Submitting your first episode
Ready? Good. Before you submit, please double check you’ve done things correctly. It’s shocking and sad how many first time authors fail to read these instructions. Doing it right isn’t hard, and it’s frustrating when I check a file to see that something was left out. Check. Double-check. Triple-check if you must. Please? Here. I’ll help you out with this handy checklist:
The Definitive Checklist
This short checklist is exactly the process I go through when reviewing your first submission:
- Is the filename correct? PB-TheTitleofMyBook-01.mp3 is what I’m looking for. No spaces. No punctuation. Yes, it must start with “PB-“. And no, it can’t end with the extension doubled, like “.mp3.mp3”. That happens a lot.
- Is the channel Joint Stereo? Because if it just says “stereo” or says “mono”, that’s not Joint Stereo.
- Is the bit rate 128kbps? Not 192. Not “VBR”. Not anything that isn’t exactly the number 128.
- Is there an image embedded? I should see the cover of your book, and it should be exactly 300x300 and at 72 ppi.
- Is the Artist tag set to the author’s name?
- Is the Album tag set to the title of the book?
- Is the Track tag set to “1”? (You’ll increment this by one for each of your subsequent files.)
- Is the Year tag set to whatever year it is right now?
- Is the Genre tag set to “Podcast”?
- Is the audio maximized and normalized? I’ll open the file in Audacity and check out your wave form. It should be pushing the upper limits, but not peaking.
- Does it start with a short intro? I’ll listen to the first part to check.
- Does the file end with an outro that can be slightly longer? I’ll skip to the end of the file and check.
If you read any of those and think “What the heck does that mean?” then you skipped ahead. And that’s a bad thing. Go back to the beginning of the document and start over. Right now. Because you’ve probably missed other things about this process. It’s not hard to do right, but without understanding the process, it’s very easy to do incorrectly.
If you are having trouble achieving these specs with whatever software you are using, ask a specific question in the Mentorship Program to get help. Be sure to tell them what software you’re using, and what problem you are having. There are lots of helpful people in there willing to assist, and someone from Podiobooks.com monitors the conversation, too. (Me, usually.)
Get Feedback Before You Submit
Even if you hit all 13 of those checks on the mark, you still need a secondopinion. Use the Podiobooks.com Mentorship Program to your benefit. You want these people to check your work. Seriously. Only about 1 in 10 files submitted by first-time authors make it on the first pass. Please use the Mentorship program before submitting. You’ll thank me later. (And I’ll thank you right now.)
Once the folks in the Mentorship program have had their way with your file and you’ve specifically asked them to verify that you have all the tech specs correct, it’s time to submit to the powers that be at Podiobooks.com. Namely… me.
Why We’re Such Sticklers For This Stuff
We’ve been doing this for a very long time and have a pretty good handle on how people enjoy consuming serialized audio books. Over the years, I’ve heard authors come up with some very interesting thoughts and ideas about how people listen -– or how they might listen -– to their books. In every case, these authors have been making assumptions based largely on how they themselves like to listen.
Those assumptions are always wrong.
The reality is that people have different ways they want to listen. You cannot cover them all. Do not even try. Your job is to provide the files in such a way to allow the maximum enjoyment for the maximum number of people. If you follow the guidelines set forth in this document, you’ll be ahead of the game.
Part of our job is to figure out ways to make it easier for your potential audience to listen to your book. We’re doing a good job, but frankly have a long way to go. We’re working on it. That may mean we come back to our authors in the future with some changes. So you really, really want to hold on to your master files. Storage is cheap. Or stick ‘em on a DVD somewhere. Just make sure you have an archive that you can easily manipulate in the future.
How To Submit To Podiobooks.com
Listen: If you jumped to this level without reading the preceding information, I’m going to be very, very disappointed. And I’m going to know. So, seriously, don’t even try it.
If you did read everything, followed the checklist, and received the blessing from the peer group, then buckle up your courage and fill out our Publishing Request Form here:
And then you can relax, because the hard part is over.