writing for oculture about audiobooks

[hugh]

dan colman from the great http://www.oculture.com/ (which incidentally, remains one of our biggest traffic-senders) writes:

I was writing with an idea that you might consider appealing. Let me run it by you and see. Here it goes:

Lately, I have been asking intelligent producers of podcasts to write guest pieces on their areas of expertise. So, for example, the producer of Poetry Aloud wrote last week a feature on poetry podcasts. And soon before that, the creator of a science podcast called "The Missing Link" wrote a survey of what's happening in the world of science podcasts. This led me to think it might be interesting for those who produce audiobooks for Librivox to contribute pieces about the authors/books they know so well. The appeal would be twofold: First, it might be simply nice to write something about books and authors they love, and to say something interesting about a recording that they have worked on for so long. Second, the piece (which would only be a few paragraphs long) would reach an audience that would definitely have an interest in what they're saying, and it would almost certainly get users to their recording on Librivox.

If this sounds generally interesting to you, we should perhaps talk more about how to approach this. But hopefully this is enough to help you determine whether or not this seems like an interesting project. There's no pressure either way.

anyone interested?

[Cori]

Yes, though I'm not clear what could be fitted into a couple of paragraphs. Would this be something like a more personal book summary? Something about the book, the author, and about the highlights of recording it..?

Would be cool!

[dancolman]

Hi there,

This is Dan from Open Culture (oculture.com)

The basic idea here is that our readers love what Librivox puts out. And we thought that it could be fun to do some blog entries around new releases, particularly of well known books. I'm open to different ideas, but, as Cori suggested, the post could say something about the book, the author, how the book was written -- in short anything interesting that would motivate a reader to listen to the audiobook. If you're interested, just write me at mail (at) oculture.com, and I'd be happy to kick around ideas.

Thanks for posting this, Hugh.

Cheers,
Dan

Yes, though I'm not clear what could be fitted into a couple of paragraphs. Would this be something like a more personal book summary? Something about the book, the author, and about the highlights of recording it..?

Would be cool!

[Sue Anderson]

Has Librivox done anything with Dan Colman's suggestion? Sounds like it would be a great source of publicity. Perhaps Librivox could host something along the line of the feature "Life Changing Books: Your Picks" (an article from Books, which is reprinted on the Oculture site. These "picks" are short paragraphs from readers telling how a particular book changed their "life," their perspectives, whatever. . . A Librivox version of "Your Picks" could be focused on "What did this particular book say to me, that I spent so and so many hours of my free time recording it into the public domain, hoping that somebody else might connect with it . . . ???? I would be willing to work on this project, if it is still alive. Sue

[hugh]

HI Sue, would you like to be in charge? ... i think it's a great idea. what can we do to help you make it happen!

(Heh... been a while since I said that in a LibriVox thread ... feels like the old days!).

[Sue Anderson]

Hi there Hugh & everybody. Well, I’m game to try “leading the charge” so to speak, although I not quite sure yet about strategy.

Aside--- I’m presently recording “The Story of a Common Soldier . . . In the [U.S] Civil War” by Leander Stillwell; and as Stillwell says about a particular general, “he was a “book soldier,” and had a high reputation . . . as a profound “strategist,” . . . but in fact . . . he was a humbug and a fraud.”

So. more ideas will follow. Thanks for your reply. Sue