[Update April 2026: Hey there! We have a brand new email specifically for podcast pitches. Reach me at pitches (at) draftingthepast (dot) com.]
I love hearing from potential authors who want to be interviewed by me (and I'm still a little surprised and flattered that anyone does!). Like most people in the modern world, though, I'm under a deluge of daily emails, and pitches can easily slip off my radar.
I get 20-30 pitches every month. As I type this, I have more than 20 books in front of me or on my e-reader waiting for me to read and decide whether to invite the author on the (weekly!) podcast. You can do the math: I get far, far more pitches than I could ever hope to feature.
To improve the odds of you getting a yes from me (and maybe other podcast hosts), I've put together some advice on pitching the show. These, of course, reflect my personal preferences, as well as things I've seen work and not work over many, many pitch emails. That said, I suspect the principles hold true for many other podcasts. I will come back to this post to update this advice over time, so feel free to share and bookmark it.
- It's really not about you. The rest of these pieces of advice are in no particular order, but I want to emphasize this. If I turn down your pitch (or, more likely, never respond because I was doing something else when I read your email and I forgot all about it), it likely has nothing to do with you or the quality of your work. Pitches don't work out for a lot of reasons. Sometimes the book isn't a great fit (see tip below). Often I get pitches inspired by a recent episode ("Hey, you just did this episode with the author of a book about the history of beer, maybe you want to interview me about my slightly different history of beer!"), but this isn't a great strategy, because I try to mix up the book subjects. Similarly, maybe I'm trying for a mix of press size/book subject/author background that you don't know about. Maybe the pitch just didn't immediately grab me and was lost in the email void. These are all me problems. Please don't take them personally.
- Listen to the podcast you're pitching. At the very least, do some cursory research. If you've listened to any episode of DTP for example, you know that it's a show about writing history, not the subjects of the books themselves. Pitches that say "I'd like to talk to you about [subject of my new book]" and nothing else automatically get ignored. I also get a lot of pitches for historical fiction, but I rarely do interviews with fiction writers (there are only a couple in the archive), and I mostly want fiction writers who trained in academic history before they turned to fiction. There are many awesome podcasts about writing fiction out there! That's not the focus of this one.
- Tell me what interesting perspective you bring to the conversation. Particularly if I don't already know you or your work, telling me what you have to say about writing that listeners might not have heard before is a great way to grab my attention. Maybe you had to work with an unusual source base, or you wrote the whole thing in another language before translating it into English, or you work with some obscure piece of software that you think other historians should try. Whatever it is, telling me why our conversation about writing will be interesting (and giving me clues about what questions I could ask you) is so helpful. I'm always trying to think about what listeners will get out of our conversation, so it's great to show that you are thinking about this, too.
- Please do tell me about your work. Even though we'll be talking about writing (and I will do some research before I say yes), it helps if you give me a little summary of your work right in the email. The less legwork I have to do to get to "yes," the better for you.
- Include an anecdote. If something interesting happened during your writing process (your computer lost an early draft but the rewrite was even better, say, or you met a relative of your subject on a playground on the other side of the country), tell me! The more I know that this interview will have interesting tidbits for readers, the better.
- Tell me how I can get a copy of your book. I like to read at least your most recent work before our interview, so it's helpful if you can put me in contact with the press to facilitate that. A physical or digital copy is totally fine with me. If you don't know the answer to this, that's fine, too, just let me know so I can plan ahead!
- It's OK to follow up. You've probably gathered from this that I often lose track of emails, so it never bothers me if you ping me again to make sure I saw your email. Again, though, if I fail to respond or say no, it really is nothing personal. Feel free to complain about me to your friends.
- Please don't pitch me on social media. This used to happen a lot and it was great, but between the mess of social media and my own scattered focus, I can't handle pitches in too many places. Shoot me an email with your pitch instead. Likewise, if we talk in person, it helps if you send me a follow-up email to remind me about the conversation.
I genuinely appreciate every single person who takes the time to seek out the show and suggest themselves (or someone else!) as a guest. I feel a great deal of embarrassment that I can't respond to everyone, but sometimes I'm hanging on by a thread, friends. I appreciate your understanding.
