From Podcast to Page: Cara McGoogan on Turning Bed of Lies Into Blood Farm

Podcast Bestie, the Podcast

Episode 17 Show Notes

Guest: Cara McGoogan, Bed of Lies host & Blood Farm author

Host: Courtney Kocak, Podcast Bestie founder

Hey Besties! Today we've got a special bonus episode featuring Cara McGoogan, who ticked off a major item on my bucket list when she successfully transformed the second season of her podcast Bed of Lies into her book Blood Farm (The Poison Line in the UK). In this episode, Cara breaks down the process of adapting a podcast into a book and the opportunities and challenges that come along with it. This conversation explores how podcast writing differs from book writing, how to structure a compelling narrative in each format, the research and fact-checking processes, IP considerations, and so much more.

If you missed the last episode, check out What Is V4V? A Primer on Value4Value Monetization for Indie Podcasters with Kyrin Down.

Thanks to Michael Castañeda for mixing and mastering this episode. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @plasticaudio.

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TRANSCRIPT (This is a rough AI-generated transcript for immediate accessibility, please excuse any mistakes.)

[00:00:04] Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Cara McGoogan. I'm the host of Bed of Lies, an investigative podcast about British scandals, and the author of Blood Farm the explosive Big Pharma scandal that altered the AIDS crisis. [00:00:16]

[00:00:17] Speaker 2: Hey podcast besties! Welcome back to the show dedicated to making your podcast the best it can be. I'm Courtney Kocak, your BFF and helping you grow and monetize your show. And today we have got a special bonus episode featuring Cara McGoogan, who did something on my bucket list when she successfully transformed her podcast into a book. Cara's podcast is called Bed of Lies. The first season was about an undercover police scandal. The second season was about the infected blood scandal, and that became the basis of her book Blood Farm. This conversation explores how podcast writing differs from book writing, how to structure a compelling narrative, how Cara approached the research process, and so much more. This episode is a deep dive into the opportunities and challenges of telling the same story through two different mediums. I am so curious about this topic. I heard you at radio bootcamp and I aspired to do a podcast that then becomes a book or vice versa. So I'm very excited to learn more about this and to share this with listeners. The podcast came first. So how did the podcast come about and where did the story idea come from? I guess for the first season it was different too, so I guess we could start there. Yes. [00:01:49]

[00:01:49] Speaker 1: So maybe, like you, I've sort of longed to write a book for a while, so that was always been in the back of my head as I've been a sort of journalist. And I started I was a daily features writer at the Telegraph in London, and so kind of writing stories every week, meeting lots of people, covering a whole range of subjects, but always feeling like, you know, you're finished with one story and you're onto the next straight away. And there were a few stories in that time that really stayed with me, that I felt that there's so many more people to speak to. I had so much more material that I wasn't able to use. And so I was thinking about wanting to do longform journalism. And I was a did my journalism master's at Columbia the year that serial came out. Oh, that was really a yeah, that kind of narrative podcasts took off, you know, changed the game for the types of narrative shows and storytelling in audio. So that was always in my mind of something that I'd like to do. And so I went to there was a head of audio, but a very small audio team at the Telegraph with quite small budgets. And I went to her and I said, I'd like to do a podcast series. And she was very game. She wanted to do something like that, but I hadn't really thought about it that much. Yeah. So I presented her with a list of ideas. And so the idea we went for, for series one was about a group of women, left wing activists who discover that the loves of their lives weren't who they say they were, and they were, in fact, undercover police officers who had been sent to spy on them. It's just a crazy story. And it was something that there had been news articles about it. The scandal had been exposed eight, nine years earlier, but it was all quite disjointed. You'd get sort of one woman story, hear a bit of news about the police unit there. But unless you followed every article, which we very rarely do as readers, you didn't understand the scale of what these units were up to, and how many women's lives have been overhauled to kind of destroyed by the infiltration and deception. So that was a very obvious choice. [00:03:52]

[00:03:52] Speaker 2: I couldn't even believe the like, government sanctioned cheating that was going on in that series. I was like, whoa. [00:03:59]

[00:04:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, for me as a journalist, I think there's a slight difference between kind of entertainment, true crime and journalism. And this is kind of like your worst catfish story, because you find out that not only is there sort of big deception, catfish, cheating, coercion, abuse, but it's sanctioned and run by the state by the police. So, you know, take your kind of average podcasts deception relationship story and kind of elevate it to state corruption and wrongdoing. [00:04:32]

[00:04:32] Speaker 2: Yeah. Did you think about making a book out of that series? Because, I mean, I feel like the material is there. [00:04:38]

[00:04:39] Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'd actually I'd actually presented one other idea before that one that kind of fell through, both with stories that I kind of thought, there's so much here, it could be a book. But going into that first podcast bit of Lies series one, I knew that some of the women were already working on their own book, so they brought out a book a year after the podcast came out. So there's actually two books on the undercover policing scandal from the women. In one memoir from one woman who's not in the series, and the other is a kind of write up from four women of how they uncovered who their partners were, and by doing so, revealed what these units were up to. [00:05:17]

[00:05:18] Speaker 2: Oh, fascinating. Okay, so you get the green light from this woman at the Telegraph who didn't have that much experience with the narrative podcasting, but was excited. So how did you form the team and then how did you approach the research process? [00:05:35]

[00:05:36] Speaker 1: So it was me and my boss, Theo Lewis, who has now left the Telegraph and is at Wondery doing more brilliant narrative podcasts. And we hired a producer, who? It was a very sort of natural fit. The first person that we met, she knew this story in depth, because she knew one of the women who had been deceived into a relationship. So she kind of had an insight into the story from the bar. And she'd done a lot of radio documentaries, but hadn't done a sort of multi-part series before in this way. So we were all kind of starting from scratch learning. But actually it was amazing because the three of us brought very different skills to the table, and we all very willing and ready to learn from each other and, you know, binge a lot of narrative shows ourselves, which really helped inform us. So it was a steep learning curve. [00:06:26]

[00:06:26] Speaker 2: What were you listening to? [00:06:27]

[00:06:28] Speaker 1: Well, I think serial is the original for sure. God, I listen to so many podcasts, it's hard to really pin down which ones most influenced me. [00:06:37]

[00:06:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, you were in That's town. Like that was kind of the era, right? [00:06:42]

[00:06:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a town. Dirty job in the dark. That was the sort of starting point, but we had begun to get more diverse series through then. The BBC had been doing some very good ones, missing crypto queen, The Lazarus Heist, but butterflies was the first narrative show from a British newspaper. So we kind of were pioneering this type of journalism in the UK. So listening to lots of things, but really, once you started gathering the material, we let the material drive how we wrote it, rather than being too kind of listening too closely to other people's shows. [00:07:19]

[00:07:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So the research process, I'm very curious about this part in particular because like I said, I'm about to go on this journey. So obviously you're doing first person interviews. How did you find all those people and then what kind of other sources did you seek out? [00:07:37]

[00:07:38] Speaker 1: So the first series was The Undercover Cops, and the second is about a medical treatment that gave people HIV. As part of the scandal in the UK that we call the infected blood scandal. And there's there's still an inquiry ongoing in the U.K. that should report in the next couple of months. It's been a 40 year fight for justice. But obviously the story has tentacles in America, which I'm sure we'll come to, which is in the podcast and book. But for both those stories, I had written features on them before doing the podcast, and that kind of led me to want to do more. So I had characters to go to initially, so sources that I'd interviewed for those features were the first people I went to. And then in both of those, their sort of campaign groups and one person leads you to another. You speak to interview one and they say, oh, you should really interview my friend whose stories kind of tells this aspect of that we haven't gone through with mine. And so I find that that kind of like snowball effect tends to start up. The snowball effect kind of gets running and you've got one interview, then another until you've got too many. [00:08:41]

[00:08:42] Speaker 2: How long did you let yourself go on that process before you started putting everything together? [00:08:47]

[00:08:48] Speaker 1: I think it's quite there's a bit of a sort of feeling to it. When you start to feel overwhelmed by the amount of information you have, people starting to tell you similar things. You think, oh, we've actually already heard that. So you start to get a sense. I think I go through these waves. In the beginning, I'm always panicked that I won't find anyone, that the podcast won't come off because you won't get any material, which I know is an anxiety that's just unfounded. Then you sort of you do a few interviews and you're like, okay, we've got some good starting material. I could stretch that out to this. And then before you know it, you've got way too much. And actually you get to a point where doing more interviews starts to give you anxiety because you realize I'm never going to be able to use all this. So you get support, may need to stop, and then you go through the information, come up with the structure, plan out the series, and then you'll find that holes and bits of information you still need to find out what needs to go down and do more reporting, but with a bit more focus towards the end. [00:09:45]

[00:09:46] Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love the way Cara explained her research process that was so helpful. We are going to be back with more genius from her in just a moment. But first, a quick word from our sponsors. Ready to claim your time back. Outsource your editing and social media with Edit Pods. Edit pods is your one stop shop for podcast, audio and video editing and social media management. They make it easy for you. Edit pods are the best podcast editors. And listen you guys. We all know how much time editing and social media can take, and it is awesome that Edit Pods can help you take some of that off your plate. So check out Edit pods.com and hey, you can buy a sponsorship to Podcast bestie at podcast bestie.com/advertise. Give us a little tutorial in podcast writing. Like now you've done these two seasons. What did you learn about how to tell a really good audio story? [00:10:53]

[00:10:54] Speaker 1: So you have to work from your audio. So I think the main mistake people make if they're coming from print writing into audio is you're used to kind of taking a quote, and then you write your piece. You find quotes that will fit in with audio writing. What you really want to do is listen to your interviews, mark them all up. Listen to how people say things like, have they cut off a sentence in the middle? Do they go up at the end? And it sounds like there's more to come? You can't just kind of take a quote and hope that it works, because you need to really see that they finish the thought. And then what you do is I tend to move clips into a document, and then you start to move them around to shape the narrative. You know, sometimes in an interview you're going chronologically, but you end up going back to a point or, oh, can we just go off here and go in a bit more detail? So kind of make sure it lines up. And then I tend to write around the clips painting a scene. You know, you don't necessarily need your interviewee to describe everything. You can kind of condense bits into links which go between the clips, and you've got to think in scenes, I think. So you want to place the listener in the moment with the character, what they're seeing, how they're feeling, where they are, any sounds you might want to layer behind that, you know, if they're in a cafe and you want some cafe sound, for example, and you want to vary the pacing and the tone, so you have some bits where you go slowly and you see everything around them, and then other bits where you move through quite quickly to like get to the next stage. But I tend to break one episode into up into quite a lot of sections, and then in each section you're trying to vary the texture of it so that the podcast feels kind of fresh and engaging throughout. [00:12:39]

[00:12:40] Speaker 2: How did you think about beginnings and endings of the each episode? [00:12:44]

[00:12:44] Speaker 1: I like to start with an intriguing prolog. So I'm always as I were doing the interviews and as I'm kind of structuring the whole series thinking what can be the prolog for that episode and it can be a little think pieces outside of the narrative. So in the second series On the Infected Blood Scandal, we had one Prolog that was about how you emotionally react when you're told you're going to die, and drawing and thoughts from all the different characters. I realized that actually they go through quite the classic steps of grief, you know, shock and denial, anger, moving on to acceptance and everyone you use the same language around. So it was kind of we weren't following one person's story or the investigation, but we were stepping out and looking at an emotion. So I like to think of the Prologs as they're they're setting you up for that episode, for what's to come, whether it's a scene. That's something shocking that we're going to get to later in the episode, or whether it's kind of an emotion that we're going to be feeling in that episode, and then by the end of the episode that you really want listeners to get to your next episode, you've got to draw them through. So thinking, where can we land this? There's a question, there's a hook to bring you to the next episode that will keep drawing listeners through the series, because you've not done a service to your characters. If people switch off after the first episode. [00:14:13]

[00:14:13] Speaker 2: Well, it worked. I have been listening to. [00:14:16]

[00:14:17] Speaker 3: The whole thing. [00:14:17]

[00:14:18] Speaker 2: So. Okay, so then turning it into the book, there was a book proposal and maybe even a publisher approached you. If you could kind of explain how the book got set in motion and, you know, the initial material that you came up with for that. [00:14:34]

[00:14:35] Speaker 1: So the second series of Bed of Lies, that was not another book out there on the Infected blood scandal that had been it was a couple of good books in America, but they were back quite a few years ago, and they didn't kind of quite reach internationally and in the UK, because the campaign is still ongoing and there's so much fighting happening week by week for compensation and recognition. It had never felt like the right time, I think, for people to kind of. Write a memoir because they had too much fight to do. So I had thought that this was one that could potentially become a book. But it was actually, as the second series finished. An editor approached me and said, would you be interested in doing a book? And I spoke to my agent who said, you shouldn't just go with him, you should write a proposal. Really think about it, and we'll take that out to editors. And although that was a big amount of work, I think it was very helpful because it meant that I could think about structuring and chapter break down and try writing prose, which is very different to features and podcast writing. And so I did that, and then we were very lucky. I got five offers and ended up going, not with the person who had originally approached me, but with an editor at Penguin. Nice. [00:15:51]

[00:15:52] Speaker 2: So when you did the proposal, like knowing that you had the podcast as this proof of concept, did you do the same kind of proposal that you would have done if that would not have existed? And what kind of details did you include in your proposal? [00:16:09]

[00:16:09] Speaker 1: So I think the bit where I was able to shortcut slightly having the podcast was in providing chapter examples. So I think normally the chapter examples you might want to provide like 2 or 3 chapters. So the prolog and then definitely chapter one at least. But because I had the podcast, I just wrote the prolog, which was only about 1500 words. So it's a very short chapter sample. So I think I was relying quite heavily on the fact that I could say, look, I've done all this work for the podcast. You can see that I know how to structure a narrative, although it's not written like prose. Hopefully it's enough to show you that I know how to do that. But I think the Prolog also definitely helped show that I can adapt my style. So the book proposal, they vary slightly between the UK and America, but they're largely similar. You write a sort of punchy bit of text that's like you're sort of pitch for the book. I try and hook the reader in the first few lines, you know, almost like what you'd see as being the blurb on the back. And that takes you into a sort of outline why this book is important now, and you do your sort of who you are, why you're the person to write this, what your kind of connection to the story is, and a vague marketing plan. In terms of I said, the inquiry is due to report next year. It would be great to have this book out there in time for the inquiry reporting, so the general public can understand what the inquiry report means. And then you have your chapter outline, which would be a breakdown chapter by chapter, maybe a paragraph for each one saying, you know, giving it in a little bit of narrative who you care for, what their story is, how they kind of link with one another, and then the sample writing. [00:17:54]

[00:17:55] Speaker 2: And you had the podcast stats to brag about and stuff like that. I'm sure you included. Right. [00:18:00]

[00:18:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely kind of list of numbers and awards and things like that. It's helpful kind of to show your credibility. And I also did a list which I think is quite good to do of articles that you could write off the back of this, like media, you know, pitches for different news organizations that you could go for. It's almost like a document that down the line, when you're thinking of your marketing plan, it's like, oh, I actually did a bit work on that. We can go back and have a look. [00:18:25]

[00:18:25] Speaker 2: Has it been helpful, like, did you go back and wind up doing some of the stuff that you thought you would do in the book proposal? [00:18:32]

[00:18:34] Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely did go back and look at that and kind of draw on it both as I was writing the book for the chapter outline and for the strategy for kind of marketing and publicity. And it's good for you to know exactly what your book is, because I think it's quite easy to think it's on this subject. But when you sit down and do that pitch and you think about how you're selling it, and we have to do that with the podcast as well, which is something for me that I've learned is, you know, how am I selling this episode? How am I making people listen to it? You know, you need to kind of learn a little bit of the kind of like, punchy language that kind of draws people in. [00:19:10]

[00:19:11] Speaker 2: It kind of surprised me that you had to go through another round of permissions with your sources. Can you tell me about this process? And was everybody down to do it again? And did they have any questions about the second iteration? How did that happen? [00:19:29]

[00:19:29] Speaker 1: I think it's very clear that this was a different piece of journalism. I needed to re-interview everyone, because the amount of information you need for a podcast is different to a book. I actually realized that what might be a sort of one page scene in a podcast and you're drawing on their audio, is like a two page bit of narrative. So the amount of detail that I needed for the book was much more. So I'd maybe spoke to them for two hours. I had to go back through that. Interview kind of like year by year and get a lot more detail on how how they were feeling, how things kind of like one thing led to another. So there was a process of kind of going back to people and saying, I'm doing a book. Would you like to be in it? Can we do another interview and fill in some gaps and get a bit more detail? And, you know, there were questions. I think people think about a book slightly differently than a podcast. It's seen as a sort of historical artifact, more so even though they both, you know, exist permanently. I think there's just that thing of a book being on a shelf and something slightly in the fact that people buy a book. So suddenly there's this idea that I'm making money out of it, but I've only ever been paid for my hours worked, you know, for the podcast and for the book. And as you probably know, journalism that well paid. So really there's not a kind of sense of like I'm now making lots of money out of this because it's a book, not a podcast at very much, similar financial setup. So I think just explaining to people, you know, that I'm not doing this to exploit or make money, it's really just to kind of get the story out there and tell it in more detail than we were able to do at the podcast and have it ready for when the inquiry reports. [00:21:18]

[00:21:19] Speaker 2: And as a journalist, I mean, you couldn't pay them even if you wanted to, really. Right. It starts to get really murky. [00:21:28]

[00:21:28] Speaker 1: Yeah. Journalistically, we don't pay for interviews, because it would affect the kind of reasons of people giving interviews and motivation. So, yeah, there's not kind of financial recompense that you can offer, but it's the same reasons for doing the podcast would match to the book. You know, the story deserves to be told. We need to stop it from happening again. The public don't know what happened to you, and they really should. And I will do it sensitively and drawing in the whole big picture. So I think people understood that and they yeah, a lot of the people that were in the podcast chose to come on board. [00:22:05]

[00:22:06] Speaker 2: So yeah, I will say I was just very disappointed in the medical establishment and I mean, obviously the pharmaceutical companies, but my expectations for them are so low at this point. But yeah, it's really unnerving and makes you think of all the other times that I'm sure profits have come first, or we've been lied to. [00:22:33]

[00:22:33] Speaker 3: About. [00:22:33]

[00:22:34] Speaker 2: What we're putting into our bodies. [00:22:35]

[00:22:36] Speaker 1: Well, I found quite disconcerting was after the book came out and I was doing some media interviews, I was joined on the BBC, but with a doctor who has chaired medical inquiries in the past, and I was actually quite shocked to learn that there were lots of patterns in this story that are replicated across other medical scandals. And he said that he'd seen things before of like cover ups and shredding of paper and not telling patients the full truth. And that actually terrified me, because although I've written this whole book about this medical scandal in which people needlessly died, I still almost had this faith that this was a one off experience, that this was unique and surely it wouldn't happen again. But that's just shows a naivety. Then speaking to him who has a kind of more bird's eye view of different scandals and like, oh no, I've seen this when stuff goes wrong at hospital with other kind of medical treatments that have gone wrong, and that actually this is like a bit symptomatic of wider problems in the kind of medical and pharmaceutical business. [00:23:40]

[00:23:43] Speaker 2: Scary. Okay. So obviously the audio and the book storytelling, they're two totally different animals. So how are they different and how did you approach structuring? I mean, we talked a little bit about how you structured the audio. How do you then decide to structure the book, and did it change from the proposal? [00:24:04]

[00:24:04] Speaker 1: Yes, it did actually change in the proposal because so with the audio for the Infected Blood Scandal series, I chose to structure it thematically. So what you do is you get closer to the truth in each episode and closer to the person culpable. But you do that by looking at the different people and groups who could be held culpable. So episode two focuses on the doctors, and we look at the role that doctors played and the bit of knowledge they had. And then by episode three, we move on to politicians. They were allowing this treatment to be imported and licensed and used with more knowledge than the doctors of the kind of big picture risks. And then you get closer to, you know, the real people culpable. And it's the pharma companies. And that's a sort of like structure that was not linear. You, as a listener are learning more episode by episode as we shift through these different groups of people. So I tried that with the book. I tried to go thematically. The first four chapters initially told the story through the eyes of doctors and patients, and it was quite narrow. As a reader, you there was a lot of information that you didn't learn straight away, and the diagnoses of HIV kind of come as a shock. And then it kind of went back and through the eyes of top doctors and politicians, you learned that there were warning signs all along, so you must go back in time, which works in the podcast. But we learned that that does not work in a book. And my editors were like, actually, I think it needs to be chronological. I think we need to go year by year and follow the different characters. So we ended up in a situation where beginning of chapter three, it just says the first sign something dark was cresting on the horizon was 1982 and the CDC first Aids report. So you get that word years before any character is told that they have this new illness. But what you do there is the tension is different because as a reader, you know exactly what's coming. You're in the know, but you're the characters who you've kind of like, really got to know and are following and rooting for. Don't. So you're kind of screaming at the page like, oh no, please, someone change something. So it's a different kind of way of building tension, I think. Whereas in podcast you kind of leaving the listener wanting more, like, I want to know what the answer is. You're driving them by kind of keeping stuff backwards in the book. They're sort of giving the information up from, and then you're driving them by saying, but will anything change? [00:26:37]

[00:26:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. It's so funny how they both work, but like very differently. You start in the prison in the book. Is that right? I loved that because then and then you come back to it in like chapter nine or something like that. And by that time when you go back, you're like, have gone on this whole journey where you hate everybody involved and you're like, oh, it's just really nice. [00:27:01][23.3]

[00:27:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, that bit of structuring works for the podcast and the book. The idea of kind of like taking a bit of like a dramatic thing that's coming later and setting up the kind of listener reader with that scene, that bit of information. So it's series two in the book. It's that prison. Like, how is this prison in America connected to these young children in Britain? Like you will find out. But for now, I'm just going to give you this, this idea that this is not a rural British story. This is an international story with intrigue and layers and criminality. And we'll come back to that. And for series one as well, I use that technique with one of the women Pfizer passport. And in the passport it has a different name to what she thinks her partner's name is. And so we start with that kind of dramatic moment, like, who's this guy? What's he doing? Then you go way back to the beginning of people meeting their boyfriends and falling in love. So it's a good way to signal this is what's to come. And then when you get there, you feel clever as a listener or reader because you're like, oh, I get it. [00:28:06]

[00:28:07] Speaker 2: Nice. Okay, so how long was each podcast script and then what was your word count for the book? And like, how much more content? Is it more content? You know, six episodes versus a one book? [00:28:26]

[00:28:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, that actually surprised me because I thought, oh, I've written a podcast on this. The book will come easily, you know, it will just flow out of me. It can't be that much longer than the podcast. So we tend to deal in word count here, whereas I know you guys think more in pages. So this I don't know what how this works. [00:28:44]

[00:28:44] Speaker 2: I like how I like word count okay. [00:28:45]

[00:28:46] Speaker 1: Okay, good. So the podcast series two on the Blood scandal. The scripts come to about 45,000 words combined. Combined? Yeah. Every all episodes together. I'm trying to think now. I think we thought the optimum word count for an episode is like 5 to 7000 words, but I always write too much. So I think the episodes were sort of ended up being, you know, 12,000. And then you have to cut them back. But so the series as a whole came to about 45,000 for seven episodes. The book by word count initially was about 80,000, but I don't know how much they how much store they set by these word counts, because I think every book, they say 80,000 words and then you kind of see how it goes. Now I always overwrite. So my first draft was 140,000 words. So that's 100,000 words more than the podcast and almost double what I was meant to write. [00:29:45]

[00:29:45] Speaker 2: Where did you land? [00:29:46]

[00:29:46] Speaker 1: We landed with about 120,000 118,000. So it did come down. But was still well over what it was meant to be, and a lot more than the podcast. But there's new characters. Every scene is built up with more words. And there's, I realize for the for the podcast, you could have someone talking about a leading doctor or a politician, and that was sufficient. But in the book you really wanted to see things from that person's eyes. But using historical documents, from the time I could recreate what was happening through deceased people's eyes. Whereas in the podcast, if you don't have an interview, it's very hard to to bring that person alive. So you tend to bring the people alive through interviews. So I could go down different avenues and I could tell a fuller story in the book. And so that ended up bulking it out to many thousands of words. Well. [00:30:42]

[00:30:45] Speaker 2: Hey besties, if you are new around here, I want to let you know that Podcast Bestie is not just a podcast, it is also a newsletter. I love sending out great resources to all of my subscribers, including my free subscribers. But with a paid subscription, you get access to a bunch of other stuff. You get my audience growth experiments, behind the scenes of my monetization efforts, and other content and marketing tips. I send out one new post every month. You also get access to the whole archive for that, and you get access to Michael Castaneda's column all about audio engineering, sound editing, mixing, and mastering. It is such a treat to read his column and you get the whole archive for that too. And I love teaching. I freaking can't get enough of it. So I am offering a new perk a monthly webinar to keep you at the top of your podcasting game. Of course, it will be recorded for your convenience, so head on over to Podcast Bestie on Substack and subscribe and make sure you upgrade your subscription to paid. Let's talk about the book editing process. I have both versions, the UK version and the US version. I think they're pretty similar, except you know the spellings of the words. But let us know if there are any differences and then how you worked with like, did you mainly work with one editor and then the other one kind of piggybacked, or was it all a very mutual situation? How did it go down? [00:32:18]

[00:32:18] Speaker 1: Yeah. So the British book The Poison Line, that was my original title that I pitched the book with, and that was drawing in this idea of the manufacturing line from the prisoners, donors in America to the factories that were making factory the medical product, and then kind of the line that brought it over to the UK and everything that went wrong in between. And the American editor wanted to kind of make it, focus on the prison and the American side of the story. And so I go to Louisiana State Penitentiary is known as the farm. So the American book is called Blood Farm. And I think the American sort that was a bit more kind of punchy. So. I got the UK deal originally. But then the UK publisher had the rights. They had the world rights. So they pitched the book to America. Oh, we updated the proposal slightly for that. And then they took it out to the American market and the US publishers diversion came on board. And so I was very lucky, actually, to work with two editors throughout. We had the US editor would feed in all her notes to the UK editor, and he'd consolidate them and then send them to me. So I work with Liz Gassman, who's in New York, and Greg Clowes in London. And actually it was great because Liz was much more of a big picture structure person. She was the one that was like the older isn't quite working, and she actually had to go herself like pulling forward a lot of information. And then once I saw how that worked, I kind of went to town on it and like, changed it. All right. And Greg's much more kind of like character development line by line. He's very good at polishing up your words. And, got an art to it. So the combination of those two worked really well. So I feel very lucky with that process. [00:34:07]

[00:34:08] Speaker 2: Oh that's awesome. [00:34:08]

[00:34:09] Speaker 1: Both books are the same apart from the title. I had put in a bit of extra detail to explain some things to the American audience, but we didn't actually end up including those because it is very much like a British and American story. So the books are the same ultimately, apart from the cover in the titles. [00:34:25]

[00:34:25] Speaker 2: So, okay, it's a very fact based story. I would love to talk about the fact checking process, which always gives me so much anxiety. I think you did it yourself. Did you consider hiring someone and did you make a document? How did you do it? [00:34:45]

[00:34:45] Speaker 1: The fact checking process was was huge for this book because also the legal process was really significant because you're making lots of allegations. There's also very sensitive medical information. So the legal read was really thorough. So I was very glad at the point that we did that, that I had done an extensive fact checking process. And also the worst thing I think would be the idea of like, the book goes into print and someone comes back to you and says, you know, I found all these inaccuracies in there and and it devalues the whole book and, you know, the story that you're trying to get out there. So I guess it's helpful to add here that I wrote this book and got it out in an inhuman amount of time. I got my book deal in May 2022. [00:35:30]

[00:35:31] Speaker 2: Oh, wow. [00:35:31]

[00:35:32] Speaker 1: Yeah. And the book came out in September last year, so September 2023. So in probably 15 months, I wrote the book, edited it, and we got it out there. So it was an inhuman amount of work. And actually, weirdly, because it was so tight, it only really left it up to me to fact check. I had like two weeks in which I could fact check, and I just didn't feel that I could kind of pass the whole thing over with all my notes, and someone else could get their head round it, and it be fair to them to do that process in that amount of time. So I ended up doing the fat check myself. And for that I, phoned sources and read through their sections, the facts in their sections when it was kind of personal story. Also check details against inquiry testimony and witness statements. There were some sections that were medical and legal detail that I shared with knowledgeable people to read through and to make sure that I've got the facts right. And that was really helpful. That did kind of sift out quite a few things. I think the whole process surprised me. And how much just small details here and there slip through. So those kind of bulk sections of like phone calls and asking people, expert readers to read. And then I actually went line by line and checked for source material against what I'd written. And there were some times when I just couldn't find the source material, like, where did I get this bit of information from? So that was where Footnoting helps massively as you're writing, just kind of footnote everything, just even if it's just bung in a link, you know, to a news article or to document where you got that bit of information. So ultimately I kind of went line by line and, and did check everything. And it was very intense. It was a lot of 1 a.m. nice. I think I was even on holiday for a wedding. I'd be getting up in the morning and doing some fat checking while everyone else slept. It was very tiring, but I'm very glad I did it. [00:37:31]

[00:37:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, the time frame in a small way, is like a little bit of a blessing because you're so steeped in the material that if it would have been years, it might have been even easier to make mistakes. [00:37:42]

[00:37:43] Speaker 1: That's true. It was all very front of mind, which was good. I think I could have had a bit more time, but that is something you just still stretched out, and I'd probably still have been working till 1 a.m., so. Yeah, in a way, it's like, okay, well, it's done now and I can sleep. [00:37:57][

[00:37:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So we talked a little bit about the legal stuff was kind of intense. And that is a concern for me too, just like the potential for being sued. So did you go into your book contract with that in mind, like wanting to make sure you were protected? And then another contract question is about IP. And I think since it went through the Telegraph, you can kind of explain if you retained any other any of the IP. [00:38:31]

[00:38:32] Speaker 1: So I didn't realize this about book contracts, and I don't know if it's the same in America, but you actually have to pay for the legal read. So I think we split the cost of the legal read, me and my editor. So actually the fee for the lawyer comes out of my advance, which I didn't know until after the fact. But, you know, that's fine. It needed to be done. I wasn't not going to happen, but I think, you know, Penguin would be the people that would be sued rather than me because of the nature of them being my publisher. So there's one good thing about being published with a kind of big publisher behind you rather than self-publishing. And we had a lot of helpful advice from that in-house lawyer throughout on different points. I had made the podcast before and Touchwood had not had legal issues. So as a journalist, I've got quite used to that in my work of kind of making sure your information is grounded in evidence and you don't go too far, what you can kind of reasonably say and prove. And I did have that at the back of my mind, but a lot of my information was kind of backed up with inquiry testimony, court documents. So that's helpful. And the legal read was really helpful because they did really go line by line. And he picked up bits of information to say, where have you got this evidence from? Because, you know, you're making an allegation here. And actually it was like a double fact check because then I'd go and I'd look at the source material. I'd say, look, it's in this document, it's here. Sometimes I'd like maybe actually adapt the wording having redone that. But. So that did actually it was, you know, the legal document was like 30 pages long. [00:40:08]

[00:40:09] Speaker 2: Oh, wow. [00:40:09]

[00:40:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really extensive. We had a three hour meeting going through each point. It was intense. [00:40:16]

[00:40:17] Speaker 2: Was there anything ultimately on that read where you had to take anything big out? [00:40:22]

[00:40:23] Speaker 1: No. There might have been a couple of small lines here or there, but no, I think because I had so thoroughly referenced and fact checked, I could kind of back everything up with a document. So that was very helpful for the legal read and giving them confidence in what I'd written. [00:40:38]

[00:40:39] Speaker 2: And then what about the IP? [00:40:40]

[00:40:41] Speaker 1: So this is a place where I think the podcast world is still developing and publishing is, you know, it has been going for hundreds of years. And so interestingly, in publishing you as the author, retain your rights to the story. So if the book gets a optioned for TV or film, they are optioning that from you, the author. In podcasting, it tends to be that the person who is publishing your podcast takes the rights, so if it gets optioned, they are the ones who are optioning out the rights. I do find it's quite interesting because publishers are printing a physical book, spending a lot of money on paper, distributing it worldwide, putting up a lot of cost upfront, and then you retain more eyes than podcast production companies who are putting in a bit of money for you to report and make the podcast. But ultimately that expense is kind of significantly lower. But they're not selling the podcast. It's much harder to make podcasts in the same way. Books. So, you know, hardback, 20 pounds, $30. A lot of people expect to listen to podcasts for free. So the business models are different. And so it is interesting. And so in that regard, if the book had come first, I'd be in a much better position than because I made Bed of Lies as a staff writer for the Telegraph, where because I'm on staff, the Telegraph own everything that I make while working for them now. They were very good at letting me do the book completely off my own back. So that has been done, you know, without them maintaining any rights over it, even though that was kind of some of the source material originated in the same place, the book is its own new product that I have the rights to. But the podcast came first, so the podcast was optioned for drama, and that was with The Telegraph. But as you might know, often what they want is you on board as a consultant and it's your contacts and your knowledge that really helps production companies in developing TV, film, documentary, drama. So I have been working with the company on that, and actually doing the book means I have so much more information and so much more contacts. So although my book has not been optioned, they are finding ways. Kind of or numerate my work through consultancy, but it is very complicated and I don't really know what the best way to go about it is as a creator. Would it be better if I was freelance? I don't know. It probably would be better to do the book first, and then sell the podcasts and documentaries and things off the back of the book, which is the thing that you own as the author. But I don't know if you've had a different experience. [00:43:29]

[00:43:30] Speaker 2: No, I don't know. I mean, I'm like on the cusp of trying to figure this out, but yeah, and usually the podcast company, even if you are like really negotiating hard for the rights, it's like they probably won't let you own all of it, you know? But if you could own a controlling like 51%, I don't know. But that is an important point, I think, to negotiate for. But it's interesting, I was. My follow up question was going to be, there's so much more in the book. There's so many more characters and stuff like that. So I was curious if they also optioned the book, but that's a good workaround to just hire you, and then they just kind of get that that way. [00:44:15]

[00:44:15] Speaker 1: My understanding is on the optioning side of things, what they really want is to be able to go to a commissioner and say, this is based on this bit of IP, and there's a proof of kind of listenership, readership and narrative structuring here. But they didn't need two pieces of IP to do that from. So that was why they were kind of like, we don't really need to optioned the book. But there is a slight question because the book is still available for option. So if that project doesn't work, then there's a chance that someone else could optioned the book. And, you know, there's a chance that could happen. An option fees kind of. They lapse after a couple of years. So that could happen. [00:44:57]

[00:44:58] Speaker 2: In which case it would just be you, right. And not the Telegraph. [00:45:00]

[00:45:01] Speaker 1: Yeah. So now having done the book, don't tell the Telegraph that. I would say one thing. I would say kind of I think you have to write a book and make a podcast because you care about making that product. I think we get very wrapped up in kind of optioning and TV and film that it threatens to become the main concern. And I think you can't write a book because you want a film, and you can't make a podcast because you want a TV series, because if you just want to make a TV series, then you should be in TV. And so you can't be making a podcast thinking, this is going to be on TV because you need to make the podcast the best it can be because you care about that medium and that's the medium you want to be working in. So I think it shouldn't be all, be all and end all. But the other thing of that, yes, if a company owns the rights, they get money for nothing, which is unfair. If I had had to give up some of my advance for the book because the rights were rested with someone else, I would have been really annoyed because that book was so much work that, you know, on an hour by hour wage. I've been not paid very much money at all. And so if I had had to give like half of my advance to the Telegraph because they owned 50% of the rights, and in my contract it said, I get 50%. And I had done all that work, and then I had lost half that money, which was my salary for doing it. Because of that, I would have been really annoyed. So I think that's something I would say if you're thinking if a podcast comes first or a book either way, actually, if it's something that you're going to have to spend time making, then you want to be fairly paid for the work because it's not. Yeah, money for nothing. It's money for work you're actually having to do. [00:46:47]

[00:46:48] Speaker 2: Okay, so before we go into our like wrap up questions, is there anything else you want to share about either the podcasting process or the book writing process or both? [00:46:59]

[00:47:00] Speaker 1: I'd say they're very different, and it's interesting that the book is a very isolating experience. You're doing it on your own, whereas a podcast is such a collaborative thing. You've got the producer, you've got the editor, you might have a bigger team, but every decision is kind of you're talking it through together. And all of a sudden doing the book, I was like, oh, how should I start this chapter? Oh, I don't know. An editor is like, send me the draft when it's ready. So you don't have that person to be bouncing every decision off of. So it's a much more kind of you've got to really dig deep to kind of find the confidence to make decisions. And so that I think is an interesting difference between the two. I enjoyed them both. I don't think there's one that I like the best. I just think I like the idea of alternating between the two. [00:47:47]

[00:47:48] Speaker 2: Yeah. As a writer and a podcaster, I totally get that. And I think they, you know, depends on the story, of course. But I think when they can work in tandem, that's like a really beautiful thing because. You got to do the research anyway. So. [00:48:01]

[00:48:01] Speaker 1: Yeah. And that there's, you know, downsides to kind of thinking, oh God, I'm going to do a whole new thing on this subject. But actually you've done the groundwork, so why not kind of use that rather than start from scratch. [00:48:13]

[00:48:13] Speaker 2: So I guess normally I just do this for writing, but let's do it for both. So you can give a writing answer and a podcasting answer. So do you have any bucket list writing goals and podcasting goals. [00:48:26]

[00:48:27] Speaker 1: On the writing goals? It's tricky because I have now written a nonfiction book. I wanted to write fiction. I have written a novel, but I don't actually know if I should kind of go back to that and pursue that, or if I should now kind of really make myself a nonfiction writer. So I would say like a bucket goal is get a novel published. But I'm also still actually trying to grapple with this identity in the public of whether I should try and release a novel, or whether I should kind of stick to nonfiction for now, as I kind of carve out my identity as a writer. [00:48:58]

[00:48:59] Speaker 2: Oh, interesting. And then on the podcasting side. [00:49:02]

[00:49:02] Speaker 1: I'm making a third series of Bed of Lies, which will be out later this year sometime around summer. So I guess an immediate goal is hopefully make that as good as the previous two series and have some impact with that would be amazing. I think after that I would like to do a podcast. Maybe that's a bit more kind of contemporary. So my Bed of Lies has become sort of historic injustices that people don't know enough about, and kind of lifting the lid on those. I would like to do something where I'm revealing something happening now and potentially stop some sort of corruption or wrongdoing. So bring it a bit more contemporary. [00:49:37]

[00:49:38] Speaker 2: Oh, I can't wait to hear it. What's one piece of writing advice you wish you could give your former self? And then we'll do the podcasting. [00:49:45]

[00:49:46] Speaker 1: You've got to just really do it. Which I know sounds silly, but you need to. Lots of people want to write and talk about writing, but don't really sit down and do it. And doing the novel in my spare time really taught me you have to chip away every day, even if you write 300 words in 20 minutes. If you do that every day, you will get better, and at the end of the year, you'll have a whole book's worth. And so I think a lot of people think, oh, well, I'll leave it to the weekend or I'll leave it to my week off and you'll never kind of actually produce your final product if you do it like that. And doing the novel as this kind of daily hour. When I got to the nonfiction book and I had to write this book in it, yeah, it meant that I could actually break it down, you know, 700 words a day, which then became 2000 words a day. But you're sort of breaking it down. It's like it's the cliche of marathon, not a sprint. You're not going to run a marathon if you don't do any training. And I think with writing, you really have to just and just start. Don't be scared, start. A lot of people like you asked me at the beginning, when did you call yourself a writer? People are scared to call themselves and all said to do it, but just yeah, open a laptop and start. [00:50:56]

[00:50:57] Speaker 2: I love that. What's one piece of podcasting advice you wish you could give your former self? [00:51:01]

[00:51:02] Speaker 1: Record everything because you never know when a bit of audio is going to be come in handy. If you have an amazing drink that leads you to a story, you kind of want to have a bit of audio from that drink on file. And again, you know, if you have ideas, write them down, flush them out and pitch them. I've had a lot of ideas that I've thought of and haven't written down and then have become podcasts elsewhere, and every time you sort of kick yourself slightly and go, damn, I had that idea. And so I actually kind of like, catch those ideas, put them down and do something with them. [00:51:36]

[00:51:37] Speaker 2: Yes. What's one tip for writers trying to get a book published? [00:51:40]

[00:51:42] Speaker 1: Don't be scared to ask other writers questions and agents and get a sense of, you know, where your book might fit and how you're going to market it early on, because people are always very willing to share their knowledge. And I think that really helps you frame your own work and start talking about it. You're never going to have a situation where the first time you talk about your book is when you're sitting in front of an editor who's going to buy it. By the time you get to that point, you want to have had so many conversations about it that you're bored of talking about it. [00:52:13]

[00:52:13] Speaker 2: What's one piece of writing that makes you jealous? You didn't write it? [00:52:16]

[00:52:17] Speaker 1: I love astound, the podcast. I just think it's so beautifully written while also kind of telling the story and building the audio world. It's just kind of like sentence by sentence. When you go and read the transcription and listen along to that podcast, it's absolute masterpiece. And I wish I could kind of frame my podcast in the way that he does. [00:52:36]

[00:52:37] Speaker 2: How that's interesting. I'm going to have to listen to that now, thinking about the writing, because he was such a crazy character that that's sort of what was like front and center for me. [00:52:46]

[00:52:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, the main character's crazy, but really, I think it's in the writing of how the writer draws the character out and, like, sets him in this. You know, he's he's a clock maker and he sets him in this world of time and. Base and it's just really beautifully done. [00:53:01]

[00:53:01] Speaker 2: What's your all time favorite piece of your own writing? [00:53:04]

[00:53:05] Speaker 1: It's tricky. My book launch, I read the end of the book, which is slightly on conventional. Giving away the ending, but I, I was that ending came right at the end of the second or third draft. We just weren't sure that ending was working. And I just kind of like it came to me and I kind of put it down and I think, yeah, I'm really pleased with with how it finishes things, but it kind of came quite late in the process. So maybe for the sake of this, I'm going to say that although, I'm not fully sure. [00:53:39]

[00:53:40] Speaker 2: Well, I just have to compliment you one more time. I so loved both seasons of the podcast. I can't wait to listen to the third season. And just in the interest of time, I have both books. But I listened to you do the audiobook, which I loved, and you crushed it with this. Thank you. I guess one final question on the audiobook. What was that experience like? [00:54:06]

[00:54:06] Speaker 1: That was a unique form of torture. [00:54:08]

[00:54:09] Speaker 3: Because. [00:54:09]

[00:54:12] Speaker 1: It was five days, 9 to 5, 9 to 6, sitting in a studio reading relentlessly. And at the point that you do your audiobook, the book is finalized and it's gone to print. So you can't change anything. But there's obviously, inevitably a couple of mistakes here and there. You also worried that every page you turn, you could come across a mistake. And also it's a very different style to the podcast. So she kept saying, you're talking the mike, you need to calm down. No one's going to be able to listen to the whole book if you're shouting at them all the time. Where is it? The podcast is sort of high energy. You've got to keep the listeners engaged and it's going over music and as so much else going on, because I think it was a lot more relentless than I realized. Even narrating podcast scripts like you do them one by one. And actually, the amount of words that you're saying is significantly less than the kind of clips you're using. So yeah, but I'm really glad I did it. It also gave me a kind of final read through of the book that is, you know, you don't really want to go back and read your work, but I think you do have to. And so that was good. And yeah, it was a it was a really nice experience. I also got free lunch every day. So I made it better. [00:55:22]

[00:55:24] Speaker 2: I thought it came out really great. So you didn't attack the mic too hard? [00:55:28]

[00:55:29] Speaker 3: Okay, good. Yeah. [00:55:30]

[00:55:30] Speaker 1: You made it through. It's interesting that that's a quicker that that's quicker than reading. But I guess because you can be doing things while you're listening. [00:55:37]

[00:55:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, you can like be on the treadmill and you can also listen. I like to listen at like 1.1 speed, which is just slightly faster. So listeners can obviously buy the poison line, which is the UK version of the book, Blood Farm, the US version. Listen to Bed of Lies. What season one called. [00:55:58]

[00:55:59] Speaker 1: Season one is love and season two is blood. [00:56:01]

[00:56:02] Speaker 2: Yes. Do you have a key? Can you share the key word for season three? Oops. [00:56:07]

[00:56:08] Speaker 1: We've not quite landed on it yet, but I guess I will go with conflict. [00:56:12]

[00:56:13] Speaker 2: Oh, okay. All right. I'm intrigued. Well, thank you so much for your time. I have learned so much. And again, I just really loved what you did with the podcast and the book. [00:56:22]

[00:56:23] Speaker 1: Thank you so much for reading and listening and all the insightful questions. [00:56:26][

[00:56:29] Speaker 2: Thanks again to Kara and thank you for tuning in to podcast Bestie Bestie. For more podcasting strategy, make sure you check out the last episode with Karen down on V for V monetization and podcast. Bestie is now on YouTube, so head on over to YouTube.com slash app podcast Bestie to subscribe! You can watch my interviews with James Cridland, Katie Hearn, church, Gary Arnott and more. And podcast bestie has been getting some awesome reviews from the podcasting community on Apple Podcasts. I got one recently that is from Sea Power 1986. Great for podcasters. I love all Kourtney's advice for my podcast. So helpful! Exclamation point! Thank you so much Sea Power! I so appreciate it and I want to collaborate with you bestie. If you leave me a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts and email it to me, I will give you a free shout out on the show right here. Next episode and podcast bestie is now on the fountain app, so if you listen on fountain or another V for V platform and you get value from this show, send me a booster gram. I am dedicated to reading my booster gram comments on the show. I want to read a few that I got after the last episode about V for V, I got a free boost for Karen. Added to my queue to listen to later. That's from Nick. Mere Mortals podcast boosted 22,222 SATs. Thanks for having me on, Courtney. It's always funny listening in and hearing all the small words sentences you like to clarify, but your editing here made it sound better than I remember it all coming out. Smiley face. I liked those additional notes of your experience using fountain. The model runs on honesty, so being real about how it's going for you is important to avoid misconceptions. V for V can be a long journey at times, but those are always the better ones. Anyway, I totally agree. Thank you. Karen and Gale tear boosted 100 sats. Thank you so much. Jean being boosted 2222 SATs. I think that's a row of ducks. I'm not sure I need to set up. Value for value only works when you, as the podcaster, embraced doing the ask during each show and acknowledging those who contribute V for V is really a two way street. Chris Fisher of Jupiter Broadcasting is an example I think this show's audience could relate to. Maybe you could do a follow up episode with him? Yes, that's a great idea. I would love that. Thank you. Jean, being an old shark boosted 100 sats and said, thanks especially for the honesty in terms of what you personally have earned on a V for V basis. Good job. Awesome! I love all these comments. I think I got another one that slipped through somewhere from Oscar Mary. So thank you to Nick. Thank you to Oscar. Thank you to Car and Down. And if you want to leave me a booster gram, I would love to read it here next episode. Plus, there's another easy way to get featured on the show. You can simply buy a sponsorship, a podcast, best E-commerce advertise. I have super affordable packages starting at just $25. And check out my other podcast for more of my audio creations. I have Private Parts Unknown, which is about love and sexuality around the world, and the bleeders about book writing and publishing. And you can follow me in between episodes at Courtney Kozak. My last name is coca K on Instagram and Twitter, and I send out lots of newsletter exclusives to my besties. So of course, make sure you're signed up for podcast Bestie on Substack. That's podcast bestie.substack.com/welcome. Until next time, happy podcasting. Bye bestie. [00:56:29]

TranscriptCourtney KocakTranscript, podcasting, Courtney Kocak, Podcast Bestie, Cara McGoogan, book publishing