The first file of an abridged version of Iain Banks’s latest thriller novel Transition was released as an iTunes exclusive podcast in the Canadian and U.S. versions of iTunes today. The UK version of iTunes has already had at least three of the files released.
Why the disparity?
Marketing.
Why only through iTunes?
Marketing.
Why not just do it the sensible way, like every other podcaster ever has?
Lets see …. oh yes, marketing!
Yeah.
Is Hachette earning any good will this way? Is it selling more of the UNABRIDGED, non free, audiobooks? Maybe, but somehow I don’t think annoying your customers into buying the regular version is what made podcasting novels a good idea. I mean look at this:
The feed, after subscribing, shows as broken! There’s no art in the file, and I have two copies of the same file.
That’s really pathetic.
Still, it might get healed.
Transition
By Iain M. Banks; Read by Peter Kenny
23 MP3 Files via iTunes Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours [ABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Hachette Audio
Podcast: September 2009 -???
A world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers? On the Concern’s books are Temudjin Oh, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice; and a nameless, faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher. And then there’s the renegade Mrs Mulverhill, who recruits rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward. As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course.
Oh, did I mention the regular podcast feed is either broken or disabled? It is. Likely this is because in order to use the words “This is the first time an audio has been serialised in this way, and we’re very excited to be doing something so groundbreaking.” -Disabling regular podcast feeds = good?
Check it out for yourself…
Podcast feed:
http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/features/transition/transition_podcast.xml
Thankfully some clever person in the BoingBoing thread thought to provide a link to this…
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
[via BoingBoing]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Tor appears to be going all-out in its promotion of the 12th installment of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, The Gathering Storm, co-written by Brandon Sanderson. In partnership with Macmillan Audio, Tor.com has made the novel’s second chapter, “The Nature of Pain” narrated by Kate Reading, available for online listening.
