Okay, here’s some more of the good news about Audiobook Heaven.
I already talked about Susan. She’s the person behind the website Audiobook Jukebox, and also the review editor for the website SFSite.com. She had asked me if I would be interested in submitting some reviews for SFSite and I said “Duh!” Well, I didn’t exactly say that, but you get my meaning. She told me about her list of books I could choose from and I was all happy about getting some free audiobooks. Since Susan is the editor of an audiobook review site, publisher’s send her the audiobooks for free since it’s good advertising for the publisher. Susan, in turn, sends the books out to her reviewers, of which there are about 12 including me.
As I was discussing all this with Susan, it occurred to me that hey, I run a legitimate audiobook review site of my own, why can’t publisher’s send free audiobooks to me? I looked around the web a little bit and found that this is a fairly common practice. Publisher’s like to send out review copies to reviewers at newspapers, magazines, websites, and yes, even little bloggers like me. So I started contacting some publishers. I’ve been reviewing for over a year so I know several of them. I looked up their contact information on the internet, and sent email inquiries to about half a dozen publishing companies to see if they would be willing to send me review copies. Of course, I provided them with links to my blog so they could check it out if they wanted to.
About eight days went by and I was beginning to despair, but then I got a bite! Someone from Blackstone Audio sent me an email saying that they were interested. She asked me how many audiobooks I could comfortably handle per month. The answer to that is between 15 and 20, but I didn’t want to seem greedy, so I said three. She had also asked me to go ahead and pick out some books from their website, which I did last Monday. Several more days went by, but on Friday she wrote back and said she had two audiobooks ready to send to me. The third one I picked is apparently still in production and not available yet so she asked me to make another selection, which I also did. Her only requirement is that when I review one of their books, I include a link to the product page at Blackstone for that book, and send her a link to the review I write, which is no problem at all.
This is really exciting! I haven’t heard back from any of the other publishers I contacted, but I’ll be getting audiobooks from Susan, and from Blackstone Audio, so that’s pretty awesome. Oh, the really exciting part is that Blackstone carries my favorite science fiction author, Ben Bova. I’ve been listening to audiobooks for about three years now and have never found a single one by Ben Bova, so I was really happy about that.
My career as an audiobook reviewer is really taking off! Now if I could just get someone to pay me! For now I’ll be content just to get somefree audiobooks. This will make a much wider selection available to me than what I’ve been able to find at the library.
Here’s the bible verse I got in my email yesterday:
1 Timothy 4:12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.
Today is my 40th birthday, but apparently God thinks I’m still young, so that’s good enough for me.
Showing posts with label audiobook jukebox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label audiobook jukebox. Show all posts
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Journal - SFSite.com
So where was I? Oh yeah, putting my links on Audiobook Jukebox. Okay, I spent a few days putting my links on Audiobook Jukebox, I had 100 book reviews, so I put up ten links a day for ten days. After three or four days of that, the lady from Jukebox, her name is Susan, emailed me again with another opportunity. She told me that she is also the review editor for a science fiction audiobook review website called SFSite.com, and asked if I would be interested in writing some reviews for them.
She told me that SFSite gets about 250,000 hits per month, and I figure even if she’s exaggerating, that’s still a much bigger audience than I get at Audiobook Heaven. Any review I write for SFSite will have a link back to my own blog, which could send a lot of traffic my way. Susan said I would retain the copyright to any review I write, and I can still post the reviews on my own blog, even if they are published on SFSite.
That sounds like a pretty good deal already, but here’s the best part. I get free audiobooks! Susan has a web page with a list of science fiction audiobooks on it. I can pick any book off the list and she will send it to me in the mail. This is especially exciting because, since I went blind almost two years ago, I’ve had a hard time getting my hands on science fiction audiobooks. Libraries carry a few, but they usually stick to books that will appeal to more people. Science fiction has been my passion since I read my first Jules Verne back in the third grade, so this is pretty exciting to me. Oh, and I get to keep the audiobooks, too.
So anyway, Susan told me to start out with four books, so I went to her book list and picked out the four I wanted. They got here last Saturday, but I haven’t started one yet, I’m listening to John Grisham’s "The Firm" and I want to finish it first.
Isn’t that exciting?! There’s no guarantee that my reviews will be accepted, but it will be fun giving it a try. I kind of feel like a minor league player who has been called up to the majors. I don’t get paid anything, but I get the free books, and if one of my reviews is accepted, it could mean a lot of exposure for Audiobook Heaven.
Believe it or not, there’s even more exciting news on this topic, but I’m going to save that for later. See you soon!
John 9:4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. NIV
She told me that SFSite gets about 250,000 hits per month, and I figure even if she’s exaggerating, that’s still a much bigger audience than I get at Audiobook Heaven. Any review I write for SFSite will have a link back to my own blog, which could send a lot of traffic my way. Susan said I would retain the copyright to any review I write, and I can still post the reviews on my own blog, even if they are published on SFSite.
That sounds like a pretty good deal already, but here’s the best part. I get free audiobooks! Susan has a web page with a list of science fiction audiobooks on it. I can pick any book off the list and she will send it to me in the mail. This is especially exciting because, since I went blind almost two years ago, I’ve had a hard time getting my hands on science fiction audiobooks. Libraries carry a few, but they usually stick to books that will appeal to more people. Science fiction has been my passion since I read my first Jules Verne back in the third grade, so this is pretty exciting to me. Oh, and I get to keep the audiobooks, too.
So anyway, Susan told me to start out with four books, so I went to her book list and picked out the four I wanted. They got here last Saturday, but I haven’t started one yet, I’m listening to John Grisham’s "The Firm" and I want to finish it first.
Isn’t that exciting?! There’s no guarantee that my reviews will be accepted, but it will be fun giving it a try. I kind of feel like a minor league player who has been called up to the majors. I don’t get paid anything, but I get the free books, and if one of my reviews is accepted, it could mean a lot of exposure for Audiobook Heaven.
Believe it or not, there’s even more exciting news on this topic, but I’m going to save that for later. See you soon!
John 9:4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. NIV
Friday, November 19, 2010
Journal - Audiobook Jukebox
Hey kids, I wanted to share something kind of exciting that happened last week. Or maybe it first started a couple of weeks ago, I’m not sure. Anyway, I received a comment on one of my audiobook reviews over at Audiobook Heaven from someone I didn’t know, which hardly ever happens. In the comment, there was a link to a website called Audiobook Jukebox. Now, usually when someone posts a link in a comment to your blog, it is spammers who are just trying to get traffic to their site, and usually those sites are not the type that respectable internet surfers like to visit. I always promptly delete those from my blog, and even though this one didn’t seem as bad as others I have seen, I deleted it anyway because I just don’t like having other people’s links there.
Well, about a week later, I got an email from that same person, and the email said about the same thing the comment said so I decided to check it out. Oh, I should mention that my email address is visible in my Blogger profile to anyone who cares to go looking for it, so there was nothing underhanded at work there. I visited Audiobook Jukebox, and it seemed perfectly legitimate to me so I asked this person for more information.
Audiobook Jukebox is a fairly new blog, started about three months ago, I think. The person who contacted me is one of the founders of the site, and their basic goal is to create a central gathering place for audiobook enthusiasts. People who write audiobook reviews, like myself, can put links on Audiobook Jukebox that lead back to the reviews on our own sites. In other words, the reviews stay on my site, but Audiobook Jukebox will have links to them that people can click on. It’s kind of a win/win situation. People who like to read audiobook reviews can find a great wealth of them at Audiobook Jukebox, maybe even multiple reviews of the same audiobook, and those of us who write the reviews can get greater exposure, thereby increasing traffic to our reviews. Since I began putting my links there, my hits have gone from about 10 per day, to around 40 per day, which makes me very happy.
So that’s been pretty exciting. I just posted my 100th audiobook review, and I have links to 70 of them on Audiobook Jukebox so far.
This story may get even better! I got another email from this person on Friday, asking if I would be interested in another opportunity that she has to offer. I won’t reveal any details yet, I want to check it out first, but it sounds pretty cool.
This has been a nice little ray of sunshine for me, when things have been looking rather dark (no pun intended). This is kind of interesting, actually, because I was sort of talking to God Friday evening, and I said something like, “God, I’m trying to do what you want, but you gotta give me something to work with here.” It’s not usually a good idea to be demanding things from God, but in my own defense, I was really doingmore pleading than demanding. Anyway, it was only a few minutes after that when I checked my email and found out about this new opportunity, the one I’m not revealing yet. I sure hope this is coming from God, and not somewhere else, but I asked God to slam the door on it if it’s not from Him, so we’ll see what happens.
More on this later.
Acts 20:24 I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. NIV
Well, about a week later, I got an email from that same person, and the email said about the same thing the comment said so I decided to check it out. Oh, I should mention that my email address is visible in my Blogger profile to anyone who cares to go looking for it, so there was nothing underhanded at work there. I visited Audiobook Jukebox, and it seemed perfectly legitimate to me so I asked this person for more information.
Audiobook Jukebox is a fairly new blog, started about three months ago, I think. The person who contacted me is one of the founders of the site, and their basic goal is to create a central gathering place for audiobook enthusiasts. People who write audiobook reviews, like myself, can put links on Audiobook Jukebox that lead back to the reviews on our own sites. In other words, the reviews stay on my site, but Audiobook Jukebox will have links to them that people can click on. It’s kind of a win/win situation. People who like to read audiobook reviews can find a great wealth of them at Audiobook Jukebox, maybe even multiple reviews of the same audiobook, and those of us who write the reviews can get greater exposure, thereby increasing traffic to our reviews. Since I began putting my links there, my hits have gone from about 10 per day, to around 40 per day, which makes me very happy.
So that’s been pretty exciting. I just posted my 100th audiobook review, and I have links to 70 of them on Audiobook Jukebox so far.
This story may get even better! I got another email from this person on Friday, asking if I would be interested in another opportunity that she has to offer. I won’t reveal any details yet, I want to check it out first, but it sounds pretty cool.
This has been a nice little ray of sunshine for me, when things have been looking rather dark (no pun intended). This is kind of interesting, actually, because I was sort of talking to God Friday evening, and I said something like, “God, I’m trying to do what you want, but you gotta give me something to work with here.” It’s not usually a good idea to be demanding things from God, but in my own defense, I was really doingmore pleading than demanding. Anyway, it was only a few minutes after that when I checked my email and found out about this new opportunity, the one I’m not revealing yet. I sure hope this is coming from God, and not somewhere else, but I asked God to slam the door on it if it’s not from Him, so we’ll see what happens.
Acts 20:24 I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. NIV
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)