There should be an interlude between 4.6 and 4.7 according to the writing order. I know it is not apparent from the table of content (the reason which I never understood) but with some interludes this is actually relevant regarding information, spoilers and time lines.
Oh my, that is a pretty big oversight on my part. Unfortunately it can’t really be changed at this point since that interlude has only just been recorded and she’s still editing it. Fortunately I don’t think this one has any super important information that we need for the remainder of Arc 4. I’ll have to mention that to Wildbow and see if he’s willing to put that chapter in the right spot in his Table of Contents. Thanks for pointing this out.
Is it possible to retroactively shove it in between later on? If so don’t do it right away. Wait till you’ve done both interludes of this arc or something and then have an announcement about it. In general I think it would be cool if you wrote something at your updates once in a while, just so this isn’t so dry. Though I understand you didn’t when you seemed no one would be reading. Do you have something that keeps track of the number visitors/downloaders and other such statistics?
I think I can, it would just require some tweaking of stuff. I’ll look into it sometime after the Arc finishes airing.
As for the writing updates on each chapter, this is something I’ve been very torn about. Speaking for myself I really want to do it, but I’m not sure how the other readers feel about it and I wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to submit their work. I’ve been beginning to lean towards the update comments lately, so I think I may suggest to the other readers that we start doing so for Arc 5 and on.
I do have a couple statistics tools, but I’m not sure how reliable some of them are. We’re getting about 130 unique daily hits, which supposedly does not include bots but I’m somewhat skeptical of that. We’ve also had almost 4,000 unique podcast downloads, which is a number I do trust. The average seems to be around 60/chapter.
Do you know any similar projects? Episodic audiobook podcasts of a single online serial novel made by someone else that is. The only one I personally know is hpmorpodcast.com who reads the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality fanfic. One major problem is that because it isn’t really original work most people won’t have discussions about the story itself on your comment section, because that already happens elsewhere. But still, Enias Brodski (the reader) puts a lot of effort into providing background and comments himself, or even just similar stuff that he got reminded of or tidbits from his life, which is a good conversation starter sometimes. Maybe you could look at his format and get some inspiration.
Hmm, I’ll have to check that out for some inspiration. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any other projects like this one. I’m not actually that active in pursuing web serials so my knowledge of the whole field is pretty limited (I was introduced to Worm through other friends who are big into webfiction).
He actually re-recorded all of his old episodes at some point because the difference in quality was too large in his opinion. He still has all the old versions available though. If you go to listen at them here (http://www.hpmorpodcast.com/?page_id=1037) you’ll notice that he started much like you did, but alone. You do also notice what he tried to do to differentiate the voices of the various characters before he got dedicated people for most of them.
There should be an interlude between 4.6 and 4.7 according to the writing order. I know it is not apparent from the table of content (the reason which I never understood) but with some interludes this is actually relevant regarding information, spoilers and time lines.
Just go to http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/shell-4-6/ and press next. You’ll notice that you get to http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/interlude-3%C2%BD-bonus/ before you get to http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/shell-4-7/
Oh my, that is a pretty big oversight on my part. Unfortunately it can’t really be changed at this point since that interlude has only just been recorded and she’s still editing it. Fortunately I don’t think this one has any super important information that we need for the remainder of Arc 4. I’ll have to mention that to Wildbow and see if he’s willing to put that chapter in the right spot in his Table of Contents. Thanks for pointing this out.
Is it possible to retroactively shove it in between later on? If so don’t do it right away. Wait till you’ve done both interludes of this arc or something and then have an announcement about it. In general I think it would be cool if you wrote something at your updates once in a while, just so this isn’t so dry. Though I understand you didn’t when you seemed no one would be reading. Do you have something that keeps track of the number visitors/downloaders and other such statistics?
I think I can, it would just require some tweaking of stuff. I’ll look into it sometime after the Arc finishes airing.
As for the writing updates on each chapter, this is something I’ve been very torn about. Speaking for myself I really want to do it, but I’m not sure how the other readers feel about it and I wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to submit their work. I’ve been beginning to lean towards the update comments lately, so I think I may suggest to the other readers that we start doing so for Arc 5 and on.
I do have a couple statistics tools, but I’m not sure how reliable some of them are. We’re getting about 130 unique daily hits, which supposedly does not include bots but I’m somewhat skeptical of that. We’ve also had almost 4,000 unique podcast downloads, which is a number I do trust. The average seems to be around 60/chapter.
Do you know any similar projects? Episodic audiobook podcasts of a single online serial novel made by someone else that is. The only one I personally know is hpmorpodcast.com who reads the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality fanfic. One major problem is that because it isn’t really original work most people won’t have discussions about the story itself on your comment section, because that already happens elsewhere. But still, Enias Brodski (the reader) puts a lot of effort into providing background and comments himself, or even just similar stuff that he got reminded of or tidbits from his life, which is a good conversation starter sometimes. Maybe you could look at his format and get some inspiration.
Hmm, I’ll have to check that out for some inspiration. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any other projects like this one. I’m not actually that active in pursuing web serials so my knowledge of the whole field is pretty limited (I was introduced to Worm through other friends who are big into webfiction).
One more thing on the subject of hpmorpodcast.com
He actually re-recorded all of his old episodes at some point because the difference in quality was too large in his opinion. He still has all the old versions available though. If you go to listen at them here (http://www.hpmorpodcast.com/?page_id=1037) you’ll notice that he started much like you did, but alone. You do also notice what he tried to do to differentiate the voices of the various characters before he got dedicated people for most of them.