publicizing librivox

Post by **hugh** » October 6th, 2005, 2:02 pm

the more people who volunteer for librivox, the more audiobooks will be liberated into the public domain. any ideas for publicizing librivox & recruiting volunteers.

please be very specific!

GordMackenzie · Post by **GordMackenzie** » October 7th, 2005, 7:16 am

There are probably many community sites and forums that could be utilized to drum up some additional support.

Library groups and those that support free culture would be good targets as well as theatre and dramatic groups that might have would-be actors that would like to bust their chops on some great literature.

University English and Theatre departments may also be good candidates for targeted email campaign...

I'll do some further thinking and see if I can get a list of forums, etc. that might be likely.

In the meantime, it might be nice to have a standard piece of informational text that could be used to spread a consistent message.

g/

Post by **hugh** » October 7th, 2005, 8:20 am

here's a bit of text:

"LibriViox's wants all books in the public domain to be available, for free, in audio format, on the internet. We ask volunteers to record chapters of books in the public domain in digital format, catalog them, and podcast them. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project. Lend your voice to a good cause. for more information, see:
http://librivox.org/about-librivox/"

any thoughts?

also, when I come across a literary blog or podcast, I usually send em an email.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » October 7th, 2005, 9:21 am

It seems to me that the main thing we need is volunteer readers, and that the cataloging and podcasting part is secondary. We don't want to scare anyone off by seeming too technical, yes?

so maybe make it sound really easy:

"LibriVox wants all books in the public domain to be available, for free, in audio format, on the internet. We ask volunteers to record chapters of books in the public domain in digital format; all you need is a computer, some free recording software, and your own voice! We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project. Lend your voice to a good cause. For more information, see:
http://librivox.org/about-librivox/"

Or something...

Do you think it might work to print flyers that could be hung up in coffee shops, libraries, etc... maybe with those little tear-off tags at the bottom with our url on it. Where do people who love reading and books, and who also have a computer, hang out?

Kara

Post by **hugh** » October 7th, 2005, 9:45 am

yeah I was thinking about that for some local libraries...
any volunteers to make a groovy poster?

ps I like your text, will update site soon.

GordMackenzie · Post by **GordMackenzie** » October 7th, 2005, 8:28 pm

I think that it is also important that we get at least one book finished as soon as possible.

Once a full book is complete, I would recommend distributing it as a package on a P2P site like http://www.legaltorrents.com/index.htm which hosts Creative Commons-licensed, legally downloadable, freely distributable creator-approved files.

The more people that listen to the files, the more that are likely to check out the site and sign up for readings.

The other "publicity" idea I had was to contact "famous" personages involved in the free culture movement (e.g. Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow, Michael Geist, etc.) and try to convince them to do a short reading for the project. These folks are probably mega busy, but it might be possible to convince one or two well-known individuals to do a reading... particularly if it was made extremely easy for them to do so.

Then you publicize the heck out of that throughout the blogosphere. Get people to start accessing the content and that should help to generate more interest and more volunteers.

g/

Post by **hugh** » October 7th, 2005, 9:33 pm

yes ... I am very keen to get a book finished. secret agent is teetering, and call of the wild might just cross the finish line first. tho prob int'l episode, less organic, will prevail.

anyway, I am at this conference thing with brewster kahle, on oct 25, so that should be a good place to flog the project. and yeah convincing someone big to do a reading would be great. I'll push with brewster, and try to push some of my friends in the space who know the bigwigs.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » October 7th, 2005, 9:43 pm

Wil Wheaton (wilwheaton.net) seems like the kind of guy who'd help with a reading, if we can reach him somehow...

Great ideas, Gord!

Kara

alexfoster · Post by **alexfoster** » October 8th, 2005, 2:55 pm

Might be worth adding links in to signatures in e-mail, usenet, bulletin boards.

I haven't had a warm response in too many places I've tried so far.

Alex

the Literate Loser · October 8th, 2005, 7:27 pm

alexfoster wrote:I haven't had a warm response in too many places I've tried so far.

Neither have I. Are we just weird for wanting to do this?

kayray · Post by **kayray** » October 8th, 2005, 8:17 pm

Heh, maybe so. I volunteered about 30 seconds after reading the first mention on boingboing... didn't even have to think about it, of COURSE I wanted to be a part of this -- who wouldn't?? Guess I figured everyone else I spoke to about it would feel the same... but apparently they don't :)

We just have to hunt down the people who are weird like us. We'll find them someday.

I've just started my very own podcast (!) and all the books I perform will contain the librivox disclaimer, so maybe that will hook a few people. You never know. I think we just need to make sure everyone on the planet has heard of us.

http://kayray.org/audiobooks/ in case you know any kids who'd enjoy a good Oz book!

Kara

Post by **hugh** » October 9th, 2005, 4:10 am

well done kara.

funny the response of people who are interested is, "oh, this is gonna be big," but seems that was a couple of waves of interest.

still we're getting 500-600 hits a day on the blogsome site. I think I'll put a note at the botttom of every post there, asking for volunteers.

also there's a few groups I need to contact, distributed proofreaders, ourmedia, creative commons etc.

I think once we finish a book (guess it'll be intl episode, tho would have preferred secret agent, psmith or call of the wild), we'll be in better shape to explain what we're doing. By the way, you did a great job of recruiting!

alexfoster · Post by **alexfoster** » October 9th, 2005, 9:31 am

Are we just weird for wanting to do this?

Funny -- I've wanted to do this for ages! This project just gave me the inpetus to start and some of the tools I needed.

Of course, ideally I'd like to get paid to do it, but for now, it's fun doing it from home.

Post by **hugh** » October 9th, 2005, 9:59 am

i just sent emails to about 25 people who contacted me earlier wanting to volunteer for librivox, but have yet to record. so no, we're not weird, there's lots of interest, we just need to get the message out.

292 people have bookmarked us on del.icio.us, and after that boing boing article we got 10,000 hits in one day. people are interested, but I think one bad thing is we have yet to finish a book, tho we're close on some (psmith, call of the wild & secret agent).

xen · Post by **xen** » October 12th, 2005, 5:37 pm

Hey I just wanted to let you guy's now that you got some free publicity in Macworld. In their latest issue under their article on how to choose your next ipod (i think i only saw in in my friends copy) librivox was listed an alternative site for getting audiobooks. And thats how I found librivox.

I'm also up to making a poster for Librivox I've been using Photoshop and Indesign for about 4 yrs. I just need some basic info like A4 vs. Us Legal size. And generally what people want it to say.

Also you might consider simplifying the domain name to just librivox.com using a redirection service. I have heard good things about http://www.redirection.net/ and it 7.50 (usd) per year plus the domain which is 10 (usd). So it's not exactly breaking the piggy bank.

anyway let me know what you think
-xen