Author Topic: EA Metacast Aug '09  (Read 36211 times)

Ben Phillips

  • Lich King
  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 299
    • Pseudopod
on: August 22, 2009, 03:06:50 PM
[Ben Phillips]

EA Metacast - August 2009

This metacast announcement is going out over the Escape Pod, PodCastle, and Pseudopod feeds, so if it sounds familiar it's because you've heard it before.  Feel free to skip it.  There's no story here, either.  This is a State of the Podcasting Company Address for those who are curious, and I'll also make some announcements about upcoming merchandise, a fun contest with fabulous prizes that's nice and easy for you to enter, and how the two relate.  More on that in a minute.

My name is Ben Phillips.  I am the chief editor of Pseudopod, the horror fiction podcast, and as of this calendar year I'm also the managing editor of Escape Artists, Inc., as a whole, which brings you Pseudopod, PodCastle for fantasy, and of course Escape Pod, still the high emperor of free science fiction audio since its inception in 2005.

First off:  You asked for them, so solid plans are in the works for t-shirts, and YOU can help us come up with what should be written on them.  Tag lines, in other words.  Escape Pod:  The Future Is Now!  PodCastle:  It's what's for Second Breakfast.  Pseudopod:  The streets will run red with the blood of the non-listeners.  Whatever.  You can do better than we can.  Send your submission by September 15, 2009, to contest@escapeartists.net.  You can submit a tag line for any one of the three podcasts, or for Escape Artists in general.  You can submit tag lines for all of them!  You can submit ten tag lines for each one of them.  But you don't need to.  More details can be found at forum.escapeartists.net on our Contests board.

Now I'm going to let you hear briefly from some of the other principles involved.  To kick it off here's the man who started it all (and roped me into it!), my old college buddy and founder not only of Escape Artists, but also the fiction critique group we used to be in together where we solidified our "radical" views on genre limitations or lack thereof.  Here he is:  Steve Eley.


[Steve Eley]

Hi. It's been a while. So -- how've you been? Good? You're looking good; did you lose weight?

All right. Getting real here. What Ben has said to you so far, he's said as the guy who's running Escape Artists Inc. Why is he running Escape Artists?  Because I asked him to. Quite bluntly I realized I just couldn't do it any more. If you've listened to Escape Pod long enough you've heard me talking about having some mental health _interesting times;_ you've seen my occasional supreme lack of organization and some consequences thereof; and you've heard me wax very passionately on the desire to keep short fiction strong in SF, but without doing enough to reach out to the rest of the community.  And now, as more people than ever are involved in Escape Artists, and as our three podcasts are being recognized as primary institutions in their genres -- we have the potential to do some amazing things.  And more and more I've been feeling like I'm holding it back.  This is bigger now than one guy -- especially one guy with a day job that's really motivating for a change, a second child on the way, and an ADD mind that's much more suited to big vision than keeping schedules in order day-to-day.  I'm still the owner of this company, but that needs to change.  I still have my motivation for story, but the _business_ of story is something that other people on our team are better at than I am.  My personal mission now is to empower the right people to kick ass, and get _my_ ass out of their way.

So here's what's going to happen, in a nutshell.  First: I'm going to stop owning this company.  As of about, oh, _now,_ Escape Artists, Inc. is beginning the bureaucratic process of reincorporating as a non-profit and filing for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.  This is something we'd talked about internally for a while, and I'd researched it seriously before we became a business at all.  At the time it seemed too complex for what still felt like a hobby.  Now it's time.  This has some benefits for you: assuming we get approved, and I make _no_ promises on how long this will take, if you're a US citizen any donations to us will be tax-deductible.  And we can still do advertising and all of that.  But the real reason is that it fits better what we're doing in my head.  My feelings on making money from this have changed -- and not just because the economy's kept us from making any money anyway.  All of these podcasts have missions that are about keeping a certain type of story alive.  A certain spirit, a certain imagination, a certain energy.  Going non-profit means that no one person, including me, can make or break that spirit.  No one owns it.  It means decisions made by a board putting the community first.  It's not going to be simple, and probably won't be cheap; and if you're considering donating -- I'll get to that in a minute -- please please _please_ don't hold off waiting for this.  We need to stay alive long enough to get there.  And by the way, if any lawyers are listening who can help us, I'd love it if you'd drop me a line.  steve@escapeartists.net.

That's the big picture.  Smaller scale: let's talk about Escape Pod.  I know people still think Escape Pod == Steve Eley.  That's probably because I talk too much.  But the managing end of Escape Pod has almost completely been Jeremiah Tolbert for a while now.  He's been doing the story selection, he's been working with Nathan to do our audio editing, he's lining up the story schedules.  He's been doing the work.  And he's succeeding at it.  And by the way, there's been a little bit of blog brouhaha lately from people thinking two stories they don't like in a row means there's some sort of sea change in the kinds of stories EP is running -- not really true.  Stories bought by Jeremy have been running since about EP190.  If you liked "Sumo21" or "Exhalation" -- that's the one about the world powered by air pressure -- you like Jeremiah Tolbert's story selection.  He's as good at this as I am -- actually much better, since he's completely turned around our response time issues as well and is actively soliciting work from more name authors.

But I'm still hosting Escape Pod, right?  Right.  Wellll, actually...  I'm kind of sharing that too.  I already have been; you've heard plenty of guest hosts here, and that's been kind of fun.  We can keep doing that too.  But it's been the intention for a while to try to find someone who can help out with it regularly, so that nothing falls behind if Steve flakes.  We've found our cohost, we've brainwashed him into it, and I'm pleased to report that Norm Sherman, of the Drabblecast, will be _officially_ cohosting Escape Pod.  Norm's work has always stirred my envy -- the boy doesn't just talk and narrate amazingly good flash stories, he also writes songs and does foley effects and educates us on the dangers of freakish marine life.  We're lucky to have Norm on the team.  And no, this doesn't mean I'm vanishing.  I like reading things out loud too much, and, well, I like you guys too much to just go away.  That sounds cheesy, but it's true.

So those are the big announcements.  One smaller thing: we've been having complaints, and confusion, and just general bad vibes about some of the blog comments on our stories.  It's sort of an oddity that we have two separate communities for each podcast: there are our discussion forums, at forum.escapeartists.net, and then we also allow comments on the blog itself.  The forums have a pretty good crowd and are well-moderated thanks to strong efforts by some great volunteers.  The blog discussions are less moderated and while it's easier to just post a quick line there, they also tend to be prone to a lot of hit-and-run snipery and anonymous bad behavior.  In a few cases it's actually discouraged some of our authors and narrators from wanting to work with us again, and that's crossing a line.  The editors have talked, and at least for the near future, Escape Pod's answer is that new episodes are going to have blog comments disabled, and we'll post a link instead to the discussion thread in the forums.  I'm sorry if that's an annoyance for you, but it only takes 30 seconds to sign up in our forums, and it is a good community.  If you have strong opinions for or against, please let us know about it -- at forum.escapeartists.net.

Finally: donations.  All right.  Ben was going to talk about this more, and then we kind of felt that maybe I should, because I sound nicer.  It comes to this: 2009 is a shitty year to be a donation-driven project.  Our audience numbers are good -- not growing fast, but holding well, at 20 to 25,000 for Escape Pod and 8 to 10,000 for PodCastle and Pseudopod.  These are really healthy numbers, and I love you all.  But donations?  Not so good.  We've been in the red for several months now.  Besides the stories, we have some paid staff now, and we're trying our best to pay our editors.  We haven't had a month in a while where everyone who's supposed to get paid _got_ paid.  I've refused to be paid.  I had to put more money in from my personal savings a couple times, and I personally haven't taken any money _out_ from my own company in over a year.  That's not a "Whee, look at me, I'm so noble" declaration -- I'm just letting you know where we are.

I know a lot of folks are out of work right now.  I know money's tight everywhere.  Our content's always free, and I won't ask you to do anything stupid -- if it comes to "donate ten bucks to support our authors," or "feed your family" -- go.  Feed your family.  I think most of our authors would tell you the same.  But if you can spare it, if you've been thinking you might for a while and haven't done it yet -- this would be the time.  We're building out advertising but it won't happen instantly.  And in the meantime we're facing having to make decisions like cutting our story rates, or going biweekly, because the cash flow just _isn't there._  We need your help.  I'm not dramatizing, it's just how it is.  If you want to give a one-time donation, that's great, we'd love to have your support.  But the _best_ thing you can do to help would be to click the $5 a month button on any one of our podcast sites.  That's a single cup of coffee for a lot of people these days, but to us it means support we can plan for month-to-month.  That we can budget in.  Either way, anything you can do for us will earn our sincere gratitude, and keep these podcasts going with stories week after week.  Please think about it.  And whatever you do, keep spreading the word about us.

Finally: one more cheerful note.  Dragon*Con's coming up in a couple weeks here in Atlanta.  You, me, and fifty thousand of your closest fan friends.  Once again I'll be joining up with Cunning Minx and we'll be cohosting an Escape Pod/Poly Weekly meetup.  Sunday September 6th, 11 AM at the Gordon Biersch brewpub.  This'll be our third year in a row, and it's a lot of fun and a great way to make new friends.  At least, for me it is.  It helps me get over my shyness.  So I hope to see you there, and either way you'll be hearing me on the podcast.  I'm passing the mic on now.  Thanks for listening, thank you for being as cool as you are, whoever you are, and Have Fun.


[Rachel Swirsky]

Hello, this is PodCastle's Rachel Swirsky.  Ben asked me to say a few words on behalf of our podcast.

Editing an audio magazine has been an adventure for me.  I have training in theater and a master's degree in creative writing but I'd never tried any podcasting before the launch of our magazine in April 2008.

We've been around for just over a year now and I'm pleased to say that we've achieved an audience of about 8500 listeners.  In our first year we've been immensely pleased to bring our audience work by luminaries in the field like Kenneth Lee, Peter S. Beagle and Jeffrey Ford, work by people whose careers are just catching fire like Sarah Prineas, work by perennial Escape Artists favorites like Greg van Eekhout and Tim Pratt and Eugie Foster, and work from newer authors like Gord Sellar and Tina Connolly.
 
One thing Ben asked me to do was call out many of the people it takes to make PodCastle function from week to week.  First of all, we're insanely grateful to Steve Eley, our founder, and to Ben Phillips, our current managing director.  Alasdair Stuart, although primarily associated with Pseudopod, has been a great help with various behind the scenes things.  We're also very pleased to be working with Jeremiah Tolbert, who is an amazingly talented man.  We also thank the other Escape Artists staff:  Inara de Luna who helps with administrative work, Matt Arnold who works at Poddisc, and Paul Haring who tackles the enormous task that is our books.

For PodCastle specifically, Ann and I do most of the story selection, but there are a number of people who help us out.  Dave Thompson has been an enormous help to the podcast team by reading the stories once we've purchased them and has recently been giving me some great story recommendations, too.  I asked Mary Hobson to do a story introduction on a whim sometime last year, and who knew she would turn out to be utterly amazing at it?  Well, potentially anyone who had spent any time talking to her.  And I can't forget PodCastle's forum moderator, Heradel, who I'm told goes by the name of Bill Peters in the daylight world.

Perhaps the biggest help PodCastle has is our audio editors, since Ann and I don't really know our way around an MP3.  We started out with the assistance of the magnificent Steven Eley and then the job was taken over by Nicole Thayer for several months.  At the beginning of this year we started working with Amanda Fitzwater who has been an enormous boon to the podcast.  Not only does she work entirely for free, responding rapidly to the quick changes in narration and introductions and the perennial behind the scenes problems with file location, file management, file extensions, file housing, files, files, files, files, she does so with good grace and humor, and from New Zealand.

So as you can hear, there are a lot of people who contribute to helping PodCastle run and I'm grateful to each of them.  Some work for pay, some don't, but believe me none of us are earning buckets of cash, or even, except for our contractors, minimum wage.  We do what we do because we love stories.  We love the stories that we bring to you, and we hope you love them too.

That's PodCastle.  Thanks for listening.


[Ben Phillips]

This is Ben Phillips again.  I could babble at you myself about Pseudopod since I'm still its chief editor, but I think I'll let the charming Manx guy take it away.


[Alasdair Stuart]

Hello, I’m Alasdair Stuart and I host Pseudopod, Escape Artist’s weekly
horror fiction magazine.  I remember years ago reading Douglas Adams’ bio in
the front of Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and being slightly jealous of
the jobs he’d done.  A few years later, given that I’ve worked as a comic
store manager, local journalist, civil service porter, the world’s most
polite bouncer and now master of ceremonies for the largest horror fiction
market on the planet, I’m not so jealous anymore.

I’m two years into hosting the show and in those two years a lot has
changed.  We’re now regularly topping 10,000 listeners and have produced
over 150 episodes featuring stories from authors at every level of the
field.  We’ve featured stories from Stoker award winners like David Nickle,
podcasting icons like Scott Sigler and Matt Wallace and up and coming stars
like David Barr Kirtley, Grady Hendrix and Matthew Bey.  We’ve even had a
visit from one of the acknowledged masters, running The Music of Erich Zann
by HP Lovecraft as our hundredth episode and have another in the wings, with
a Mort Castle story scheduled to run later this year.

Pseudopod works a very difficult beat as we have to unsettle and entertain
every single week.  Our editor, Ben Phillips, has an exceptional eye for a
good piece of fiction and the diverse range of stories we run is down
entirely to his discernment and taste.  Horror, all too often, is decried as
Old Man Wilkins from the amusement park under a bedsheet spattered with
fluorescent paint or the sole province of 14 year olds wearing death metal
t-shirts and the truth is, it’s both and it’s neither.  Horror doesn’t have
the distance of science fiction or fantasy, to say nothing of the
reassurance inherent in both genres.  No, horror is immediate, happening,
here and now, down the street.  Horror is someone telling you something they
can’t possibly know, a glimpsed familiar figure in the distance, the
realisation that the calls are coming from inside the house.  Horror is an
intimate, personal genre and despite this an immensely inclusive one.  There’s
room for us all, including the fourteen year olds in death metal t-shirts
and even Old Man Wilkins.

Which is why I love my job.  Every week I get to introduce one of the best
authors on the planet and watch as they terrify an audience that spans the
globe.  Because for me, the real secret of horror isn’t that everyone gets
scared, but that sometimes, it’s fun to be scared as part of a crowd.


[Ben Phillips]

Just a couple of closing comments.  I am very proud to be a part of Escape Artists.  Every one of these podcasts really pushes its respective genre forward, and is a major player in the industry as a whole by dint of the sheer size of the audience.  Sure, a lot of PodCastles could have been Escape Pods, a lot of which could have been Pseudopods, a lot of which could have been PodCastles.  That's going to happen, because the way we see it, genre boundaries...  aren't.  Our cavalier view of genre limitations is part of what defines us as a company, and it is the reason you hear excellent fiction from us that may have slipped through the cracks of other fiction venues because of split hairs about whether it belongs there.  We believe, more than anything, that great fiction belongs anywhere other than just a dusty corner of an author's house.

We have a staff of serious professionals across the board.  We have put an immense amount of our time, creativity, and energy into building the largest audiences of any fiction anthology podcasts out there.  If we weren't immensely proud of that and excited about it, we wouldn't still be doing this.  And what makes it worthwhile is you, the listeners.  So from all of us at Escape Artists, Inc:  thank you.  Please enjoy the shows, join the discussion at forum.escapeartists.net, and spread the word to other people who enjoy stories for their own sake.  Sharing what we love is the reason we're here.

This is Ben Phillips, Managing Editor of Escape Artists, Inc., signing off for the EA Metacast of August 2009.  Thank you for listening, and in the words of the guns and ammo dealer in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas:  have fun!


Music:  "Glory to Dog" by Harmaline
« Last Edit: August 27, 2009, 07:51:06 AM by Ben Phillips »



eytanz

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 6109
Reply #1 on: August 22, 2009, 07:04:08 PM
Thanks, Ben, Steve, Rachel, and Alasdair for updating us on the state of the company (note: I read the post, not listened to it, so I don't know what Rachel said yet). And, more importantly, thanks for all the excellent work you've all been doing on the podcasts. Behind the scenes re-orgs and budget problems notwithstanding, from a (relatively long-time) listener's point of view I feel that 2009 has been Escape Artists' strongest year yet.

I have finally, after meaning to do so for ages, signed up for the $5 a month subscription. Once my next paycheck arrives I'll probably also make a one-time donation to account for the months I ought to have been donating but was too lazy to. However, let me ask you this - is there a simple way to increase the monthly donation? I'd happily pay $15 a month, as I feel that $5 is a reasonable price for one excellent podcast and I'm getting three. Is there a way to tweak my donation on paypal to be a larger amount, or should I just take out multiple monthly subscriptions, or something else?



Yargling

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 139
Reply #2 on: August 23, 2009, 02:01:52 PM
Ok, I've finally been prompted to sign up for the $5 a month donation. Its worth it for EscapePod and the occasional PodCastle



Bdoomed

  • Pseudopod Tiger
  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 5891
  • Mmm. Tiger.
Reply #3 on: August 23, 2009, 05:07:45 PM
Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, Steve.  It takes a lot to recognize your weaknesses, I admire that.  I will continue to support EP and PP with $5 donations per month (even though I am currently out of a job and again a poor college student!)

eytanz, I believe at the moment there is no way to donate larger amounts, I'm guessing you just have to subscribe for a second (or more) donation per month.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Zathras

  • Guest
Reply #4 on: August 23, 2009, 05:48:08 PM
Thanks for the update. 

It was weird hearing Ben's "official" voice.

Also, it took a few seconds for me to realize that Rachel was talking about Heradel.  I always imagined the pronunciation to be different.

I'll add that one of the best things you can do, along with donations, is to tell people about Escape Artists.  Spread the word!



Zathras

  • Guest
Reply #5 on: August 23, 2009, 06:45:56 PM
Rachel's transcript:

"Hello, this is PodCastle's Rachel Swirsky.  Ben asked me to say a few words on behalf of our podcast. 

Editing an audio magazine has been an adventure for me.  I have training in theater and a master's degree in creative writing but I'd never tried any podcasting before the launch of our magazine in April 2008. 

We've been around for just over a year now and I'm pleased to say that we've achieved an audience of about 8500 listeners.  In our first year we've been immensely pleased to bring our audience work by luminaries in the field like Kenneth Lee, Peter S. Beagle and Jeffrey Ford, work by people whose careers are just catching fire like Sarah Prineas, work by perennial Escape Artists favorites like Greg van Eekhout and Tim Pratt and Eugie Foster, and work from newer authors like Gord Sellar and Tina Connolly. 
 
One thing Ben asked me to do was call out many of the people it takes to make PodCastle function from week to week.  First of all, we're insanely grateful to Steve Eley, our founder, and to Ben Phillips, our current managing director.  Alasdair Stuart, although primarily associated with Pseudopod, has been a great help with various behind the scenes things.  We're also very pleased to be working with Jeremiah Tolbert, who is an amazingly talented man.  We also thank the other Escape Artists staff:  Inara de Luna who helps with administrative work, Matt Arnold who works at Poddisc, and Paul Haring who tackles the enormous task that is our books. 

For PodCastle specifically, Ann and I do most of the story selection, but there are a number of people who help us out.  Dave Thompson has been an enormous help to the podcast team by reading the stories once we've purchased them and has recently been giving me some great story recommendations, too.  I asked Mary Hobson to do a story introduction on a whim sometime last year, and who knew she would turn out to be utterly amazing at it?  Well, potentially anyone who had spent any time talking to her.  And I can't forget PodCastle's forum moderator, Heradel, who I'm told goes by the name of Bill Peters in the daylight world. 

Perhaps the biggest help PodCastle has is our audio editors, since Ann and I don't really know our way around an MP3.  We started out with the assistance of the magnificent Steven Eley and then the job was taken over by Nicole Thayer for several months.  At the beginning of this year we started working with Amanda Fitzwater who has been an enormous boon to the podcast.  Not only does she work entirely for free, responding rapidly to the quick changes in narration and introductions and the perennial behind the scenes problems with file location, file management, file extensions, file housing, files, files, files, files, she does so with good grace and humor, and from New Zealand. 

So as you can hear, there are a lot of people who contribute to helping PodCastle run and I'm grateful to each of them.  Some work for pay, some don't, but believe me none of us are earning buckets of cash, or even, except for our contractors, minimum wage.  We do what we do because we love stories.  We love the stories that we bring to you, and we hope you love them too. 

That's PodCastle.  Thanks for listening."
« Last Edit: August 27, 2009, 07:50:04 AM by Ben Phillips »



Heradel

  • Bill Peters, EP Assistant
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2938
  • Part-Time Psychopomp.
Reply #6 on: August 23, 2009, 10:53:10 PM
Er, thanks for the mention to Rachel, and thanks to everyone for the pods and the forums.

For those coming from the blogs - Welcome. Feel free to revive old threads if you have something to add, and start new ones. Please try to follow the campsite rule for discussions by leaving them better than when you found them.

[...]
Also, it took a few seconds for me to realize that Rachel was talking about Heradel.  I always imagined the pronunciation to be different.
[...]

I'm not really picky about it, it could also be swung to be Hera-dell. If I'm going by a handle in person it's always Arca, so~

I Twitter. I also occasionally blog on the Escape Pod blog, which if you're here you shouldn't have much trouble finding.


Kaa

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 620
  • Trusst in me, jusst in me.
    • WriteWright
Reply #7 on: August 24, 2009, 04:15:18 AM
OK, I've been meaning to do it for a while, but now it's done. $5/month for Escape Pod. $5/month for Pseudopod. $5/month for Podcastle.  That's $180/year. And I think I get every dollar of that out of the three. Even the stories I don't love are certainly worth $1.25. :)

Thanks for EVERYTHING you bring us, Steve, Alasdair, Ben, Rachel, Ann, and everyone else involved with producing these three podcasts.

I invent imaginary people and make them have conversations in my head. I also write.

About writing || About Atheism and Skepticism (mostly) || About Everything Else


Ocicat

  • Castle Watchcat
  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 3722
  • Anything for a Weird Life
Reply #8 on: August 24, 2009, 03:50:13 PM
Going non-profit is a great move, and I applaud it.  It's been clear for a long time now that this is done for love, not money.  This cements that, and will make donations even more appealing for tax purposes.  That being said, I won't wait for the legalities to kick in before donating...



ridiculouslee

  • Extern
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Reply #9 on: August 24, 2009, 03:52:22 PM
I hope the fact that Jeremiah Tolbert is playing a bigger part for Escape Pod doesn't mean he'll be more reluctant to run his own stories on the show, because all three of his have been instant favorites of mine and I always get excited when I see there's a new one up. I hope modesty doesn't get in the way of us and new great JT stories!
« Last Edit: August 24, 2009, 03:54:11 PM by ridiculouslee »



Nobilis

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 156
    • Nobilis Erotica Podcast
Reply #10 on: August 24, 2009, 09:41:42 PM
I usually don't contribute to podcasts, because I consider my own podcast as a contribution to the larger podcasting world.

For Escape Pod, however, I make an exception.  I can't pledge month-to-month, but I put some bills in the tray whenever I can.



Jagash

  • Palmer
  • **
  • Posts: 25
    • Genesis of Legend Publishing
Reply #11 on: August 25, 2009, 01:03:17 AM
I very much appreciate the labour of love that is the podcast and I have finally roused myself to sign up for the 5$ subscription as well as a one time payment.  I hope that the surge in response to the metacast will be sufficient to push Escape Artists into the black and that the subscriptions will allow for EA to maintain it's current stunningly high quality work.

Thanks to all who are producing these three lovely podcasts.

Sleep is for the weak due to sleep deprivation.


SFEley

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1408
    • Escape Artists, Inc.
Reply #12 on: August 25, 2009, 02:00:21 AM
You all are amazing.  Thank you.

(I'll certainly have more to say on the subject later, but I felt this much needed to be said right now.)

ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine


kibitzer

  • Purveyor of Unsolicited Opinions
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2228
  • Kibitzer: A meddler who offers unwanted advice
Reply #13 on: August 25, 2009, 04:05:23 AM
Some of the things I've said elsewhere have no doubt come across as harsh so let me be clear:

All of you Escape Artists folks are awesome. I love the 'casts and I'm so glad I found them. Props to you Steve for starting it, and for knowing when/how to pass on the reins -- not everyone would do that.



felicia

  • Extern
  • *
  • Posts: 1
Reply #14 on: August 25, 2009, 03:33:11 PM
Quote
Dragon*Con's coming up in a couple weeks here in Atlanta.

Any chance you all will be heading to the west coast for cons?  (I'm voting for you to visit Orycon.)  You've got fans over here too!



Paranatural

  • Palmer
  • **
  • Posts: 44
Reply #15 on: August 25, 2009, 05:23:20 PM
I gotta make it to the Escape Pod meetup this year, I skipped it last year. Was too busy gaming.



Swamp

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2230
    • Journey Into... podcast
Reply #16 on: August 25, 2009, 08:01:24 PM
Rachel's transcript:

...For Podcastle specifically...Dave Thompson has been an enormous help to the podcast team by reading the stories once we've purchased them and has recently been giving me some great story recommendations, too.

Is this Last Respects' Dave Thompson, as in DKT?

Facehuggers don't have heads!

Come with me and Journey Into... another fun podcast


Zathras

  • Guest
Reply #17 on: August 25, 2009, 11:02:16 PM
Rachel's transcript:

...For Podcastle specifically...Dave Thompson has been an enormous help to the podcast team by reading the stories once we've purchased them and has recently been giving me some great story recommendations, too.

Is this Last Respects' Dave Thompson, as in DKT?

Yuppers



Swamp

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2230
    • Journey Into... podcast
Reply #18 on: August 25, 2009, 11:27:03 PM
Rachel's transcript:

...For Podcastle specifically...Dave Thompson has been an enormous help to the podcast team by reading the stories once we've purchased them and has recently been giving me some great story recommendations, too.

Is this Last Respects' Dave Thompson, as in DKT?

Yuppers

Hat's off to you again, Dave.  Your are the man!

Facehuggers don't have heads!

Come with me and Journey Into... another fun podcast


nem0fazer

  • Extern
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Reply #19 on: August 26, 2009, 05:07:48 AM
Well they now have my $5 subscription. Wish I'd done it earlier.

Steve stepping back further made me sad but hearing Norm Shermans name as the new presenter was great. I've only just got into the Drabblecast but its just so great I can't imagine a better choice.



JoeFitz

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 258
Reply #20 on: August 26, 2009, 11:01:23 PM
Happy to see the blog comments disabled; I never really bothered to go over and watch them. Participate in a discussion forum or post comments on a blog? I'd rather discuss.

Keep up the great work. Go team!



Ben Phillips

  • Lich King
  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 299
    • Pseudopod
Reply #21 on: August 27, 2009, 07:52:33 AM
Thanks, Zathras, for the transcripting!  I did indeed fix the names and place it where it goes in the original post.



Meeks

  • Extern
  • *
  • Posts: 3
Reply #22 on: August 31, 2009, 02:25:28 PM
What I'd like to see is an $X/month button, so I can give more without having to think about it each month.



Ben Phillips

  • Lich King
  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 299
    • Pseudopod
Reply #23 on: September 01, 2009, 12:39:36 PM
What I'd like to see is an $X/month button, so I can give more without having to think about it each month.

Anyone who knows how to implement that, for god's sake drop me a line.



kibitzer

  • Purveyor of Unsolicited Opinions
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2228
  • Kibitzer: A meddler who offers unwanted advice
Reply #24 on: September 01, 2009, 11:07:47 PM
Anyone who knows how to implement that, for god's sake drop me a line.

Just PM'd you about this -- hope it helps.