be in service of others and not. Wow, I'm so amazing and they're going to ask me about my amazing life story.

Allison: 6:57

And they might ask you about your amazing life story, but it's still your job to know that that's not really what they want to know. They're asking you, please start talking so that my audience gets a benefit. Even when Oprah interviews people, she's not just tell me all about you. She's like, what did you learn? What should we know? What's the universal truth? How would you talk to your former self, your younger self? Is that something that we should all know? I mean, a good interviewer is interviewing you for the greater good, and they do need you to meet them more than halfway'cause it's not their job to make you a great interview.

Alice: 7:40

Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I say, what it takes to be a great interviewee, and also probably you are the one to hint on this in your pitch is that you are able to combine story with research, with action steps. Like what can people do? And you know, you touching on Oprah's interview style, she absolutely does that. You relate to her guest as a human. You feel empathy for them because of what they went through. You feel empathy for Oprah'cause she also can get very vulnerable in her episodes. So, now we have that human to human connection that's we're drawn in by that story, but then it's like, okay, what does the data, what does the research say? And now, what are the steps that me as the listener can take? To make my life better in some shape or form because of this fantastic guest who's educating me. It's a combination of all of those three things that I think rarely come together for both a great pitch and a great interview.

Allison: 8:32

I think a lot of people think I would love to be on a podcast, but I don't listen to that many podcasts, and the ones they listen to are like number one in the world or the Huberman lab. And that's where they shut down. How do I figure out which podcasts I should pitch because the Huberman lab has not emailed me back. So, where do you tell people where do you start? Especially for those who aren't running a business. And so, they're doing the thing that makes them an expert, right?

Alice: 9:05

Yeah, that's a great question and I think it's one of the questions people struggle with the most. And I can completely understand why. Even when we started pitching research was our source point until we figured out the strategy that rarely is winning. And I think it works for all forms of media, not just finding podcasts. And that is find the people who speak to your audience, but are a few steps ahead of you. So, what I mean is if you are, let's take the workplace bullying example. You're an expert in workplace bullying. Are there any other experts who are an expert on something on that? Or something similar. Maybe they're an expert in helping you find joy in your work again. Or they're an expert in how to improve your workplace, or it's something like they're within that realm. They speak to some of the target audience to you, and maybe they have a bit of a bigger audience than you. You see them sharing articles they were featured in. And you see them being on podcasts all the time. And they have more people on social media, but they're not like as famous as like Andrew Huberman or Brene Brown.

Allison: 10:08

Yeah.

Alice: 10:09

You take their names, collect their names. The more people the better. And you put their names into the podcast apps. So, there's listen notes as a podcast app, apple Podcasts, Spotify. And you can see all the podcasts they've been on if they were on in the last two years. And the podcast is still active. You can pitch that podcast. They take guests. They take guests who speak to audiences like you do. And I'm sure you'll have a different angle and different topics you can talk about.

Allison: 10:34

Right. And people think, oh, they'll not take me. Probably, it wouldn't hurt to be able to say, Hey, I heard you on this podcast. I was also on that podcast if you were. But if you're just starting out, how do you approach that? What would make a good pitch to set you apart from just another guest to a guest that someone's excited to book.

Alice: 11:01

I think there's so many different things that you can hits that are beneficial. So, I look at there's the essentials that you want to include. And then there's like the add-ons that are nice and can give you that extra boost. The essentials, have a good pitch. Have a good story. Have good speaking points. Have a good mini bio. And creates your credibility in a very easy way. So, if you've ever been on past podcast episodes, have an easy to access link. Whatever links you want them to click on, make sure you are linking it because otherwise they will Google you and they might not find what you want them to find on Google. So, having a great pitch. And I have a pitch template on my website, which is hustlingwriters.com/templates.

Allison: 11:41

So, you were saying use your template. Great. Thank heavens you have one.

Alice: 11:47

So, writes a good pitch. I can say trial and error. There's a template, but if it's your first time working with pitching, you may not get it right from the get go. You may not have the juiciest hook in that first paragraph. So, share it with friends, ask them to review it. If you know anyone who is a writer. Ask them, will you open this? Is this interesting? Is this subject line interesting? Is this like opening power? Interesting. Are these speaking points interesting? So, that can take some trial and errors to get a really good pitch. But I think that's like the basic starting point. We have gotten ourselves and clients booked on some of the biggest podcasts with no point of reference. So, like Allison, you and I both know Tracy Otsuka. I met her because I pitched her and she didn't know me from bar of soap. There was no connection at all. Pitching can work without anything else. But you mentioned Allison also like extra nice things, like being able to say, Hey, I like that you spoke to a mutual friend on your podcast episode, or whatever it is. I call those like warm connections. And when we work with the client, we try and identify any warm connections. So, we would ask them to share like a list of all their friends, and we will also look at all the podcasts they've ever spoken on or every media thing they've done and make those connections. Because when someone opens the email and you're a complete stranger, they might listen if the pitch is good enough. But if you also happen to know or have a mutual friend. It gives it that much more trust. It's great to leverage that. If you have friends who can introduce you to podcasters, that's great. If you know podcasters personally and you drop in their DM with a voice note pitch where you're pitching a great story of a voice note. That can be even better. It's more personal. It catch through the noise of email and so I wouldn't recommend that to a stranger though'cause they may not listen to it.

Allison: 13:33

Yeah, it's really like showing up at their house. And the thing is, you don't have to tiptoe when you start. You can just start. You don't have to start with somebody who has a podcast and five listeners. You can start because you are a big deal and you have something to offer. But you do have to know like you are on the hook for delivering value. And if you've written a book or you think you might at some time write a book. Chances are whatever your experience is, or if you're writing memoir, or even if you're writing fiction, the experience of writing is interesting. And if someone interviews you about your experience, it's your job to translate that into what that might mean for someone listening who also has a dream of someday writing a book. So, you could say, this is what I did, and if I were starting again, I would do it like this. You have to actually say the words. If you're listening to this, don't do what I did. Do it like this. Take this lesson, and even better. It's nice when you have something to offer that if the listener is leaning forward. Don't you like to have something to offer on your site? You're not there. And then, oh, I've done it and I'm going to go home now. Now, the podcast is out and the person who listened to you is now interested. The lamest thing I hear is like, you could check me out on social. I'm at Allison lane lit.com. No one's going to check you out'cause that's not a real invitation. That's like saying, let me know what I can do for you. No, that's not my job. If you're sick, let me know if you can need anything. I need you to come and clean my house when I'm sick. Thank you. But that's specific. That someone can say, yes, I'm a good friend. I will come and clean your house, Allison. Alice, if that's you, I would love for you to come and clean my house. I'm not saying something that's super open-ended that no one really takes us.

Alice: 15:39

You diagnose so many great problems there.

Allison: 15:42

Multiple problems. Great.

Alice: 15:43

So, one of them is being broad or asking people to take too many actions. So, you said asking people to find you on social media. Another bad one is to ask people to do everything. So, you say, come find me on LinkedIn. And come download my lead magnet. And check out my book. As I do this, it's very hard for the person listening to remember that. So, I also would say one of the things I would say when it comes to podcasting is be very clear what your agenda is. Are you here because you simply just want to spread the message? You want to dip your toes into thought leadership. Maybe you want to get a book deal down the line and you just want to show that you have credibility history. Maybe you want to practice public speaking. If you're pitching yourself for all those reasons, experiments, like by all means. You'll get better at delivering a good message. You'll see what resonates with hosts. If you have a strategy, if you have now invested in someone. So if someone invests with me and they invest on a retainer service, I want to make sure that they have a clean, good strategy. Otherwise, it can be a waste of your money. You're not just messing around to see what happens. You should have a strategy. One of the top reasons people come is'cause they have a book tour. So, your strategy is to sell books. Like it's a great meet medium to sell books. Because people listen to a podcast, they think this is so interesting, they can jump on Amazon and they can spend$25. Like, that's a normal habits. So, then you want to make it crystal clear that your conversation is anchored in your book, that you don't like oversell.

Allison: 17:13

That is just the kiss of death. When I hear a podcast where someone is constantly referring to. In this chapter of my book, I cover that like Mother Clucking a, please stop if you're here to offer value in 20 or 30 minutes. Just do it. And then, it's up to me if I want to buy your book or even follow you on social. I don't trust you yet'cause I just met you on this one podcast.

Alice: 17:42

Exactly. When I think of times I bought a book because of a podcast. It's because I'm like, oh my gosh, I learned so much from this podcast interview. I want to know more. Hence, I will go and buy that book so that I can learn more. So, the primary agenda is be a good guest, be teach your audience things they didn't know before. Blend all those things, story and data and actionable information they can take. You want them to be like, oh, my mind is blown. I've learned so much. Because they will, like you said, trust you more and they will want to know more. And so, when the host asks at the end. Where can people find more about me? You keep it simple and you say, I've just written a book and it is available where everywhere books can be found. A lot of people don't go into show notes, so there's some like limitation. You don't want something to be too complicated where they, only way they can find it is that they go into the show notes. So, mention the title, make that title as clear as possible. So, I would say when you go on a podcast, know what you are doing it for. If you don't have a book, but you really want people in your lead magnet, if you want people on your mailing list, make sure that it's an enticing offer.

Allison: 18:51

Because they think that they're offering more value. And somehow they think, but that's what people, I really want them to get value. Like nobody wants your buffet before they've had chips and salsa. Like it's just give us enough. All we need is one appetizer of yours. Before you invite us for dinner, let's get a drink first. So little. Itty bitty.

Alice: 19:17

Yes, exactly. That's such a good way of putting it a little analogy. Yeah, it's free guides, free resources that are just massive. Don't do very well typically. But if it's highly specific and it feels like something that they're not going to get somewhere else. And it diagnosis the exact solution to the exact problem you came on the show to talk about. Generally, will work a lot better. So, having some kind of lead magnet if you are just doing it to grow your list, I recommend as long as it's a good one. Quizzes can do quite well. And yeah, make it simple. Give them one call to action. Don't give them a million.

Allison: 19:52

So, helpful because people do like to say, or you could do this or you could do that. They will go to your website to get your podcast pitching template because it's super specific, right? What you're saying is avoid a list of all the ways you can contact me'cause it's too much. Our listening ears are clogged at that point. No one's sitting there taking notes.

Alice: 20:21

And look, I get it. I'm guilty of it too. I just want you everywhere. Like I just want to give you all the options. You can pick and choose what works best for you. But there is definitely an option overload that we as humans have where we just get confused if we're presented with too many options or make it as simple as possible.

Allison: 20:38

Well, if someone's just getting started and they're short on time and energy, what is one thing they should do today to get started landing aligned podcast opportunities?

Alice: 20:54

That's a good question. So, this is the number one concern. I said the number one struggle people have when they want to do it is figuring out where to find the right podcasts. But then the number one like barrier to actually doing it is always time. Like I don't have the time. I have a million other things. And so, my answer to that would be, you need to figure out what your marketing priorities are. If podcasting is not on the top of your priority list, I hate to break it to you, you're not going to do it. There will always be a million other things that you have to make time for. The first thing that I would assess is like, where does it fall in your value list? And is it valuable enough to put the time in? Or do you have enough money to outsource it? Because it needs to meet one of those criteria. Otherwise, it's probably just not going to happen. There's a learning curve. I can say that I could pitch for an hour a week and bunch of pitches out and get a bunch of placements. But then if I've never pitched before, obviously it would take longer for me. So, if you're learning. Take a little bit more time, so even if you work with a template, it may take you some time to get that pitch right. Something that I'm learning now in other parts of my business is allowing time to figure out the strategy before expecting results from the strategy. I'm doing some other marketing strategies that are brand new to me. And I've had to learn that I need to experiment and work before it actually, like I can start counting on the results because I have to figure out how to get results first. So, allowing time for that. And the main thing I would recommend is if it's a priority and you don't have the resources to outsource it, fuck time block two hours a week. This first couple of times, maybe just figuring it out. And then, maybe by month two you are sending the pictures and by month three you're getting results. That's okay because once you have the strategy figured out, you can be consistent and quick with it. And then, the fourth thing I would say is track. Definitely track everything. You want a spreadsheet. You want to know what pictures you've sent. If you've sent follow ups, follow up are so important. Most acceptances come through follow ups. You want to see which ones are landing and which ones aren't'cause maybe the ones landing on good angles and the ones not are bad angles. And it's time to scrap that. You want to collect data. Rejections are data. Acceptances are data, like silence is data. I hope that answers the question. It's unfortunately, I can't say that it's going to be something, it'll take you two minutes and you'll have great success.

Allison: 23:21

I think your message is before you just go out of the gate and like pitch wildly, have your basics together. You want to be able to track. You want to have time to craft a thoughtful pitch because if that one works, that becomes your template.

Alice: 23:40

Yeah. With mine,'cause I've done my own pitching is like a process of experimenting and writing my own templates. It took me a while to land on one that. And I haven't done much pitching in the last few months. But I figured out one, I think last year that like landed like hot cake and I wouldn't have known that. If I hadn't experiments with others, the others got me on podcasts, but they didn't get me on great podcasts. They didn't get me on the like super competitive ones. Then, like through that process of experimentation was like, oh, this one really like hits with the media.

Allison: 24:10

Oh my gosh. Yeah, and if you don't make time for that, everything becomes urgent and speedy and maybe not as careful. So, give yourself time to come up with something that really works. And then, but I do love this message that you shared. If this is not a priority for you, don't do it. Don't put it on your list. If you don't like it, don't do it. The experience is going to stink for you, but also the listener is not going to enjoy you. If this isn't something that becomes easy to you, you can build those skills. But if it's not enjoyable, take off your list. Life's too short and there are lots of other ways to build your audience.

Alice: 24:54

Is there a million ways to show up online. And the last thing you need is to feel shame, like ashamed, because you're not. Showing up for the strategy once it's a lean into, because you put it on your list, you know. And then, getting really clear about what you want to do. And the same goes to, people might say, start a TikTok account. Tiktoks taking off. But if you hate the medium, it could be awful and not productive for you at all.

Allison: 25:19

Correct. So, follow what feels good. And know that you're there, not just to share your story, but to give help or insight or serve the audience is such a good message to take away. Alice, where could people find you?

Alice: 25:40

I'll say that the best thing you can do is to go to hustling writers.com/templates. So, that's hustling like you hustle, but hustling writers.com/templates. In there, it's a template, that exact template we use. And the five must haves in every good pitch. I would recommend that I have the urge to say a million more things.

Allison: 26:03

Thank you so much, Alice, for sharing your brilliance and your generosity in giving us what we need, which is permission to pitch ourselves to podcasts. Now, for you listening, if you are thinking, okay, I'm going to do this, this week. I want you to do it and then send me a note. My contact information is in the show notes, always DM me. Say, Hey, I got Alice's template and I did it and I'm waiting to hear back. Just the fact that you do it is action and that action leads to more action and you have momentum. You can pitch one podcast a week. And then, wow, that's going to feel really good. In a month, you're going to think pitch for a podcast. That's really good. Yeah, that's more than you did all of last year. So, good on you. We want this to be easy and enjoyable,'cause if it's not, you got to find something else that you're going to do, which is cool. But it is up to you,'cause you are in charge of your marketing. You are the one who gets to decide what feels good and what fits into your life. That's the great thing too about podcasts. And if this podcast has been helpful and insightful for you, please share it with someone and shoot me a note back or just leave a review for this episode about what stuck out for you. Thank you Alice so much. And I will see you next week.

Alice: 27:35

Thank you so much, Allison. This was such a pleasure.