Crowd Sourcing

10 p.m.: Crowd Sourcing / Belmont /Mur Lafferty(M), JC Hutchins, Chris Lester

Turning Fans into Minions!

JC Hutchins, 7th Son Trilogy, got two book deals from St. Martins Press for 2009 releaase. Chris Lester, Metamorph City. Mur of … Murverse (Playing for Keeps, Geek Fu, Heaven, etc).

They can’t do it all, so they need help. JC Hutchins — there’s more social tools now; started in 2006, only really MySpace for promoting self. There were podcast directories, and asked listeners to promote the site.

Chris used crowd sourcing before he launched site. Asked people to be voices, worked networking angle of podcasting community, talked to friends for voice actors, tried to pull in as many people as possible, which helps distinguish the group.

JC Hutchins returns to crowd-sourcing for 7S Oblivion by soliciting fan creations, including audio, video and written work.

Chris set up a mailing list of people who want to volunteer, he then sends e-mail to list asking for specific things he needs (e.g. secretary). Chadwick Paddington says he wants forums, so he went out and bought TheCurse.org, setting up fan site for Metamorph City.

Mur created Tales of the Third Wave as an outcropping of Playing for Keeps. Kris Johnson was first to contributed.

How do you incentivize the fans so they can do stuff. JC has Ministry of Propaganda, sending out tasks for fans to complete. Those who complete missions are promoted on the site, entered into drawings for free stuff. Ask folks to blog about stuff on Twitter, then thanks them on the site.

Are they still seeing audience growing?

JC says his audience has declined, but he’s not still releasing books, but interest in his work has been intense. Chris finds it has leveled off. But finds that his downloads are increasing while subscribers are stable.

how do you avoid an echo chamber (or deal with the echo chamber).

JC will ask people to retweet, and with luck it will spread beyond the echo chamber. Trying to encourage new people to listen.

Chris: Never, ever turn down an interview. Always hyperlink back to the people who’ve helped you, referred to you. Offer to help out other people’s podcast (e.g. contributing interviews to I Should Be Writing).

Quick and easy way to begin crowdsourcing?

Twitter. Need to connect to audience, include call to arms at end of podcast. Make sure that you don’t totally confuse your audience; e.g. you can include a supplemental podcast explaining what you need to do.

How do you promote a brand new podcast?

J.C. Find similar podcasts, and ask them to help promote/recommend the web site.

Chris: If people are looking for content (e.g. reviews?) contribute content.

Me: Make sure people can commenting is easy. PReventing spam is preventing community; put the heavy anti spam on the back end.

J.C. Make sure barriers of communication are low as possible (or better yet non-existent).

Mur: Use WordPress and Podpress (podpress being a widget for making podcasts very friendly).

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