Learn More About Hosting

Can I become an NBN host?

We are looking for people who "know their stuff." They might be graduates students, professors, researchers, journalists, teachers, professionals, or anyone who has expertise in a topic. If you think about it, you probably fall into this category; almost everyone knows a lot about something. So ask yourself: "What do I know a lot about?" We're also looking for people who like to talk. If you are the kind of person who enjoys talking to people who know a lot about something--so much that they invested years in researching, writing and publishing an academic book about it--then you would probably be a good NBN host.

What do NBN hosts do?

It's really very simple. NBN hosts pick the books they cover, pretty much any book they like. Most of the books we do are academic, but not all. We do books by trade publishers all the time. And they don't necessarily have to be "new." They just have to be "new to the audience," meaning we can't have already covered them. Once you pick a book, you contact the author (or publisher) about doing an interview). Since almost all authors want to talk about their books, almost all authors say "Yes, I'd live to be interviewed." You'll get the book free from the publisher, so that's nice. Then you record and interview with them. This is not hard. We've taught hundreds of hosts how to do it. Once the interview is recorded, you submit the raw audio files and a blog post to the NBN for post-production, publication, and promotion. In short, you do the interviews, we do everything else.

How many interviews am I going to be expected to do?

NBN hosts do the interviews at their own pace. There is no expectation of a certain number of interviews over a certain period of time. We have hosts who do several a week; we have hosts who do several a year. It's up to the host. Hosting should be rewarding, not a burden.

What are the benefits of being an NBN host?

The answer to this question largely depends on what you want to get out of hosting.

--Do you want to build a public platform? If you do interviews frequently, you are likely to develop a reputation as someone how cares about spreading the knowledge produced by your field.

--Do you want to make connections? Hosting will also put you in touch with your colleagues, both current and future. Who you know is important for all kinds of reasons.

--Are you a graduate student building a CV? We can help. NBN interviews are publications and should be listed as such on your CV.

--Do you simply enjoy talking to people about your area of interest? If so, that's good, because that's all we do: enable you to speak with people who share your interests.