As you might know, I’m totally into the book thing, and the audiobook thing, and science fiction. So an idea struck me, a way to combine all these things I dig and share them with folks for free. (And yeah, let’s tell it like it is, hopefully eventually sell a few more books.)
Anyway, here’s the idea: an audio podcast of original science fiction short stories by yours truly. I couldn’t wait for you to say “hell, yeah!” so I went ahead and created it. It’s called Listen To The Signal.
It’s an audio podcast that answers questions like “What would happen if a smartphone game was so addictive EVERYONE played it at once?” or “When we discovered Pluto’s new moon Nix in 2005, did we catch someone discovering us?” Every month, I’ll write an original science fiction short story and narrates it for your listening pleasure. You can listen right here on the site, download the files for listening wherever, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. And it’s all FREE.
That sounds great, Rob. How does it work?
It’s easy. Just click through to the site and take a listen. (You can also read the text if that’s your thing, it’s on there too.) I’ve got three stories up already:
- “November 8” – this is the latest one, and as you’d expect, it has something (very) loosely to do with the upcoming election. Not very sci-fi, but it’s got a cool twist and it raises a lot of interesting questions. (21-minute listen or a 10-minute read.)
- “End Game” – what would happen if someone developed a game that everyone who played it got addicted? I mean everyone? Find out in this tale of technology gone awry. (25-minute listen or a 10-minute read)
- “Today I Invented Time Travel” – I was so excited to be invited to the Queens Library Author’s Evening last year (reading from my novel Where the Hell is Tesla?) that I decided to write a short story just for the night. Maybe a time travel story. Sounded good. But what could I do to ratchet it up, make it something a bit more special? Hint: my twin brother Ken showed up. (5.5-minute listen or a 3-minute read)
You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Enjoy!
Hi. I’m the #1 Audible bestselling author of 
HI Rob, you’re a genius and a very nice sounding person. Thanks for the video on creating your own audiobook. I’m currently using a PC with audacity but as my hard drive space is nearly all used up, I think I’ll change over to a Mac and use GarageBand. Assume the output is MP3 and I can load to it through Power press for podcast. Do you know?
Thanks again
Hi Michelle, a couple of thoughts: 1. If your PC is working okay, you could get yourself an external hard drive to store your audio files. They are CHEAP now! 2. If you’re going to change over to a mac/garageband setup (my setup, which I like a lot), then yes, output is MP3 and Powerpress is great for podcasting. HOWEVER, you have to have a place to upload the audio files that you can link to. If you have a hosting provder, you can put the files in a directory on your wordpress site, or even upload to your Media Library in WordPress, and get the permalink. Or, you can upload to Powerpress, but it’s a subscription so there’s a fee. Good luck!