January Newsletter HealthyLife.Net Radio Show Archive

FEATURE ARTICLE

Authors as Radio Hosts?
by Linda Mackenzie, C.H.T., Ph.D. (c)

Can authors make successful radio hosts or should they just remain guests of radio shows? That is a big question that deserves an honest answer.

We all should know that publicity for or about your book (or service, or product for that matter) is needed for promotion in order to get sales. In essence this means, if someone doesn't know that your book is out there, even if its the best book in the world, how will they know to read it? So publicity and promotion is necessary.

Having published 6 books in the traditional book world and self publishing, plus being a radio host on terrestrial and internet radio for over 30 years, I have to say that being a successful radio host, or being an author, is not as easy as it looks.
One million new book titles are published each year. Only 2,000 are published by traditional print publishes. 15,000 titles are in printed form and 70,000 are digital. How are you going to get noticed, get a following and sell your book with all those books being published?

Book Influencers? Not for long. A.I. is taking over in search engines and social media - presenting the user with what A.I. thinks you want, (or what they want to push.) So, those influencers that used to have some clout (if they didn't buy their following in the first place) are going to be blanked out and never reach their audience organically because they will no longer pop up at random in someone's feed or social media. In the near future, A.I. will dictate what you see and get.

Publishing and radio are two distinct and separate fields, requiring different education, knowledge and skill sets.

Real internet radio is NOT a hodgepodge of personal blogs or programs thrown together at random with someone calling it a radio show, station or network. It is also not a podcast. A podcast is a completely different medium. A podcast is not a radio show but, usually a helter-skelter method of accessing any digital audio file made available on the Internet for download.
There are many internet based radio stations and podcast networks that will tell you every author can be a radio host with one idea in mind - and that is to get your money. They do no training in radio broadcasting. They don't give you the rules for good broadcasting. There is no cross promotion of your radio show being done in other shows. Plus you are usually competing with thousands of hosts, channels and even other networks on the same site to gain visibility of listeners.

These stations, rarely get many listeners for their hosts (despite what 'listener numbers' they may give you - another discussion for another time.) The host will have to promote their own show to be recognized and gain visibility on their own radio station - a full time job. So in this case, if you are an author and trying to promote your book - starting a radio show means you will have to promote that too. Another thing to keep in mind is that these stations have little or no syndication and may NOT run on a traditional radio time clock, which has been proven over time, actually works to get and KEEP an audience.

Remember if people are tuning into radio, they want and expect a standard radio experience - if they don't get it... most listeners are gone way before the show is over. Typically, podcasts get listened to 5 to 15 minutes at the top of the hour; whereas an Internet Radio audience listens for an average of 2 to 3 hours.

A word about podcasts...There are 4,390,555 total U.S. podcasts. There are just 20,119 AM/FM stations and 100,000 Internet stations in the U.S. Therefore, recognition is easier on radio than podcasts. There are 320,340 new podcasts added every month. Here is an interesting industry fact...if your podcast gets 124 downloads (listeners/viewers) a month that puts you at the top 50% of all U.S. podcasts. That's a 126 people... In comparison, a HealthyLife.net radio hosts average 418,550 listeners (people) a month. A much greater number than 126.

A mid-tier book influencer with 100,001 - 500,000 followers are getting $500 - $5,000 a post. A once a week show on HealthyLife.net, which gives you 4-5 live shows, 4-5 encore shows, and 8-10 reruns a month - all for $600-$750. a month. Although we periodically run specials at $400. - $500. a month - which we are doing in January 2026. For busy people we also have once a month show on HealthyLife.net gives you 1 live show, 1 encore show and 8-10 reruns a month - all for $150. a month. Do the math...that's less than the average cost of 1 post by an influencer.

HealthyLife.net Radio is real radio on the web. We follow standard radio rules. We are syndicated/simulcast on over 75+ distribution channels. We do the production with a radio sound engineer. We cross promote our hosts and provide radio training. We also limit show genres to make sure our hosts are successful and promote them on social media. Just to let you know most of our hosts are authors. We give hosts advertising in their show to promote their books. Each week we provide live, encore, rerun on-demand and podcast download of hosts shows.

At HealthyLife.net we are a family. A loving family looking out for the best interests of each other and the listener. We are positive radio and at HealthyLife.net Radio we walk our talk and our hosts DO reach listeners.

So can authors be great radio hosts? Listen to HealthyLife.net and find out!

HealthyLife.Net Radio creates win-win-win situations for hosting a show or an author wanting to advertising their book to our network's 14+ million listeners a month. We have professional radio copywriters and voice over people that will write and produce the commercials in your show for free or if you would like to run a cost-effective radio ad campaign.

If you're interested in hosting a show email Linda@healthylife.net and put NEW SHOW HOST in the subject line. I can send you all the details. Then we'll talk to see if there is a true fit. Slots and genres are limited so act fast to take advantage of this opportunity.
Love & Light - Linda

Authors as Radio Hosts? by Linda Mackenzie, C.H.T., Ph.D. (c)

Authors as Radio Hosts?
by Linda Mackenzie, C.H.T., Ph.D. (c)