A few weeks ago I attended a Monarch Publishing event and was fortunate to meet two fantasy authors, Stephanie Cotta and Angela Hughes. They recently started a podcast, The Ink Mages, and agreed to answer questions about the process. Take it away, Stephanie and Angela!
INTERVIEW
Carol: What does your name mean?
Stephanie and Angela: We are The Ink Mages! We wanted to come up with a catchy name that had a magical fantasy ring to it (since we’re fantasy nerds) but also had a writing-esque vibe to it as well. So, after bouncing around some terms and names, we landed on the word ‘Mage’ and then we slapped ‘ink’ in front of it, and our name was born. As Ink Mages, we feel the name embodies how we create magic on the page when we write.
Carol: Why did you decide to create a podcast?
Stephanie and Angela: We wanted to grow our audience and platform, and doing a podcast was something we both had been discussing for months. So, naturally doing one together seemed the perfect fit. Second, since we have so much fun discussing our own books, myths, legends, and fantasy books, we wanted to create a space where we could invite readers and writers into our imaginative world and “nerd out” with us.
Carol: What are your goals for The Ink Mages podcasts?
Stephanie and Angela: Our goal is to interview other authors, grow our audience, share about our books, help encourage aspiring writers, and build a community of nerds who love to talk about fantasy books. Our current goal is to do four episodes a month, shooting for one a week. We’re hoping to do our first interviews next month in September 2023. So be on the lookout!
Carol: What were your fears or concerns in creating a podcast? Did you have any bumps in the road when you got started?
Stephanie and Angela: Our biggest concern was, how do we start? Where do we go to record? Do we need equipment? And how involved will this be? But, after we spoke with Dr. Jen Lowry of Monarch Press, she helped us navigate which platforms to use and where to start. From there, we just hopped on Streamyard a month ago and said, “We’re doing this, let’s record!” And that’s how our first episode happened. We had a blast just nerding out together and knew this was going to be a special endeavor.
Carol: I know your podcast is pretty new, so who do you hope your audience will become? What do you hope to offer that other podcasts don’t?
Stephanie and Angela: We really hope to grow a community of writers, readers, and lovers of fantasy. There are plenty of nerds out there who love talking “all things books,” and we want to stick to what we do best: writing fantasy and being passionate about our favorite sci-fi/fantasy stories. We want to focus on those two elements so our audience knows with every episode what our niche is. We love broadcasting that we are “Super Nerds” when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi—hopefully, that will set us apart as well.
Carol: How do you plan to grow your audience?
Stephanie and Angela: Through social media. We have created an account for The Ink Mages on all the major social platforms, and we try to make several posts a week to engage with our audience. We run polls ask questions and encourage people to leave comments on our videos so we can have a fun dialogue. Check out our LinkTree to connect with us!
Carol: What type of equipment do you need? Hardware or software?
Stephanie and Angela: We started very basic with our equipment. We record on Streamyard using their free service. Angela uses a microphone, but Stephanie does not. There are plenty of free resources out there, including uploading on YouTube and Spotify, so starting a podcast is not an expensive venture. As we grow, we may expand and upgrade the services we use, but for now, the most important thing for us is just to get out there and start.
Carol: How did you decide on Spotify for your platform?
Stephanie and Angela: Spotify Podcasters seemed a natural choice, and it was recommended to us—plus it’s easy to use. You can add interactive questions and polls on this platform, so it gives us feedback on what episodes we should do next. And it has all the links to other podcast platforms, making it easy to upload to all of them with one click.
Carol: What advice would you give to others who want to start a podcast?
Stephanie and Angela: Just start. Figure out what you want to focus on, find your niche, and just start recording. Don’t overthink it. If you’re introverted like us, find a partner to host it with you—that’s what sealed it for us. On our own, it seemed daunting, but having a friend on the show made the conversation more fun and engaging.
Carol: How much time does it take to create a podcast?
Stephanie and Angela: Getting started took a little legwork of creating our Ink Mages account on all the social platforms. But before we even did that, we had to design a logo—that was the fun part. Having our name figured out really helped the design take form. We chose a feather quill pen to highlight the writing aspect of our podcast, followed by an image of a stack of books, to show our love of reading!
Once we had that, it put a fire in us to really dive into our podcast and make it happen. Next, we created a shared email, so we have access to all the accounts. We used Canva for designing all our YouTube video thumbnails, and initially that took thirty minutes to design. From there, we can reuse the template, just changing out the information for our new episodes. It’s very easy and not time-consuming at all.
When recording, our episodes run a little under an hour, and then we splice them for easier consumption. We do minimal editing, so after a recording, we spend an hour or two getting it ready for uploading.
6 comments:
I love this interview! So interesting hearing the behind the scenes.
Thanks, Georgie!
I love the name - Ink Mages! Great interview, and I look forward to listening to the podcast. I'd love to be entered into the draw for the YA epic fantasy, thanks Carol!
I'm so glad that this post was helpful to you, Valinora. You're in the running for The Conjurer's Curse!
Interesting to learn what goes into creating a podcast. They keep saying it's easy, but it sounds to me like these talented ladies are working hard. Thanks for these insights!
You're welcome, Eileen. I know that they make it sound easy!
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