My old Canon flash gave up the ghost somewhere between Taichung and Tokyo. Luckily my ancient Vivitar flash got plucked from the garage just before we walked out the door weeks before. My trusty old Vivitar doesn’t speak modern Canon hot shoe lingo, so I was forced to shoot completely manual.

I worked it out as I went along. Lucky for me I had been listening to the back catalog of Shutters Inc episodes from down under. It was like a refresher of my college photo courses in my earbuds. The results follow. Notice how the shots get better as we progressed through the evenings.

1234...678►

A free book? There’s no such thing as a free book! What’s the catch?

No catch. It’s free, click here to download it. But, Mur asks that if you like it you purchase it from Amazon.com on August 25. She’s making a run on Amazon and really needs us all to pitch in and help her get noticed. She, like so many others, has a book contract now. But podcasting novels are still a new medium for delivery and we need to show the publishing industry that this makes a difference.

Martha and I have read the PDF version multiple time. We help Mur by making the PDFs and doing layout and formatting. We also did a little editing. All of this was to help Mur make the best product possible. We bought the first version of Playing for Keeps when it was self-published on Lulu.com. And now we’re joining her for her run on Amazon and we’ll be buying multiple copies of Playing for Keeps as published by Swarm Press.

Mur has delivered countless hours of enjoyment and encouragement to the pod-o-sphere. She has also inspired and rallied people including me. It is not an exaggeration to say that if Mur wasn’t here I wouldn’t be either. I wonder how many other people to whom you listen, read, and watch are here because they were inspired by Mur Lafferty. I’m guessing the number is larger than you think.

So be ready to place your order from Amazon.com for Playing for Keeps on Monday August 25. Be there! Aloha.

Scott Sigler’s new print version of Infected gets released on April 1st, 2008. Over the next few days, his publisher has allowed him to give away copies of the PDF version of the book for free.

We are helping him do just that.

For more information on Scott and Infected, visit www.scottsigler.com

If you want share the file with friends, get them to download it from this page or from:

www.randomhouse.com/crown/infected/downloads/infected_novel.pdf

By getting the file from that link, it’s proving to the big publishers that we podcasters have a clue about what we are doing.

This file will only be active for a few days, at which time the link will become inactive and you’ll have to go to the bookstore to read the story. Which you should do anyway.

Photo taken at Farpoint Convention. Thanks Steve for an awesome time.

Download the file here:
http://www.variantfrequencies.com/media/FCM-HathADarkness.pdf

About THE FAILED CITIES: HATH A DARKNESS . . .

To some the number 99 represents the many names of God. But as a black
snowfall blankets the Failed Cities on Christmas Eve, the arrival of 99
mysterious steel chambers is the catalyst that sets a series of far from
blessed events in motion. From bullets and bata sticks to a life-and-death
hostage situation to high-speed battles up switchback mountain roads, eight
people become links in a deadly chain that will either tether innocent lives
to safety or strangle any hope for their future. And as each part of the
story unfolds, we learn that above all things, Christmas in the Failed
Cities is a feverishly struck balance between the constant threat of
violence and the briefest, most bittersweet moments of joy.

THE FAILED CITIES: HATH A DARKNESS by Matt Wallace is a freely distributed
.PDF produced and illustrated by Rick Stringer, and available exclusively
from Variant Frequencies. We’d like to encourage all our listeners to
download, print, enjoy, and pass along this unique piece of the Failed
Cities universe as a thank you for your continued support and enthusiastic
participation in our podcast.

And don’t forget to revisit THE FAILED CITIES MONOLOGUES, collected in its
entirety on Podiobooks.com

Happy Holidays from the entire crew of Variant Frequencies!

Download the file here:
http://www.variantfrequencies.com/media/FCM-HathADarkness.pdf

We also need votes on Lulu.tv.

All of these sites require you to register before you can vote.

To vote on Digg, click the blue “digg it” text on the left side of the story. The yellow box tells you how many other people have dugg it.

Voting on PopCurrent is much the same. Click on the blue box that counts the number of pops.

Voting on Lulu.tv is different. You need to find the orange on black “make favorite” text on the right. Then, you should get a slider bar above saying “click here to rate”. Clicking as close to the right side as you can will give us the highest possible rating. This isn’t always easy, the bar turns green as you move to the right. The more green you can get the better, but don’t obsess.

http://www.lulu.tv/?p=6416

Please don’t embed. We’d like to see a little ad revenue from this. Lulu.tv pays people to put content on their site. We only get paid if you follow the link. If you could link to this on your blog and website that would totally kick ass too.

Imagine what Tee Morris, Martha Holloway, and I can do if we decided to spoof it.

Man vs. C

Coming Soon!

-Paul

This is a must listen.

Saturday
10:00 AM Podcasting 201: Technical Foundations of Podcasting
Have something to say? Here how to say it! He fundamentals of creating and and setting your solid podcast up and running from the tech side!
Michael R. Mennenga, Tee Morris, Evo Terra. Farpoint, Paul Fischer

02:30 PM Interviews: Getting and Doing
Getting and Doing, How to do get them, prepare meaningful questions, and conduct and edit the oft rambling and disjointed audio into something good.
Paul Fischer, Stephen Euien Cobb, Summer Brooks, Swoopy

Sunday
04:00 PM Audio Fiction: From Podcast to Print and Back Again
Meet the pioneers of podcasting fiction! Learn from their mistakes, what they did right, and what went wrong. Get hints and tips and learn the different paths you can go down for your own creation. Use them to make your own serialized fictioin podcast!

Stephen Eley, Tee Morris. Ben Phillips, J.C. Hutchins, Paul Fischer, PodioBooks, Scott Sigler

Interview with Tee Morris author of the book and Podiobook, Morevi.
PLUS
Segment 3 of our Fathers of the Podiobook series.
Mark Jeffery, Tee Morris, and Scott Sigler together for the first time in one podcast.

Today’s Beer: Arrogant Bastard

• Tee Morris – The Guest That Will Not Leave
• Authors don’t actually read
• WorldCon and Literary Sci-Fi convention snobbery
• Why Paul likes hops in his beer
  
• Tee is being paid to Podcast (that bastard!)
• PROMO: The Balticon Podcast
• PROMO: Podiobooks.com – Free world class fiction in podcast form
• Tee whines about his legacy as a father of Podcast novels and Podiobooks
• We talk about all the great podcasts we love
• Tee talks about BEA (Book Expo America)
• Must comedy movies: Caddy Shack, Stripes, Airplane
• Tee talks about setting up a Podcasters dinner in Northern Virginia
• Plans for reading “Eye of Argon” as Christopher Walken at Balticon 40
• We just can’t end this podcast episode
• PART 3: Father’s of the Podcast Novel
• Our salute to audio engineering god, Mike Mennenga of The Dragon Page
• Podiobooks.com
• Podiobooks.com is a great proving ground
• The book publishing industry moves slow
• Waiting to have a book bust out and sell because of the Podiobook
• Would you rather sell a book or get a donation from your Podiobook
• Podcasts and Podiobooks provide massive amounts of advertising for free
• The Podiobooks Paul is working on, Forever Fifteen and Serve It Cold
• Tee makes fun of Mur (he’s such a dead man at Dragon Con)
• Letting people know about Podcasting is still the main hurdle

Download This Episode

Author Hildy Silverman reads from her upcoming book, “The Way of Things”.
Recorded live at Balticon 40.

• Author Reading Part 1
• PROMO: Prophecy of Swords Podiobook
• PROMO: The Sci Fi Traveling Road Show
• Author Reading Part 2
• Con-Going Rules: Use The Stairs, Luke
• Con-Going Rule for this week supplied by Lady Ozma from The Parenting in Poverty Podcast, The ‘Charmed’ Podcast, and Growing Up Geeky.
• The Balticon Podcast has been nominated for a Parsec Award in the Best Fan Podcast category.
• MUSIC: “The Vampire Club” by Voltaire

Interview with Scott Sigler author of the book and Podiobook, Earthcore, Infection, and Ancestor.
PLUS
Segment 2 of our Fathers of the Podiobook series.
Mark Jeffery, Tee Morris, and Scott Sigler together for the first time in one podcast.

Scott talks about writing, researching the science behind his works, and the business of writing.

Music by Voltaire, “The Vampire Club”

We managed to either book the wrong Hampton Inn, or go to the wrong Hampton Inn. We’re at PodcasterCon, but the address of the hotel is different.

If you’re coming to the Podcast tonight, we’re at the Hampton Inn

6121 Farrington Rd
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States, 27517
1-919-403-8700
4.05 miles from city center

Sorry for the confusion. I’ll work on updating the 20 other sites where this is posted.

Podcastercon is this Saturday at UNC in Chapel Hill. Over 225 people have already registered, and the conference is free. If you haven’t signed up, there is still time.

Once you’ve mastered the basics of Podcasting you’ll want to spread your wings and try more advanced podcasting configurations. This session will address such topics as getting better audio quality with mixers, setting up multiple microphones, and adding special effects to your podcasts. We will also cover transitioning from the record and edit method of podcasting to a totally live recording session that requires no editing.

I currently publish two Podcasts: The Balticon Podcast and The ADD Cast. I’ve been podcasting for around 6 months, and in 2006 I will be adding a Poddiobook to my publication credits and possibly a third Podcast. I am continuing to expand my podcasting setup to allow for live call-ins by phone and by Skype. As well as adding additional equipment such as a compressor/limited to increase sound quality. My current setup allows for up to 5 in-studio guests.

This session with bring together a mix of folks just starting to advance their knowledge of audio with those who have been doing more advanced audio work. Backgrounds and technical competency will vary, but it is my hope we can share basics and advanced “secrets” with everyone involved. By the end of the session everyone will have learned something.

I will be bringing my equipment, and I invite you to bring yours. We can work together to understand how to overcome all types of problems. The following topics and more will be covered:

• Using mixers
• Multiple microphone setups
• Compressor Limiters
• Different types of microphones
• Improving audio quality
• Audio recording software

podcastercon2006