Podiobooker » Worth Listening To

How free media brought in $4.2 million in sales

Evo — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:20:29 +0000

It’s not a giant leap to draw parallels between indie musicians and authors. To wit; I’d like to introduce you to Corey Smith, a new personal hero of mine. He gives his music away for free on his site. And he sells that music — the very same music — on iTunes. When he takes his free music down, his sales on iTunes go down.

That bears repeating. When he takes his free music down, his sales on iTunes go down.

Cory is now making his living as a musician, resulting in gross receipts of $4.2 million last year. Most of that cash comes from concerts. Tickets to those shows go for $5. As in, five dollars.

So let’s go over this again:

He gives his music away for free, or you can buy it
He uses no-brainer pricing to make his concerts accessible to just about everyone. And all of their friends
Phase Three: Profit.

Read the story on TechDirt. Then see if you can think of any ways YOU can work in this brave new world. I hope a few authors and publishing houses are paying attention.

Day of the Jedi? Don’t tell TD-0013…

Evo — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:27:08 +0000

Yes, I can remember standing in line at the tender age of (not gonna say) on this day 31 years ago. What I was about to experience would forever change the future lives of countless geeks, causing some of them to be consumed with an overwhelming desire to spend way too much time clad from head to toe in white plastic and thinking “No, no I’m not a little short to be a Stormtrooper.”

Celebrate the 31st anniversary of Star Wars today by subscribing to A Different Point of View. This free serialized audiobook comes to you from one of the unsung and often maligned true heroes of the saga – Sandtrooper TD-0013. Don’t buy the rebel hype and propaganda you saw in the films. Rather, buy the hype and propaganda of the Empire as related to you by my friend “thirteen”. And prepare to have your perspective shifted, without those hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks. Think for yourself!

New fantasy short-fiction podcast

Evo — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 03:32:55 +0000

I’m ripping this off verbatim from Jesse Willis of SFF Audio, partly because I’m lazy and partly because he wrote it so well:

From the people who brought you “Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine” and “Psuedopod: The World’s Premier Horror Fiction Podcast” now comes…

PodCastle: The Fantasy Fiction Podcast
“PodCastle is the world’s first fantasy audio magazine. Each week we’ll bring you short stories across the spectrum of fantasy from leading authors and new discoveries. Like our sister podcasts, Escape Pod and Pseudopod, PodCastle is entirely free to listen and share.”

The new podcast is still in development, but the main website for it can be found at PodCastle.org. On the site you’ll find a notation saying that the podcast will launch in August (though it may actually be in September).

Like Escape Pod and PseudoPod this will be a paying market for authors and a free podcast for listeners. Flash fiction (short short little stories) will net authors just $20. But $100.00 will be paid for full fledged short stories. If you, like us plan on subscribing to PodCastle, we urge you to send them a few bucks as a show of support. SFFaudio has dug deep into its coffers and made a donation of exactly $100.00 USD through PayPal – so we’re buying the whole world and you that first fantasy tale.

Oh and one last thing. Hey you Fantasy fiction authors, take note, the submission guidelines are already up on the site. So get submitting. The future is sounding FANTASTIC!

James Patrick Kelly wins the 2007 Nebula Award

Chris — Sun, 13 May 2007 13:07:20 +0000

Congratulations to James Patrick Kelly, whose book Burn won the 2007 Nebula Award. Some of you may remember that Burn was a featured title on Podiobooks for several months last year, and we’re thrilled that it’s been recognized for the work of genius that it is. Congrats, Jim!