Maybe it’s a function of how easy it is to move on. Maybe it’s related to the fact that the content was free. But it is an interesting phenomenon.

on to the negative: been noticing many more false takes recently that haven’t been edited out. for example,

“Christina looked up her maga… [pause] Christina looked up from her magazine […]”

have also heard a few that don’t sound like outtakes — just unintentional doubling of the same line, possibly even a copy/paste. haven’t engineered much digitally, but crusty analog types used to have a very low frequency oscillator to slate takes, and it stood out when shuttling the reels at high speed. maybe readers/engineers could be encouraged to adopt a slate system appropriate for their software, ensuring that all markers are accounted for and removed. barring that, having an outside party proof the finished product before release would tend to catch more errors than the weary authors who know the material so well that they tune out when listening, or simply hear what they want. as with word processing, it’s difficult to fully proof your own material.

The other thing that I’ve always found a bit strange is that the book discussion is essentially handled in a different site (podiobooker). Seems like podiobooker should be strictly reserved for admin sorts of stuff and comments about the books should actually appear on the books page and be more integrated into the site.

I’ve got other beefs too, some people say that’s just me, but great site generally.

I love the concept and the site design. The issue for me is if it only worked as designed.

1/ It doesn’t remember me no matter how many time I check the box. I have cookies set to accept.

2/ Search on the home page doesn’t work for me. The returned page has a section in the middle that says “The web page can not be found”. Note - if I use the search box on the returned page it works fine. However there is a section at the end of the page that says web page can not be found.

3/ Site performance is periodically very slow - > 60 sec for a page. This seems random - occasionally there is an entry in the blog but often not.

Again I am way more happy of what you guys have done than these minor operational problems.

Also - if you’d like to debug we can set up a time for you guys to log into my system to see what I see.

Podiobooks.com is too addictive. Especially when I have to hang out for the latest episode. Aaaarrggh! Mr Full Share: Nathan Lowell…feed my addiction, HURRY! Withdrawal beginning to take place…must seek comfort in an other podiobook now…not enough Lowell…the pain…the pain……

Inconsistent filenames: I agree with these comments. Filenames should be consistant, consise and have the episode numbers in the first two places, including not forgetting the leading zero for episodes under 10. Thankfully for the moment, I have a work-around. I use a little batch file that
transfers them onto my (non-iPod) MP3 player in the correct order. Sweet!

Newly completed books should be announced with just as much vehemence as newly started books.

So, two suggestions are 1) where Fraser above says put the episode/chapter number in the first 10 digits, I’d say to put it as the first two digits, instead of the last digits, and 2) maybe a separate request for people to list their players and how the songs get sorted so that you could actually figure out something to do about it. It doesn’t help to fix things for one player and break them for another. Probably something as simple as consistent file naming (which I’ve not had a problem with), consistent file timestamps (I have had a problem with this when episodes are uploaded en-masse and possibly re-uploaded at a later date) and making sure that all agrees with ID3 tags, as well as some system of ID3 tagging conventions. Personally, either I listen to books as the episodes are released, or after downloading a number of episodes the problem has bit me enough that I rename all files with a prefix of the episode number and then run touch on them in episode order so the names and timestamps are in order.

Auditioning some books tonight I hadn’t heard, I noticed at least 3 with the disease of “make everything super loud”. In the days before this audio degradation ability was handed via digital preset to the DIY masses, it was known as clipping distortion — easily heard, and strenuously avoided by audio engineers. No, most people don’t hear it or care, but it’s possible to compress (audio, not data) a signal for easily audibility in most environments without destroying it. Could Podiobooks find an audio geek to screen new books for engineering disasters (e.g., “Number One with a Bullet”) before they’re published and extended into multiple episodes? Don’t even need to be a geek to view these audio offenses; load it up in an audio editor and see if the waveform tops look like a newly clipped hedge (flat). Plenty of examples at Wikipedia, under “Loudness war”.

Re the site, I subscribe not here, but at iTunes. Having to subscribe here before rating/commenting means unnecessary clicks.

Login ID is apparently case sensitive. If there’s a good reason for that practice, haven’t yet heard it.

Though a fan of Patrick McLean, I find the “caught up with the author” and “it’s over” clips annoying — unnecessarily cloy, especially when tagging often puts the “it’s over” clip at the beginning.

Good audio technique is surprisingly simple, not so expensive anymore, and hugely overlooked. If the authors/readers aren’t taking it up, Podiobooks might want to look into at least mastering the final files, also being in charge of…

Tags! As noted by others, a single character deviation can move a file into another bin. This stuff should be scrutinized before publication, where someone not taking 2 minutes of care becomes a headache for thousands.

Agree with commenter about allowing a multiple-books view for payment, and elsewhere. Would be nice if the “My Subscriptions” page allowed multiple actions via checkboxes and a master command button, especially since all of my subscriptions were made only to allow rating/comment.

I also like the other ideas made by many others - flags to indicate which books I’ve already subscribed to - the ability for me to personally flag books that I’ve completed, the ability to exclude completed and/or subscribed books from searches and lists, the single feed to rule them all, etc. All good and worthy suggestions.

Authors that start a story, post a few episodes, then disappear without finishing the story. There have been at least two that I know of, and after a year of hoping, I gave up… Even after leaving messages on the author’s website/blog and sending email out into the void (got no response). It would be nice if those could either be pruned out of the selection completely, or moved into a “dead story” listing against the hope that the author comes back to finish, someday.

I hate that, when I want to check my subscriptions, I have to log in every time, even though I have selected “remember my password” each time.

Suggestions:
Have some way to either list or search all PB listings by the same author.

“People who subscribe to this also subscribe to…” or some such would be a nice way to maybe discover similar works on PB.

Denote the books that I’ve listened to completely and/or don’t want to come up in search or view.

I’d also like to see to whom I have already donated and how much I have donated to each Author.

Also, as suggested above. I’d like to be able to search by Author and I’d also like to easily be able to see what new books have been released since my last visit.

I’d like to be able to remove (preferably Hide) from my subscriptions page books that I’ve already listened to, but also, be able see my past history.

I sure all of these have been mentioned above, but they’re worth repeating. Keep it up PodioBooks and Authors.