Interview - Podcast hit becomes a book
As part of the upcoming reading in my hometown of Lüneburg, the Newspaper Landeszeitung kindly published a (in my opinion) very nice article about my career.
Podcast hit becomes a book
Christian Heinke reads ›The Skin‹
Christian Heinke from Lüneburg originally planned to write a radio play, but his thriller gained popularity as a podcast and has now been released as a book.
oc Lüneburg • The publisher is in Switzerland, the printer is in Israel; the killer strikes in New York and Christian Heinke lives in Bochum. He gained his reputation and fame not through a publisher, but first on the Internet. Heinke is a Lüneburg boy, born in 1970, ›BBS2‹ student until 1991, media scientist student, radio journalist and now author. Heinke will present the book, which found its way from the Internet to the publisher, on Tuesday, 7 October, at 8pm in the Lüneburg Perl Bookshop.
It’s not soft fare. The language is drastic, fast, the story tough. Heinke’s intention was to create a radio play for WDR, not write a book. »But as an unestablished author, that’s difficult.« He posted an episode of his thriller - spoken by himself - on the internet, »but I expected nothing«. But ›podcasts‹, as these acoustic files that can be accessed at any time on the Internet are called, were just coming into fashion, »and as a result, Apple’s podcast offering, i.e. ›iTunes‹, suddenly brought me success.«
He eventually came into contact with the Swiss KaMeRu publishing house, and that’s how ›The Skin‹ became a book as ›NYPD Detective Helen Louisiani’s first case‹.
»I’m actually a very gentle person,« says Heinke, when asked about the rather dark story, which is violent down to the choice of words. The story revolves around a supermodel who suffers disfigurement from an accident and a New York serial killer who targets his victims in the modeling world. What is the reason for choosing New York as the setting? »I’m an Anglophile, the setting just appealed to me,« says Heinke, who lived in the USA for an internship semester during his studies.
Heinke wants to reach a wider audience with the book version of his internet success. »Podcast listeners are not necessarily readers - and vice versa,« he says. He will continue to use all media for his texts. The author plans to release Detective Louisiani’s second case as an e-book. These are the upcoming electronic books that will revolutionize the market. But first Heinke will read from an actual book next week.
