history

In an installment I wrote three years ago, I brought you tidings of a great new way to waste time on the internet. Podcasting <podcast.com>, remember? As a dedicated time waster myself, I decided not only to sample some podcasts but also to create one <feeds.feedburner.com/freereads> myself.  Since that column first fell under the light of your eyes, I’ve managed to podcast two novels, bunches of short stories and a handful of these columns. As with almost all other podcasts, these are available for free downloading under a Creative Commons <creativecommons.org> license. And since 2005, podcasting in general—and genre podcasting in particular—has flourished. There are now many excellent news, interview, and review podcasts, several interesting audio theater series, and an ever-increasing number of fiction podcasts.  As you might expect, the range of accomplishment in podcasting is vast. Yes, there are all too many bumblers in love with the sound of their own voices but there are also insightful critics and writers of real talent stepping up to microphones all around the world.

Podcasting is just part of what has been called New Media <newmedia.org> which is a catch-all buzzword for all things digital: blogs, wikis, mashups, email and its attachments, messaging, metaverses, video games, and the like. Although these modes of communication are new(ish) and definitely media, I’m not at all sure that even they can be productively lumped into a group that has any real meaning. However it is worth thinking about the differences between the way media used to be created and disseminated and the way the internet has changed everything. For one thing, everything is faster (duh!). But compare email and snailmail. Encyclopedias and wikis. Grand Theft Auto IV <rockstargames.com/IV> and Clue <ideafinder.com/history/inventions/clue.htm>. APAs and listservs.

Huh? APA?

I probably need to insert a quick explanation for those of you born after Star Trek: The Original Series <startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS> went dark. Know that before the internet, groups of fans used to communicate with each other via Amateur Press Associations. Everyone would print enough pages of their opinions, reactions, and, yes, rants to service all of the other members and then send them to a CM (Central Mailer) who would collate the lot and then snail them to all the members. After everyone digested the contents, the process would begin again. Ah, the sweet, sick aroma of mimeograph ink!

New Media tends to be more interactive than old media, mostly by design but in part because of the speed factor. If you have ever tried to plan an impromptu dinner with a bunch of busy friends or gone back and forth with your editor over manuscript changes (hi, Sheila!), you know how important interactivity is—even to plain old email. And of course, wikis have proved that the group mind is wise, if subject to controversy. Meanwhile video games and proto-metaverses like World of Warcraft <worldofwarcraft.com> and Second Life <secondlife.com> point the way to the holy grail of interactivity, Virtual Reality <ovrt.nist.gov/hotvr.html>.

But I digress. My point is that although podcasting is supposedly part of new media, it isn’t particularly interactive. And unlike metaverses and videogames, podcasts are infinitely reproducible. So which of these does not belong?

community

Although I’ve been a guest on several interview podcasts, I had never really connected in person with my fellow podcasters until Memorial Day 2008, when I headed down to Balticon <balticon.org>.  Largely due to the efforts of Paul Fischer, host of the excellent Balticon Podcast <balticonpodcast.org> Balticon has become one of the two most important conventions for this growing community, the other being the sprawl that is DragonCon <dragoncon.org>, Balticon 42 boasted a separate track dedicated to podcasting, with panels on voice acting, copyright, promotion, and adapting literary works, to name but a few. A number of con-goers recorded podcasts in front of live audiences, to the general merriment. But one particular goal I set for myself at the con was to chat up some of the podcast novelists in attendance. In the last year, a handful of them have been making publishing history by selling print rights to work that saw first “publication” as podcasts.

Without doubt the superstar of this select group is Scott Sigler <scottsigler.com>.  According to his website “Scott reinvented book publishing when he released Earthcore as the world’s first ‘podcast-only’ novel. Released in twenty weekly episodes, Earthcore harkened back to the days of serialized radio fiction and picked up ten thousand subscribers along the way.” Earthcore was subsequently published by Dragon Moon Press <dragonmoonpress.com>; reprint rights have since been picked up by Crown. While some may scoff at the notion that Sigler has indeed “reinvented book publishing,” he reports that individual episodes of his five podcast novels have had more than four million downloads. Meanwhile he has parlayed his success as a podcast novelist into a book deal reportedly worth more than half a million dollars. There’s something happening here.

What it is ain’t exactly clear.

podcasting stars

Alas, Scott Sigler wasn’t at BaltiCon, but I did get a chance to interview three other podcast novelists who have had similar, if somewhat less spectacular success.

J.C. Hutchins <jchutchins.net> is author of the Seventh Son trilogy, three original-podcast near future thrillers, Descent, Deceit, and Destruction. Thanks to the support of Seventh Son fans worldwide, Descent will be published in 2009 by St. Martin’s Press.

Tee Morris <teemorris.com> is credited with publishing the first podcast novel in 2005, Morevi. Unlike Sigler’s Earthcore, Morevi had a print edition from Dragon Moon Press in 2002. Altogether he has four novels in print: Morevi, Legacy of Morevi, Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword, and The Case of the Pitcher’s Pendant: A Billibub Baddings Mystery.

Mur Lafferty <murverse.com> has podcast two serialized novels, Heaven and Playing for Keeps. Playing for Keeps has been published by Swarm Press <swarmpress.com>. Her stories have appeared on Escape Pod <escapepod.org> and she was formerly the editor of its horror offspring, Pseudopod <pseudopod.org>.

I asked them how they got into podcasting:

Hutch: “When I first started podcasting Seventh Son, I did it just to release it into the wild. I hoped it would generate some interest in my name, but I didn’t think the book could be published because I had spent a year trying to find an agent and I couldn’t. I just wanted to clear my plate and move on to the next project. But after I had about five thousand listeners, I started thinking I should pursue publication again. So originally this had just been a lark, a way to let me play in the same space as the Scott Siglers of the world.  Now I’ve got an engaged audience and I’ve got the marketing skills to promote my brand, so I’m asking myself how can I use podcasting going forward in clever ways to further my career as a writer.”

Mur: “The way I got started was that I was writing audio essays and sending them to NPR but they disappeared into a black hole.  So finally I decided that I would give those away online.  That built an audience of people who were interested in my essays and then I started my writing podcast (Jim here: Faithful readers will recall that I have praised I Should Be Writing <isbw.murlafferty.com> as an essential resource for aspiring writers) and talked about my stories. It took me a while to figure out that if I was getting a good response to my essays, I might also get a good response to my stories.”

Tee: “I had already published a print edition of Morevi and my publisher asked what I was going to do to help launch the sequel in 2005. I had been listening to podcasts and I asked her for the audio rights to Morevi. She had no idea what I was doing, but since she had no plans for audio, she said go for it. The podcast of Morevi was my promotion for Legacy of Morevi. And then my publisher started writing me, ‘Tee, I just got an order from the Netherlands. I just got an order from Germany. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.’ And that’s what got me into podcasting. Morevi is still in print and it’s actually doing better now because of the podcast.”

I asked if they had any advice for up-and-coming podcasters:

Mur: “I think that new podcasters are looking at me and Sigler and Hutchins and Morris and seeing the success that we have and they are thinking they can jump directly from where they are to where we are. They ignore the years we’ve put into podcasting. I get email all the time from people who say that they want to podcast their novel and I want to ask them why?  What is your goal? If your goal is just to post your novel online, go ahead. My goal is to be a professional writer and I know I have to go the traditional publishing route, because podcasting isn’t going to make me any money.”

Hutch: “When people ask me for advice I tell them that podcasting your novel is a red phone option. Have they exhausted every resource they had to try to find an agent or a publisher?  If I had scored an agent in 2005, I would never have gone into podcasting.”

Tee: “The whole fear factor of ‘we don’t want to give it away because nobody will buy it,’ that’s a fallacy. My sales have been going up every year, I’ve sold more books because of my podcasting.” (Jim here: Of course, Tee is the exception here in that he was published in print before he began podcasting.) “Everything I’ve podcast so far has been post-publication. I do have plans for podcasting before publication but not for a couple of years.”

I wondered if, given the burgeoning popularity of podcasting, it is possible now for newcomers to compete with the early adopters who have already made names for themselves. Mur said that there are still opportunities for success and cited the work of Nathan Lowell, whose The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper (durandus.org/golden) series now consists of four novels and counting. He has quickly become one of Podiobooks’ <podiobooks.com> most popular authors. 

Mur: “But he’s a rarity. Other people put their books up and then they wait and then they get mad when nothing happens. But they’re not promoting the work, marketing it.”

Hutch: “When I hear the word competition, I immediately think of buying things. But podcasting isn’t a bookstore. I think of it as a library. It’s all free; you’re just competing for time. That book will always be there on the (digital) shelf, so you can always come back to it. Is this space saturated? Well, it is. Is this space saturated with killer content? No.” 

exit

Next time we’ll hear more from these talented podcasters and find out whether some of the astronomical number of listeners they report have any basis in reality (hint: yes!) Also we’ll look at the mother ship of “podcast-only” podcasting, Podiobooks.com, as well as some of the hot new short fiction podcast sites.

Keep listening!