Podium, a renowned audiobook publisher best known for sci-fi and fantasy, has significantly broadened its digital library and the opportunities available to writers. Now a full-service publisher that distributes books in all formats, Podium Entertainment is preparing to launch its inaugural print list. PW spoke with the company's publisher, Victoria Gerken, about its growth, its mission, and how Podium is meeting the publishing needs of authors from all backgrounds and genres.
As one of the largest digital-first publishers in the world, what continues to be your guiding mission?
Our guiding mission is to discover, develop, and amplify the works of emerging and bestselling authors, and we’ve been serving authors for more than a dozen years.
Podium is arguably best known as an audiobook publisher, but you’ve expanded! What can you share about Podium’s publishing evolution?
Yes! We are no longer purely an audiobook publisher but expanded into offering full book publishing services about three years ago. This evolution was in response to the needs of our authors, who had found success via self-publishing and partnering with Podium on their audiobooks. And in some cases, authors wanted to devote more time and energy to their writing than to the business of publishing and marketing. The work of publishing is not insignificant—as a publisher, I know exactly how significant it is to do it well!—so we saw an opportunity to help our existing authors do more of what they want and less of what they don’t want to do and then expand to offering book contracts to authors we had never published in audio.
One exciting development is your plan to publish and distribute print titles. What made you pursue this option, and what can you share about your inaugural titles?
Again, this was a natural evolution as we grew our publishing business and developed a catalogue that would excite retailers. Our goal is to expand the audience for our authors’ work and make sure their books are seen by as many people as possible, and we partnered with [the Ingram-owned distributor] Two Rivers to make that happen.
Podium is particularly well known for its sci-fi titles. How has your library broadened, in terms of genre?
In partnering with self-published authors, our audiobooks tend to be in genres that have been underserved by traditional publishers but that are very popular with readers and listeners. So for a long time that was sci-fi and fantasy stories, but as entrepreneurial authors recognize what readers really want, we are right alongside them in publishing great books. So our catalogue mix changes with the market. We saw the leading edge of the growth in the popularity of romance and romantasy a couple of years ago, so we have a really strong library to meet the current moment and desire for those kinds of reads and listens! We’ve had wonderful support from Barnes & Noble for The Pucking Wrong series by C.R. Jane, so I’m particularly looking forward to seeing that in stores at the end of the month.
What type of guidance and support do you provide to authors?
We meet authors where they are and provide them with what they need, so on the publishing side that could range from developmental editing to advice on how to grow their audience via social media. Due to our audiobook foundation, we pay a lot of attention to how the audiobook can drive awareness of the book holistically via creative content marketing. And as audiobook sales continue their march upward, we understand that the audio edition should not be an afterthought but is often the engine of sales.
Can you talk a bit about your robust distribution channels. How far and wide can authors expect their books, in all formats, to be distributed?
Wherever books are sold! That's the short answer. We are working closely with the Two Rivers team as we get set up because our genres are not necessarily familiar to buyers—again, because they are underserved genres from traditional publishers. For example, the LitRPG and Progression Fantasy series have sold extremely well in digital formats, so we have high hopes for them in stores and expect series like Beware of Chicken by CasualFarmer and The Lost Edge by Andrew Rowe to be popular with fantasy readers.
Podium has long been a leader within the indie audiobook space. What does it mean to you to continue to support today’s talented indie authors in new and enterprising ways?
Serving the indie author community has been a pleasure and a privilege for me personally in the eight years I’ve spent at Podium. So being able to expand the services we can offer our authors has been fantastically rewarding professionally. This development has also provided Podium with the ability to grow into new genres and acquire books by authors who didn’t start out self-publishing, so this also allows us to compete for titles at auction that might not have been available in just audio. We have embraced a hybrid approach with authors, always keeping our mission at the center of our decisions. We ask ourselves, what will help a particular author grow their business and help them find their readers? And then execute on that answer.
What’s next for Podium? How do you anticipate the company growing beyond this major development?
We have recently rebranded as Podium Entertainment. This change reflects the expansion of our business beyond audiobook publishing over the last few years. And also is a broad identity that will encompass initiatives that we haven’t imagined yet. In the near-term we are really excited to get our Fall 2024 titles into readers’ hands and we’ll be launching Spring / Summer 2025 next month with Two Rivers so the discovery of new books and continuation of beloved series never stops for Podium.
So far our partners have been incredibly receptive to our approach to publishing, so as we continue to grow we’re genuinely excited to continue iterating and innovating on ways to help emerging authors better navigate the world of publishing in ways that make sense for every type of author.
