Fighting For Our Right To Party

[zvi]

So, I am not actually directing you to go talk to people in an anon meme, but there's a long discussion about posting a story podfic first, text delayed, in the Inception anon meme on LJ.

It raises a few interesting questions which you might care to discuss.

Some questions:

1) How do you convince people to give podfic a try, if they don't intuitively grasp why it might be cool?
2) If a story only ever gets posted as podfic, are you keeping something from people who prefer text?
3) What are the arguments for and against simultaneous release of podfic and text versus podfic first release?
4) How do you present the idea to people of a staggered release without annoying them? How do you let the people who didn't want to listen to the audio that the text is finally available?
5) If a story is released podfic first, is that first podfic of it the canonical version of the text?
6) How do you write a story to be read?

Comments

[pennyplainknits]

Well, as it's my project, I guess I should answer.

I haven't read the whole thread on the anonmeme, I don't need that kind of stress in my life.

I actually don't care if people don't like podfic. I think they're missing out, but hey, I don't like fic about tentacles, so.

This was something I had wanted to try for a long time, and five of my friends were kind enough to indulge me. The fic will in face be posted as text in a month, as was made clear at every point along the way. People can either wait, or not wait and forget about it. It's not like I track downloads, and I'm zen with podfic not getting a lot of comments so it's not likely that I'd notice either way if people did dl the recording or wait for the text version.

I did Spring Fling because I wanted to try something new, and because I'm irritated by the way podfic artists are seen sometimes as nothing more that human screen readers. I stand by by I did it. Interestingly no one has come to me with any of the concerns expressed in the meme. If they had, I could have told them my reasons, and pointed out that once to month is over authors are free to promote the hell out of their fics whereever they chose, so they wouldn't miss out.

Apologies if any of this sounds bullish or aggressive. I'm operating on a severe sleep deficit and I have many 20 minuts of internet time all day today and I don't have time to phrase and rephrase everything. If you click the spring fling tag in my journal you can find a post where I talk a bit more about my reasoning.

[paraka]

I just wanted to chime in to say I think what you did was awesome and I'm so glad you did it. It really sucks that there's been this kind of reaction. Everyone, every single fan artist, makes the decision when they create of what kind of audience they expect to get. To me, your Spring Fling came off as being intended for those interested in podfic. I find it incredibly infuriating that all these people who are not the intended audience are getting upset about this. Especially since it's not like there's any shortage of fic or that you're completely denying them access to the fic. And, actually, full stop: I can't believe people are looking a gift horse in the mouth. Fandom is built on people providing their time and creative efforts for fun, no one owes anyone anything and we should all have the freedom to create whatever we want however we want.

Apologies if any of this sounds bullish or aggressive.
I don't actually think that came off as bullish or aggressive at all.

[pennyplainknits]

Thank you! I just wanted to do it as a bit of fun, and a different challange. Sadly it seems to have had the opposite affect and it has made me think twice about doing something similar in the future

[softestbullet]

I think it's a really neat idea. <3

[pennyplainknits]

<3 thank you! I had hoped other people might try something similar as it was fun, but maybe the reaction it got may mean people think twice about it.