After a brief email conversation with a certain podiobook author I
admire (this, in direct response to my queries about the publishing and
marketing of my own audio fiction efforts), I was advised as an early
step to join the Podiobooks.com community, and learn all I can from the
accumulated experience there. Now, I'm not a joiner by nature. Like a
lot of writers, I guess, I'm more comfortable producing words, than I am
at the exchange of them. But that's just fear a-whispering, and I don't
have a clue as to why it still chases me, even though I'm all these
years removed from my youthful phobias.
Anyway, since I have an audio fiction title of my own to release soon,
I, naturally, sought out venues and interested parties. It's not been
an easy search. It soon became apparent that the idea of an hour-long
one-shot audio drama is something of a stranger in the crowd. There are
very few places that seem even interested. People like their series,
and have only so many hours in the day for things that fall outside of
an acknowledged area of interest or affection. I can understand that --
really I can, though, personally, I'm much less embracing of the
serialized fiction format, simply because there are so many OTHER items
of media vying for my attention that often I'm reluctant to get swept up
in that sort of commitment. Again, if my circumstances were different,
I'd certainly think differently, but as it stands, I'm not a prime audio
fiction consumer. Funny that, since I'm such a fan of both OTR and
modern radio drama.
You know where it stems from, this reluctance of mine? I'm just
realizing it now...it's the nature of the RSS feed. I just can't abide
the idea of having podiobooks, or pod, ogg, speex, and/or other types of
'casts being automatically fetched for me. I'd get buried almost
immediately, because my listening habits are of the feast-or-famine
sort. Now, I know that a decent podcatcher could just get the notices
of the new content, and then wait for my say-so on the fetching of it
(hello gPodder), and really this is the direction I almost certainly
will have to go in soon or later, but, being the creature of bad habit
that I am, this is a slow change to warm up to. Like a lot of folks, my
consumption is a direct reflection of my listening patterns. And since
I don't seem to have any, I'm looking at a slow trickle instead of a
fire hose. That's okay anyway: I'm not dying of thirst. Not yet.
Though I think that will change. I feel it in my bones.
