Session Name: Books and Podcasting
Focus: podcasting, audiobooks, community
Description: Podcasting made it easy and cheap for anyone to read a story to thousands of their closest friends, and offers an inexpensive way for book lovers to listen to discussions with writers and other book lovers. A review of some of the most interesting bookish podcasts, and a discussion of what more we could and should be doing.
Moderator: Miette Elms, miettecast.com
Comments (2)
miette said
at 8:14 am on May 19, 2009
A listener of my podcast sent an email not long ago. He'd found his way to my site after making his way through a string of ... well, prurient ... keywords. He opened up a file hoping to get his rocks off. He took a listen with the door closed and the lights down low. He left with a new appreciation for Italo Calvino, and went to Amazon and bought a book and became a reader.
And this is why literature podcasts are the best thing on the Internet. Second-best. First best thing: comment forms, which allow brats like me to expropriate the joint.
But there's also the story of Seth Harwood (http://www.boston.com/yourtown/newton/articles/2009/05/09/solving_mystery_of_finding_readers/), and the fact that the audio publishing business became a billion dollar industry last year.
And I'm curious: what do you think this means for publishing, and for those of us for whom reading fiction to the internet is a more intimate affair?
And I'm curiouser still: What podcasts do you listen to, bookish or otherwise? What's the relationship, for you, between podcast and text? What's next for bookish audio? Get in touch (miette@miettecast.com) and let me know where your head is.
Very excited about BookCampTO...
miette said
at 7:52 am on Jun 7, 2009
Some of you in the Podcasting session had questions about the technical requirements for producing a podcast-- I use my Apple laptop with a usb audio interface and fancy mic that I inherited, but for several years, produced it with a usb mic that worked well. If you want a cheap mic that works well for voice recording, try the Samson G-Track or Blue Snowball, both USB-based and both around $100. There are, of course, cheaper options that'll get you started (recommendations below).
For software, have a look at Audacity, a free package for recording and editing: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Apple users might want to try Garageband. I use something more sophisticated (Ableton Live and Peak), but only because I'm compulsive and weird.
And for publishing and dissemination, there are several tools to generate your rss feed, format your feed for ITunes, and ping other services. I use Wordpress with the Podpress plugin (all free), which makes it effortless to navigate around the acronyms.
MORE LINKS:
A nice how-to: http://www.sweetwater.com/feature/podcasting/howto.php
Another one: http://www.learninginhand.com/podcasting/create.html
Microphones recommended by LibriVox volunteers (potentially out-of-date?): http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/UserRecommendedEquipment
Just ask me: (Could be shooting my own foot for saying so, but I'm always happy to geek out on the audio front. miette@miettecast.com)
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Also, there was a guy in the Podcasting session who'd been reading his books on Podiobooks.com. I didn't get your name, but would love to listen to what you're doing. Dash me a link?
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