Audiobook Podcasting

In a particularly forward-looking article, The Guardian argues that the future of audiobooks may lie in podcasting.

Story is currently broadcasting his novel, Tom Corven, chapter-by-chapter over the internet as an audiobook. After each chapter is written – he’s currently up to 43 – he records himself reading it aloud and makes the recording available on the net. Subscribe to his podcast ‘feed’, as over 1600 fans have done, and each new instalment will be automatically downloaded onto your computer.

Regardless of whether or not audiobooks end up moving in this direction, the ability to podcast seems like a boon to an emerging author. I imagine that it would be helpful to be able to tell potential publishers that 1600 fans have latched on to your podcasted work. This seems like a pretty legitimate way to build–and demonstrate–an audience for an author’s work.

Also, the pressures and networking potential associated with regular podcasts would seem to help mitigate the loneliness and isolation that often accompanies writing.

Within a few more weeks he had received an email from a successful LA scriptwriter, Diana Ademu-John, who told him "Your tale’s a bit creepy, a bit sad, with hints of madness and romance and a good mystery to boot – all my favourite things. I really look forward to setting aside my own labours every couple of days, to listen to the fruits of yours."

It is feedback like this that keeps Story going with his project. "I am encouraged and emboldened to continue when things get tough," he says. "Writing fiction of any length is normally done in isolation without feedback, but recognition – so elusive for most unpublished authors – is something we all need from time to time."

The pressure of podcasting to a regular timetable also means that procrastination, that bane of writers, is not an option. Story states on his website that "there will be no excuses, no writer’s block, no failure of the imagination and definitely no lazing around" and he tells me that "knowing that people are waiting for the next chapter concentrates my mind. It also forces me to get it as right as it can be for a first draft".