Archive for October, 2009

So podcasting.

It is kind of cool thing.  Some folks among my friends have embraced it.  They have made it part of their daily routine.   They might listen to NPR or maybe a fan podcast about a favorite show.  The truth is there are is a lot of content out there being made for the podcast format.   I have my own podcast which sadly I have not been attentive to, but I still plan on continuing it.   There are of course the various audio dramas all over the place, something which I have also participated in and been pleased with.   Yep, a lot of exciting things being done in the podcasting world.

Why do I bring this up?

I am glad you asked. Trust me, you were going ask.

See one of the more exciting things to come out of podcasting is the change it is making in how people get fiction.  It is bringing a new publishing model to light which has really changed the game quite a bit.  They call it a podiobook.  Cute term really.   It is giving away your novel one chapter at a time in audio format.   The idea is if you let people try out the book for free they will become a fan.  They will tell their friends about it and those people become fans.  You start to develop a community of people excited about your work even before it hits print.   Then when you do have a book in physical reality, your fans will buy it.  That is the idea anyway.

I know, I know.   It is crazy talk.

Even more wacky is it works.   Some people have leveraged their podiobook fan base into an actual publishing deal.  Scott Sigler, Mur Lafferty,  Seth Harwood and a growing list of authors have managed to get “published author” attached at the front of their names, in no small part due to their having released popular podiobooks.  Pretty cool huh.

And then there is Hutch.

J.C. Hutchins is first off a cool guy.   He is a nice guy who is kind of funny.  He is charming and upbeat.

Oh and also he can write a pretty mean tale.

See J.C. Hutchins was one of the early pioneers in this field.  He produced a podiobook when there was maybe 4 people running around doing that instead of the hundred or so doing it now.    He started out with this mammoth book called 7th son.   See he wrote this huge long techno thriller and eventually realized it needed to be broken up into a trilogy.  He decided to produce a podcast himself of the book and see if anyone liked it.  Of course, some did.   They went on to tell other people and those people told other people and slowly it grew into a mammoth success.  That was starting February of 2006.

He got people excited about the book.   He managed to get celebrities to do little bits for the podcast where they told you what had come before that episode.  We are talking people like Nathan Fillion, Ron Glass, Richard Hatch, George Romero, Robert J. Sawyer, and Joph Loeb.  People would wait for each episode wanting to see what came next.  I know this cause I was one of them.   He still gets in the neighborhood of 100,000 downloads every month.

It is a thing.

Flash forward to now.

Based on the success of the 7th Son Trilogy podcast and his throng of already existing fans Hutch got a literary agent.   This led to him writing a book called Personal Effects: Dark Art, which got more than a little praise not only for its good story but for its “transmedia” experience.   The book came with a collection of artifacts you could use to unlock other portions of the story.   Pretty cool.

It also lead to him getting a book deal for the Seventh Son trilogy.   This really popular podiobook thriller from podcasting will soon be in print.    Whats it about?   Well lets see.  It is a techno thriller about cloning, fake memories, implantable personalities, nuclear terrorism, political assassination, secret governmental programs and the oil industry.   No really, it has all of that.

Seventh Son: Descent, the first book in the series is going up for sell October 27th.

Whats that you say?   Your not sure if you want pay for this book and a 3 year old podcast may not be something you want to go download.

Wow, you are a tough sell!

Alright lets try this.   First the book is being serialized on boinggboing.net.  You know Boing Boing is one of the more popular blogs on the net, right?   Also on his website J.C. is putting up pdfs of the novel in a serialized format.   Easy bite sized pieces for you to try iut out and see if you will like it. But wait….there is more.   He also rerecording the podiobook of the novel as well.   He has more experience doing audio these days and figured why not do a redone version for easier listening.   Isn’t that pretty cool?

I mean just by going to his site you can check out 7th Son descent for free before you buy it.   Whats not to like here?  So go there and check it out.   When the book comes out at the October, go buy it.  It is a good story and you wont regret it.

and in closing…….
I comply.