Entrepreneurs, podcasts can make your business pop

I listen to a number of podcasts for writers but one that sticks out for me is Mur Lafferty's, "I Should Be Writing: The Podcast for Wannabe Fiction Writers." Her podcast addresses the ups and downs of the creative life.

In the four years that I have been listening to Mur I have noticed that although her podcast was designed for beginning fiction writers her messages are also beneficial to entrepreneurs.

The creative life of a writer and the entrepreneur's life has their moments of doubts about how we are going to succeed in our endeavors, how to handle rejections, or deal with our families while being true to our own dreams and goals. Mur says that we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings. And through her podcast she has allowed her listeners to follow her on her roller coaster journey to the business of writing fiction.

I was interested in learning more from Mur on two subjects: First I wanted to learn more of what she had to say about the creative life that could benefit and give more inspiration to entrepreneurs. And also I wanted to get her to share how to create and market a podcast that would allow entrepreneurs to be able to use the podcasting tool to help build their business.

Mur says that what makes her sad is when she meets people who allow their dreams to be deferred because the end result looks unattainable. She says success in anything requires staying the course until you reach your goal.

"If you decide that you are going to run a marathon you don't strap on your shoes and go out and try to run the marathon immediately," she said. "You strap on your shoes and go out and run a half mile and then the next day maybe you run a little further and a little further until finally one day you finally hit that 26.2 mile marathon mark."

"One of the more scary things for any creative person to live with is when they are given rules instead of suggestions. And if the rules don't work they end up saying to themselves that they are not meant to succeed," she said. She went on to say that we each have to find our own rhythm and dance to that rhythm.

And she has certainly found her rhythm to dance to. She is a freelance writer, consultant, and the author of two books. Her latest book, set for release next week, is The Ghost Train to New Orleans. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer 2013. And she has thousands of subscribers downloading her free podcasts.

That leads me to the second part of my chat with Mur. Podcasting! She successfully used podcasting to help her establish a dedicated audience.

In 2005 she started listening to podcast designed for writers in search of something that could help her in her writing life. But she noticed that all of the podcast were more about the craft of writing and less about the emotional upheavals. She said that she believed that there had to be other people out there who needed a podcast that talked about more than the craft. She quickly put the plans into place to fill that void.

I asked Mur if she thought that podcasts were beneficial today for various kinds of businesses. She didn't hesitate in her answer. "Oh absolutely," she said, "In fact they are more important and beneficial today than ever. There's always room for someone who has something new to say on a subject."

She targeted her show to beginning fiction writers who were discouraged. Her No. 1 suggestion: Find a niche and fill it.

With the help of Mur Lafferty and other research that I am still working on, we will look more closely at some of the aspects of podcasting in the future, which includes:

• How to select a podcast-hosting company
• How to create a promo
• What to do with the promo once it's created
• How to network your podcast
• Reaching out to various markets
• Blogposts
• Working with iTunes

Whether you are ready to podcast now or later this information will be in your entrepreneurial tool box when you are ready for it.

Meanwhile until next week think about a niche that you can fill by podcasting and I will bring you more of Mur's suggestions along with my additional findings on the subject next week.

You can visit Mur at www.murverse.com or email mightymur@gmail.com

Gladys Edmunds, founder of Edmunds Travel Consultants in Pittsburgh, is an author and coach/consultant in business development. Her column appears Wednesdays. E-mail her at gladys@gladysedmunds.com. An archive of her columns is here. Her website is gladysedmunds.com.