making podiobooks grandma-friendly

[Jeffrey Kafer - Male Voice talent]

I send people to podiobooks all the time and usually the reply is "Ok, I went there, but I have no idea how to download the book?" This is usually because the book isn't finished and the process is not clearly defined on each book page.

This is because the site seems to be very non-tech-unfriendly. Most people don't want to "subscribe" to an audiobook because, darn it all, that isn't the way Audible does it. And unfortunately, Audible is the competition and the model for usability. One-click download is what people want.

We need big signs that say "DOWNLOAD HERE".

[Nathan Lowell]

We started a discussion on what the new interface might look like. That kinda feel by the wayside.

The biggest problem is that they need to find the book before they can hit "Download Here" and finding the book seems to be an awkward problem.

Now, I know you send people directly to your title and maybe adding a "Download ALL" button there might work -- working solely on the assumption that people can find a title. I think - myself - that the title page doesn't make clear that you can download each episode just by scrolling down to look at them (and assuming you're not logged in). It's rather a problem because if you split the table of content out to a separate page, the site gets deeper (not good) and if you leave them at the bottom of the page, then people can't seem to scroll down to find them (also not good).

There's a new Podiobooks 2.0 in the works, I know, but I haven't seen the interface yet ... perhaps these problems have been solved there.

[Evo Terra]

You're right, Jeffrey. I get that all the time. RSS feeds, episode links... none of that matters to the person who is expecting to download the entire book in one shot.

In Podiobooks.com 2.0, we WILL give people a chance to download a "traditional" audiobook version of any book. That's going to take some work on your part. You'll need to go to the master files of the books and strip out the "serializing" components -- the intros and the outros. You may want to leave the intro on the first file and the outro on the last file. In fact, you'll probably want to make a new intro and outro, as your "serialized" version may talk about "next time" and "podcast novel". This is neither.

You'll then zip up all the files -- not stitch them together -- and load them up to Libsyn pro. NOT RIGHT NOW, but when we're ready to go.

Here's the best part -- we'll charge for that traditional downloadable audiobook. You set the price.

The free serialized audiobook version will ALWAYS be available. But for those who want a one-shot, they'll have that option. We're adding a bunch of other "consumption" options as well, including print, ebook, Kindle, Smashwords... you name it.

We're gonna make this next version as grandma-proof as we can!

[Jeffrey Kafer - Male Voice talent]

I recall an email from you about this, Evo. Good stuff. Can't wait for it to arrive.

[James Keeling]

This is rather exciting really... Makes me look forward to it.