Helpful promotion?

[quandmeme]

I imagine that he best help we, those fans who know we are addicted, can be is to contribute generously on podiobooks and buy the print versions.

But in addition to that, what is most important? Reviews on podiobooks? iTunes? I see you are getting your wikipedia entry going. Actually the moderator giving you notability challenge is kinda what got me thinking. If your ratings on podiobooks are not enough to make one notable enough for a wikipedia entry, then what would be? What are good ways to give you momentum?

[nlowell]

The wikipedia entry is going to get deleted. I have very few acceptable tokens of notability according to the Wikipedia guidelines. As an academic, I'm an iconoclast that is largely ignored except for a small subset of people who realize that mainstream education is in worse shape than mainstream publishing. As an author, I'm outside the ken of notability because I'm operating in a sphere that's not recognized by wikipedia. No worries on my part. I actually support the decision to delete me. By their guidelines, I'm not notable. That and $3 will buy me coffee.

Their point with podiobooks ratings is a valid one. It's basically "self pub" and while the ratings are direct reflection of the fan base, they can be manipulated. The problem is that there is no recognized authority for the podcast medium. There's no secondary source that they'll accept because the community is so small and so isolated.

Things you can do to help:

Fill in the podiobook/podcast novel category on wikipedia. Help get the genre established. Figure out what the podiobook analog to the Hugo/Nebula is. Promote that in wikipedia as the authority. Eventually I'll be notable for having lost a Long Form Parsec more often than any other author. (I already have with 3 losses, but that's just over two years. Wait'll it's 10 and then I'll be worth noting.)

Votes on podiobook help drive the charts. I'm already well entrenched there. I won't cut any ice with Wikipedia, but it helps keep my stuff visible.

Itunes ratings and reviews are helpful in terms of gaining visibility there as well, but one thing I noticed with that visibility is that it didn't really drive downloads. There was no increase when I showed up on the front page of podcasts and there was no decrease when I fell off that page. I'm not sure what to make of that exactly.

THE BIG THING:
- If you like it, keep passing it on. Keep recommending my work to your friends. I've got over a million downloads and it's almost entirely due to your willingness to say to your family and friends "Hey! Check this out! It's fun/weird/strange/got no pirates/aliens but it's cool"

For that, I thank you all.

[annoyance]

Sorry to speak out of turn...  but does Podiobooks even matter anymore?  I'm not sure, but I suspect they aren't what they used to be. Have they lost some of the stature that they were once building?   When I started listening to podiobooks even the stories I considered really bad, were well written and it seemed to be more listener focused than today.  when I noticed this I decided to get involved with community.  There doesn't seem to be much of one there.  Just a scant few authors trying to get a little help from more seasoned authors(guess who helps everytime someone asks?).  I was tempted to leave a comment on podiobooker blog page announcing that Ravenwood is complete.  Saying something snide like "What no zombies, vampires or conspiritorial demons?  Podiobooks must be falling down on the job."  I am aware that this is an awful way to think about things.  I'm sure it's unwelcome and uncalled for.  I beg your forgiveness.   I guess I'm looking for context .  I'm not an author and as you can probably tell I can hardly I have trouble stringing words together.  again please forgive.

[nlowell]

This is a good question.

I *think* the answer is "yes." Podiobooks as a platform is a catalog that allows authors like me to find an audience. There are some issues with it and frankly, I think I'm one of the problems. The only place a new author can really get any visibility is on the "subscription" charts. I've really moved into the quality ratings charts with multiple books on each of the "highest" and "most" rated. That's in spite of periodic attempts to "zero" me down when somebody will log in, subscribe, and then give my books straight 1's to try to move me off the charts.

The thing that I think we need Podiobooks for is the same thing we've always needed it for--to serve as catalog and platform for delivery. For me, it's a central repository -- the Amazon of serialized audio fiction -- and gives me a place to point people to. The downside is that it's basically construed as "self-pub" (which it is) and carries a certain stigma because of that. I think that's ok. It serves its purpose.

It's important to *me* to be part of a larger catalog so that listeners can find new content when they look for it. I can only do - at most - a few books a year. By having my work associated with the larger catalog, I can help keep you all engaged between releases. I use the podiobooks catalog itself the way other podcast novelists use their private feeds -- to keep the audience engaged. For me the advantage is that everybody else does the work at Podiobooks, leaving me to focus on the production of new works.

Is it effective? I don't know. I think so. Do we have a lot of vampire/zombie stuff? Yes, and the quality is as rough as one might expect from a venue that is largely self pub and unedited. But one person's grot is another person's treasure, so ... we create our own subset of the Long Tail with a few books -- and authors -- at the front end of the curve and a lot of books stretched out in the "back catalog."

I'm still a little cheesed off that last year's Parsec went to a "novel" that is still not finished.

Oh well.

[annoyance]

So now I know why double share is 4.83.  Maybe you should expand the top rated books section to 25 or even 50.    There are at least 50 books at podiobooks that I would consider outstanding.  As I've said in posts at the podiobooks community, I love podiobooks.  I actually prefer authors like, Basil Sands and Matthew Wayne Selznik to most best selling authors.  Add to that, they have theatre quality skills in narration. Yeah they're a bit quirky.  I like quirky.  and right now quirky sells.  I picked 2 out of at least 10 authors that I think this about.  I'm not sure that trend is continuing.  I meant no slight by not mentioning you.  I do believe, you are in a class of your own.  As the ratings clearly show.

[nlowell]

None taken and I think moving it to top 20 is probably a good idea. I've always thought we should be able to get a ranked list of ALL the books -- or all the books within a genre, just because it's so easy to run out of "ranked" books in the "top 10" lists.

I'm on the Alpha Testing Team for Podiobooks 2.0 .. it looks a lot like iTunes .. I'll make some suggestions.

[Laith]

I'm part of the dev team for Podiobooks 2.0 (I'm in testing) so feel free to toss comments my way as well on usability.

Laith

[joshg]

I'd love to be able to filter out ratings.  For example, show me the top 20 Sci-Fi books rated by more than 20 people.  Or the top 40 Fantasy books rated by more than 12 people.  Or something like that.

[joshg]

I'd love to be able to filter out ratings.  For example, show me the top 20 Sci-Fi books rated by more than 20 people.  Or the top 40 Fantasy books rated by more than 12 people.  Or something like that.

Maybe even be able to filter out the 5 best and 5 worst rating for each title, to get a better "average" rating and eliminate any outliers.

[annoyance]

@ Laith

  I think you should have Author pages, showing all books written by an author.  There should be an allowance to tag a book with more than one genre.   An Amozonesque readers ratings on the book's page. 

[quandmeme]

I'm late to this conversation but this has been on my mind.

I hate nags, but there's gotta be a balance. My top request for podiobooks 2 is a way to track what you've paid for and which one's you've listened to but never paid for.