Neil Gaiman – read The Graveyard Book on a book tour, chapter by chapter, and had video recordings of it put on a website. http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx

Stephen King – Riding the Bullet was available for free from, among others, amazon.com

If you read with the intention to boast about what you’ve read, then reading (or listening to) random books from the internet might not be for you. (Although if the book does become a success – the next Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Dan Brown -, you can’t boast you’ve read it way-back-when. )

DEF: Opinion. n. A personal view, attitude, or appraisal that is not allowed criticise or praise anything that is real or fictional.

Examples:

Opinion ≠ Ugh! OMG LOL, Podiobooks suck ass.

Opinion = LOL

I think what we have learned is that you are not allowed an opinion. In fact, if you have an opinion the best thing to do is think about rainbows or something. Maybe download some podiobooks?

Hug it out guys……

Note: Opinions held by the majority and the minority hold as much relevance as eachother.

*this post was brought to you by Irish Sarcasm.

Cheers,

Emer Sugrue

I am a New York Times best-selling fiction author, and all of my works are on Podiobooks.com. Placing my works on Podiobooks.com helped lead me to a publishing deal with Crown Publishing, a division of Random House.

Other commenters have already pointed out the column author’s complete and utter lack of research. Even the most rudimentary Google search would have contradicted the author’s presumptuous bias toward what defines “quality.” It’s not a personal attack to say that the author did zero homework and made ignorant, sweeping generalizations about the subject matter.

State your opinion, by all means, but do try to take at least ten minutes our of your busy day to also include the facts.

Now that I’ve established my street cred, let’s get down to brass tacks. A few years ago blogging was considered simply a venue for journalists who were too inept to get published by traditional newspapers. It was considered no more than vanity press. Period. Full stop.

Today, blogging is considered a respected form of communication and is often referenced by major media outlets. Blogging is now seen as a way of getting views from people that under normal circumstances would never be heard. By this slow and steady transformation, bloggers have gained a certain respectability that the author of this article is now trading on.

In the circle of podcasters, podiobook authors hold great sway. This is because of the amount of tireless effort needed to write, produce, direct, edit, submit, and publish any work that is able to garner the acclaim that the author of the article has yet to achieve. For instance, Nathan Lowell has now produced a total of 8 novels in this way that are even now being picked up for publication by a Washington, D.C. publishing house.

I would list more authors, but I think previous commenters put the lie to the assertion that no podiobook writers can make the grade.

The author of this article must be very naive to believe that great fiction writers died out after the advent of audio formats. After all, I can think of many great works that have been translated in format from published works to audiobooks.

Gutenberg no doubt devalued books by making them more easily accessible to the masses. After all, he changed the format from hand written to mass produced. How much more so must book to audio format be losing quality? And that audio format being made widely available to everyone via the internet? I’m sure the author of this article is no doubt as astonished as I that there is any good literature left after such a travesty has been committed.

Perhaps it is time that internet journalists were held to the same sort of accountability that bloggers are. No doubt references and citations would then be attached to such in-depth reports.

It is not in my nature to be unforgiving to a student who makes a mistake out of lack of knowledge. That is, after all, why they are a student. So instead I would ask the editorial staff how such a piece of fiction made it into an award winning, well respected journalistic work? Mayhap it is time for them to step into the new millennium before cultural change passes them on into the fate of yesterday’s newspapers.

I’ve been an avid reader for years and I would offer a few positive attributes of the books available on Podiobooks.com .

I’ve been able to consume so many more novels in the past few years thanks to Podiobooks.com, since I can listen as I work. The quality of the novels I listen to on Podiobooks are as good as the novels I used to pay full price for. The top audiobook page at http://www.podiobooks.com/charts.php is a great start, as are Odin1eye’s podiobook reviews at http://viewfromvalhalla.com/podcast-review-directory/ .

Also, the novels I’ve enjoyed on Podiobooks tend to be better fit for audio than the audio version of traditional print novels. The format of podiobooks range everywhere between straight reads and full audio play productions. That being said, the novels that I’ve listened to on Podiobooks and also bought in print still hold up in well in print. (Yes, I do buy printed copies of some of the podiobooks I’ve already listened to.)

The podiobooks are free, but that doesn’t make them worthless. Most of these novelist are trying to gain audience and exposure in hopes of a paying gig. How many really good novels don’t get published or take years to be published? – a lot. With Podiobooks, I get great stories without having to wait on publishers. And I get to try them out and if I don’t like some, I get to move on and try another.

Podiobooks.com does have standards, I’ve heard enough to know that these books have to meet certain production standards to make it on the site. That doesn’t guarantee that you’ll like them all, but walk down bookstore shelfs – you’ll find thousands of books you’d never buy.

And last but not least, a lot of these novelist are people you can get to know on the Internet. And you can meet fellow listeners on-line. I’ve even met some of them in person at conventions – and they remember me (in my case, usually from Twitter). If you like a Podiobook, check out the authors website, contact the author and let them know what you think. Write reviews (short or long) at Podiobooks, iTunes, the author’s site, … wherever. With these books, YOU can get involved. And for that matter, your comments might end up making a future published version of some of these books even better than they are now.

Perhaps you only took a surface glance at the medium, and didn’t hit the depths you didn’t know existed.

The one comment I’d add to the already well-thought out responses is that I found it a little odd that the author singled out one person at the podiobooks.com site and tried to intimate that not having a page on Wikipedia was a solid indicator of a lack of success. Considering the personal nature of the comments leveled at Mr. Lowell in the article, it’s odd comments were shut down to prevent personal attacks.

In any case, an article of this type requires an informed source, and the comments field being opened back up allows a wider range or experience to help provide that. Thanks for that.

DNW

- Scott Sigler, Crown Publishing. It should be noted he is a New York Times Bestselling author who has had the film rights to his work purchased.

- J.C. Hutchins, St. Martin’s Press

- Mur Lafferty, Running Press Kids (a member of the Perseus Books Group) and Swarm Press

- Matthew Wayne Selznick, Swarm Press

- Philippa Ballentine, Dragon Moon Press with forthcoming work from Ace Books

- Christianna Ellis, Dragon Moon Press

- Phil Rossi, Dragon Moon Press

- M.H. Bonham, Dragon Moon Press, Yard Dog Press, with nonfiction also published by Howell Book House.

- Tee Morris, fiction by Dragon Moon Press, nonfiction by Howell Book House and Que.

- Andy Remic – a variety of publishers, including Solaris Books and Angry Robot Books.

- Cory Doctorow, another New York Times bestselling author, published by Tor.

- Jeremy Robinson, St. Martin’s Press

I personally own books by nine of these authors. I’d respectfully assert that the author’s assumption that people won’t pay for these works is flawed and, at best, simplistic. There are other reasons for putting work up on the internet rather than go for traditional publishing. Mr. Doctorow and Mr. Selznick have both stated a belief that information should be free. Mr. Sigler and Mr. Hutchins both had works rejected by traditional publishers, then decided to podcast it for the gratification of sharing their stories. The popularity of their works was sufficient to give their works life in traditional publishing. Ms. Bonham, Mr. Remic, and Mr. Robinson all were published BEFORE they podcasted their work and have turned to podcasting as a marketing method to promote their work.

The author of the piece is most welcome to their self-admitted “snobbery.” Their taste in literature is their own prerogative. But even for an opinion piece, this article lacks any kind of substantial facts that backs the journalist’s assertions. One would hope the editorial staff would be more thorough.

Also, it is discouraging that the comments field for the article was disabled. I will be posting this response to my personal blog with a link back to the article for others to find.