At long last, I’ve recorded the last chapter of Falling Bakward and now have the complete set for my podcast. I’ve been uploading two chapters per day, so in a little less that two weeks the whole thing will be posted.
This has been a two pronged effort. One is to test the podcasting waters–learn the tools and discover how to get something like this out there where people can discover it. The second is to get a well-marked-up galley so I can apply apply a last polish to the text before publication.
Part two is complete, so for the next few days I’ll be pouring over the scribbles and getting the InDesign document fixed up and ready to convert it to the PDF that the printer will need for the 304 pages of content inside the covers.
Part one is still a little uncertain. Yes, I can make the podcasting files and get them posted to my website (see previous postings here and here ). But getting people to find it is not as clear as I thought it would be.
I’ve been using iWeb for my web posting, which has podcasting templates and appears to have iTunes support as well. There’s a cute little check mark which implies that, at least, the podcast is composed with a feed that is compatible with iTunes. I had hoped that it meant that notification about the podcast’s existence would show up in the iTunes Store in-basket as well. It might, but it’s been nearly two weeks since I started and there’s no sign that it’s shown up in the iTunes podcast listings. Time to start googling about that process, I guess.
I also signed on to Podcast Alley and added the feed to their system. It’s there alright, but it hasn’t shown up in their search system. A search for “FallingBakward” or “Henry Melton” returns lots of entries, but not my podcast. I guess there’s still a lot for me to learn.
When I first announced this podcast, there were a few hits, but I haven’t seen any indication that anyone is actually listening, but I don’t have any tracking hooks into the feed, so I’m just running blind. I need to fix that as well.
So, for those of you who want to listen to an author reading aloud his soon-to-be-published novel, click this link, then click the subscribe icon to load the tracking and loading feed into your iTunes or other preferred podcast listening application. Alternately, scroll down to Chapter 1 and click on the direct link to load and play each section immediately, and then proceed up the list. There are a total of 50 chapters, each roughly 10-12 minutes long.
I would like feedback, both from people who have listened, and from those who have podcasted something themselves.