Imagine That! Studios

Something for Nothing: The Phenomenon of Free

When I woke up this morning, I was expecting my coffee to performs its office and get me geared up for the day. Instead, I checked my Twitter stream and found this waiting for me:

My article about Podcast Authors is up on Wired ! @scottsigler, @sethharwood, @jchutchins, @teemonster all appear. http://bit.ly/Pv53w

If there are true Renaissance Men among us, then Martyn Casserly is one of them. He is an accomplished writer, an accomplished musician, and now he is an award-nominated podcaster with his one-minute Movie Mantras podcast. (Martyn is also a dad and a good mate to boot.) It was Martyn’s tweet that alerted to me Wired Magagine (UK) ran on their site “Novels by Podcast” where he discusses how authors are giving away (yes, giving away for free) their works in audio format and finding success:

Rather than just putting their work online and hoping people would find it, the growing band of authors threw themselves into new media and social networking sites like Facebook, building large followers of fans and talking to them on an almost daily basis. A new website, Podiobooks.com, was set up so that all the authors could host their work in one place and increase the sense of community between them and their audience.

This close relationship enabled them to set innovative ‘challenges’ that helped promote their work. These included fans going into bookshops and slipping home-made adverts into the books of big-name authors, burning CDs of the podcasts and leaving them in public places like libraries, coffee shops, or trains, and co-ordinated buying of small press editions of the books to push them to the top of the Amazon charts.

When it comes to creative thinking, a hint of risk may be conceived as part of the equation; but this article and the success stories featured in it are proof positive that you can win audiences and, most importantly, brand loyalty if you are willing to offer to your potential clientele quality content. Not a sample of quality content, mind you, but the whole thing. Innovators like Earl Newton, Scott Sigler, George Hrab, The International Spy Museum, and Marc Gunn have all given away their hard work and found success on both independent and mainstream markets, and all of them — along with other content producers following this approach — are achieving success on a global market. Podcasting should not be dismissed as simply a hobby, but a viable means of reaching out to potential clientele. Focusing more on the product and less on promotion, businesses can win a new and dedicated fan base by opening a dialogue whether it be with blogging, podcasting, or some other Social Media outlet.

Think about it: You offer to your audiences something of quality and substance, and you say “With my compliments.” What kind of impression would that make?

I can tell you: a lasting one.