The best fiction and non-fiction from all over the world, with top international authors joining in the conversation

From Russian tragedies to Australian comedies, via Emirati slam poetry and Saudi science fiction, if it is between the covers of a book, we'll talk about it.
In our day jobs at the Emirates Literature Foundation, you'd normally find us planning the next Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, but the rest of the time we're guessing whodunnit, debating the ultimate feel-good novel, or reading the stacks of books that line our office walls.
We are three of the biggest book lovers at the Foundation, where we work on events and initiatives that spread literacy and the love of reading in the Middle East.
On the podcast we delve into a wide range of topics, from unpopular opinions to stereotypes and inaccessible places, and invite fantastic international authors to join the conversation. We have recently talked meditation during Ramadan with a Buddhist monk, show-stealing secondary characters with Jasper Fforde, and Nordic Noir in the land of fire and ice with the fabulous crime writer Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.
Our listeners tune in from all over the world, with our home market in the United Arab Emirates only accounting for around half of our listeners. Book lovers from the US, UK, India, Canada and France make up a large proportion of our listeners, and feedback suggests they are hungry for reading recommendations in both recent and classic fiction and non-fiction.

We love podcasts! We have had a radio show in the past on a local radio station in Dubai, but we love the freedom of the podcast format.
The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature is our biggest annual event, and it brings together some of the greatest authors from around the world with our wonderful locally based authors. It is the biggest celebration of the written and spoken word in the Middle East, and takes an entire year to put together.
We launched the podcast last year to be able to keep the literary conversation going throughout the year, because we know our regular Festival audience want more. As the pandemic struck, we didn't know if we would even be able to have a physical festival in 2021 (we did), but we knew our audience needed the connection, hope and solace you can find in books more than ever.
We were delighted to find that our listeners are not just our local Festival audiences, but a truly international mix of people who love books from all over the world.

We release an episode every 14 days. When we first started, it was just the three of us talking. Now that we are inviting international guests, scheduling is trickier and we sometimes need to record in more than one go. Editing takes another few hours, so it does eat into our other work. We do everything ourselves, from planning the episodes and inviting guests to editing and promotion, and we are still learning.

We do accept advertisers and sponsors selectively through our current Festival partners. We will accept more advertisers in the future, but we are committed to keeping the content relevant to our subscribers.
We see the Boundless Book Club a delivery mechanism for our main mission for the Foundation, which is offer access to literature, authors and literary conversations to as many people as possible.

The Festival has been going for 13 years, and in that time we have welcomed more than 1,700 authors from all over the world.
That means we have great contacts in the world of literature.
We keep things simple and record over zoom, using external mics and inexpensive headphones. The introduction is usually scripted, and then we let the conversation take us away.

Apple Podcasts accounts for around 25% of our listeners, and then we have a wide range of listening apps around the 10% mark.
We push each new episode out on our social media channels through @emirateslitfest which generates good traffic.

We are still learning, but so far we have learned that our listeners don't shy away from heavier literature. They are interested in books and trust our recommendations, which is wonderful.
We have found many of the podcasting platforms also have a wealth of useful information on almost every topic you can think of in relation to podcasting.
Personally, I can live without fancy editing but I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to have the best possible voice quality. If the voice isn't clear, it doesn't work.

You can listen to the podcast right here https://the-boundless-book-club.captivate.fm/listen and learn more about the Emirates Literature Foundation on our website, www.elfdubai.org.
We are also on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook (@emirateslitfest) and YouTube (Emirates Literature Foundation).