How to Get on a Podcast Without Being Famous.

There’s power in being unknown if you know how to use it.

Prefer to listen? Press play below for the audio version:

So you want to be on a podcast, but you’re not famous-famous.

No major book deal (yet). No following in the six figures. No publicist greasing the wheels.

Excellent. You’re exactly who many podcast hosts want to hear from.

Art: David Shrigley. You can fill a pitch with “whatever.” Or you can fill it with the story no one else is telling. Guess which one gets booked?

I’ve hosted over 320 episodes of a top 2% podcast¹ and here’s what I know after receiving more than a thousand pitch emails from complete newbies, established corporates and founders, New York Times bestselling authors, celebrities, and politicians alike: most pitches are dreadful. Not despicable, just lazy.

“Hey Danusia! I love your podcast! I’d love to come on and talk about my work, my opinions, my inside leg measurement. Did I mention I can talk about myself? ...”

You get the gist.

Instant archive. Sometimes with an eye-roll for good measure.

There are several variants of lazy podcast pitches, not just the self-absorbed ones. Try not to be one of these characters:

🔤 The Copy-Paste Crusader: addressed to “Dear [Wrong Host Name],” copied to 432 inboxes. Nothing says “special guest” like confusing me with a man called Dave.

🔤 The Thought-Leader™: subject line: “Collaboration Opportunity”. Translation: “Please platform me while I monologue about my framework.”

🔤 The Academic Monolith: a 1,200-word abstract, footnotes included, but no actual hook. A thesis is not a pitch.

🔤 The Desperate Dabbler: assumes I’m begging for guests and will gratefully accept anyone with a pulse. Spoiler: I’m not.

🔤 The Vanity Metrics Merchant: leads with follower counts, bestseller lists, or “as seen in Forbes,” as if numbers alone will charm me into yes.

And here’s the truth: even bestselling authors, politicians, and blue-tick celebs send these stinkers. But they often get waved through anyway (by some hosts) because of name recognition.

If you’re not known, you don’t get that luxury. You need to be un-ignorable.

But that doesn’t mean shouting. It means knowing how to knock on the podcast host’s door in just the right way².

Luckily, I’ve distilled seven years of pitch disasters into five starter lessons worth stealing — your first moves if you want a host to stop scrolling and start reading.

1. Lead with obsession, not ego.

You don’t need to flatter me. You need to know me. The difference is huge.

This is not a Tinder swipe. It’s a pseudo dinner party. Hosts want to know why you turned up at the door.

TAKEAWAY: Try something like:

“When you talked about [insert specific moment] in episode [name or number], I actually paused the episode and scribbled in my kid’s homework book. It hit a nerve because [specific reason tied to your expertise/story].”

That tells me you listen, you’re connected to my content, and you’ve got something new to add. I’m already leaning in.

2. Don’t pitch a résumé. Pitch a story.

Your qualifications might be impressive. I might even clap for them. But a podcast isn’t LinkedIn. It’s a conversation.

So tell me: what do you bring to the table that hasn’t already been served?

Better still:

TAKEAWAY: What’s the moment you wish more people asked you about, but no one ever does?

Start there. That’s the edge.

3. The best guests aren’t just smart. They’re useful, weird, or wildly honest.

I’ve said yes to people who cried in their pitch³. I’ve also said yes to people with zero followers but a hell of a story.

Equally, I’ve said no to NYT bestsellers who sounded like a snake-oil brochure.

TAKEAWAY: The real question to ask yourself is: can you light a match for the listener?

4. Get in before you ask to be let in.

Comment on the show. Tag it. Share episodes you loved, not just the ones you’d appear on. In other words, signal you’re a genuine listener, not just a guest-in-waiting.

Podcasting is intimacy at scale, I want guests who already live in the community, not those parachuting in for promo.

Make yourself visible before you ever hit send.

TAKEAWAY: By the time you pitch, you should already feel like someone we’ve been meaning to invite.

5.Your job is to make the hosts job easy.

Give me an irresistible subject line. Tell me the three angles we could run with. Link me to a clip where I can hear your voice or speaking style. Write the email so it could be forwarded to my producer without editing a word.

That’s how you get booked.

Want more? I’ve got anecdotes, disasters, and sparkling yeses I can share, just say the word.

But if you’re pitching this week?

Start small. Start brave. And please stop thinking you need to be famous.

You don’t.

You just need to matter to the right mic.

BONUS: The Pitch I Still Think About

A few years back, I got an email from someone with no blue tick, no PR team, and no shiny launch to promote.

Just a subject line that read:

“This might be weird, but your latest episode made me climb into the bath fully clothed.”

Of course I clicked.

The email began like this:

“I was folding laundry when I heard your guest say something that undid me. I burst into tears, walked straight past my family, and climbed into the bath — shoes, jeans, jumper, all still on. Just needed to feel something instead of performing okay-ness again.”

Then it got braver:

“I’ve rebuilt a life I wasn’t supposed to have. My mother sold me for drugs when I was a kid. I know that sounds dramatic. But I don’t usually tell that part. I’ve spoken on stages, sure but only about resilience etc, never about this. I think your audience could handle the real version.”

She didn’t pitch her impressive CV. She pitched her truth.

What was refreshing was that it wasn’t formatted like a press release. Nor did it link to media kits or bios or TEDx talks.

It was intimate, uneasy, and most of all, unmistakably human.

I booked her.

This episode landed mega well because she told her traumatic story without smoothing the edges. That’s what people remember.

And it all began with the courage to say:

“Here’s the story no one asks me to tell, but your podcast might be the room for it.”

Stop waiting to be discovered. Stop polishing yourself into oblivion.

Your story is already good enough. The only question is: will you give it a room, and a mic?

Tell me: what’s the story no one’s asked you to tell yet?

1. As of May 2025, there are 4.52 million podcasts available worldwide. Reference: https://podcastatistics.com/

2. On real doors, here’s my habit: one quick knock, then three, then two more . . .how about you?

3. I don’t mean they literally typed sobs into the email like “😭😭😭”. It’s more that the emotion comes through on the page so strongly that you can feel they were crying when they wrote it (or just after).