Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

"What if Heaven wasn't all it's cracked up to be? Friends Kate and Daniel find that after their untimely deaths, Heaven leaves them dissatisfied and itching for something... else. So they're off, with a passport to discover more afterlives, heroes and gods. During their adventures, they find out that their travel isn't a journey taken on a whim, but may be orchestrated, or even prophesied."

That's the promo for author Mur Lafferty's newest project--a story created expressly to be read out-loud in a podcast. The book is an experiment for this unconventional writer who has written for role playing games, podcasts, videogame news sites, Lulu.com, and maintains popular audio shows like Geek Fu Action Grip and I Should Be Writing.

This week, she's our special guest in my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.

Jason Boog: 
You are currently podcasting your book Heaven. How did you write this book? How does podcasting the book change things (for example, why  did you decide on dividing the book into seasons)? How did you find your listeners? Continue reading...

Mur Lafferty: 

Heaven was written episodically, with podcasting in mind.

First, I planned on just releasing episodes until i was done. But then I thought release on  podiobooks.com [a podcasting site with over 5,000 active members] would be a good thing, so I turned it into seasons because I knew listeners over there would want something with a beginning and end.

I found listeners through my current listeners, as I already have two podcasts, and promotion through other podiobooks.