At Canvas of Colors, long-form writing has always been central to how we share ideas with clarity, precision, and depth. It also fosters an asynchronous culture where no one feels left out or pressured to keep up in real time. But we also understand that many readers prefer different ways to consume content—especially in today's world where people are constantly on the move. Being an avid podcast listener myself, I started thinking about how we could make our writing more accessible, and that led me to experiment with an interesting feature Google NotebookLM recently introduced.

Here’s the walkthrough of what I did, in case you're interested in trying it out yourself.

The idea behind it

The feature I’m referring to lets you create podcast-like audio from your uploaded text sources. It’s fascinating because it doesn't just read your text aloud; it adds a conversational tone, as if someone were talking about the content—your content—in real time. This adds a layer of personality and engagement that static text just can’t match.

The process

I decided to take a simple approach. First, I started with our homepage copy. I copied the text from the homepage, identified myself as the author (it’s important to give the system a reference for who is “talking”), and uploaded it to Google NotebookLM.

Here’s a tip: I found that when I used my first and last name, the generated podcast kept referring to me by my last name, which made it feel too formal. I prefer using just my first name—it’s more in line with the conversational tone I was aiming for.

Once uploaded, the tool created a podcast-like conversation around the content I had written. I didn’t just stop there, though—I wanted to take it a step further.

Taking it to the next level: publishing as a podcast

After the audio was generated, I thought, “Why not share this as an actual podcast?” So I uploaded it to Spotify, created some quick cover art, gave it a title and description, and voila! In minutes, my written content was now available as an audio experience.

I also made sure to be transparent about how this was created. I didn’t want to mislead anyone into thinking this was a typical podcast, so I was upfront about it being an experiment in turning written content into spoken dialogue using AI.

Testing it out with blog posts

I didn’t stop with just the homepage copy. I wanted to see how this would work with longer, more detailed pieces—so I tried it with a few blog posts. The workflow was exactly the same: copy the blog post text, upload it, and let Google NotebookLM work its magic. Each time, the resulting conversation was engaging and flowed in a way that felt natural.

It was fascinating to hear my own ideas spoken back to me as though I was listening to a real dialogue about the content. It gave me new insights into how the ideas might be perceived or interpreted by an audience, which was something I hadn’t anticipated.

Why this is worth trying

The whole point of this experiment was to see if a dual approach—offering both written and spoken versions of the same content—could help readers (or listeners) engage with the ideas more deeply. I think it’s a fun way to give your audience multiple entry points to your work, and it could help them connect with your ideas in a new way.

It’s also incredibly easy to set up, so if you’re curious, give it a try. You might find, like I did, that it’s a refreshing way to extend your content's reach.