Pifflewalstow – Patrick’s Five Point Plan that Will Allow the Seanachai to Take Over the World

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Growing up is hard. And I’m not sure it gets any easier the older you get. It just stays hard. For example, I have trouble delegating. When I get in my head to do something, by gum and Jupiter (and a bunch of other corny psuedo-swear words) I jump in and do it.

The problem is that I don’t have time to do everything. I have several friends who would gladly do some announcing for the Seanachai (bumpers, tags, promos, intros), but I just can’t seem to get around to scheduling them. It’s very hard for me. But it has to happen. If I’m ever going to get this ‘cast back on a weekly schedule, I need to delegate. The real absurdity of this is that I even have people to delegate to. So, I’m sitting down and making a plan. A schedule even. And I thought I would share my plan with you and see what you thought.

Patrick’s Five Point Plan that Will Allow the Seanachai to Take Over the World (pfppwalstow)

  1. Weekly episodes.
  2. Alternate short episodes (essays, stories, funny bits) with 30 minute pieces.
  3. The 30 minute pieces will be serialized fiction. ( the first one I’m considering is Typhoon by Joseph Conrad. ) This gets me out of the content bind, and really let’s me study some great writers up close and personal.
  4. When the 30 minute pieces are done, they are collected as high-quality audiobooks. Sold here, podiobooks, itunes, audible, wherever.
  5. Actively encourage donations. Sell CDs of collected episodes. In short, generate some revenue.

Have I been looking at this all wrong?
As I dilligently scribble away with an eye on filthy moneys from a comic deal or a TV deal, I wonder if I haven’t been making a terrible error in judgement. Some maths for us. Let’s say I have 3,000 listeners. (It’s difficult to know for sure. One of my stat’s progams says I had 77k hits and 10897 unique visitors?) Now of those 3,000 listeners 1,000 of them are kind, decent, helpful, loyal, brave and financially solvent enough to donate $20/year to keep the Seanachai a going concern. (brace yourself for some multiplication) that’s $20,000 a year in revenue.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Now we have a production budget license music. Now we can spend some time on the sound design. Now I won’t fear starving to death if I really spend some time on an episode. And, with a little work, listenership will grow. It’s more like patronage than traditional publishing to be sure. But that’s okay. Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t have a revenue model. He had the de Medici. The cynical, but well-minded, are already saying to themselves, “Well, you can’t count on people to pay.” To which I say, “people”, “them’, “those guys” I’m not interested in. I’m interested in you. The one person reading this post. ‘Cause the thing they never tell you about ‘them’ is they don’t exist. Like “them’ vs. “us”. There’s just “us”.

And I don’t think I’m crazy. The best radio stations (in terms of content) already work on this model. It’s called public radio. But what do you think? Am I crazy? Wait, that’s not really important, am I mistaken?

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8 replies on “Pifflewalstow – Patrick’s Five Point Plan that Will Allow the Seanachai to Take Over the World”

  1. I’ve heard that for each equation you put into a book, you lose half of your readership. So, with that, you’re down to 1,500.

    With this comment, you’re down to 750. Feel free to delete it.

    I understand that one book, with 300 equations didn’t sell a single copy. That’s because 2^300 is about 10^90. Thats more than the number of subatomic particles in the Universe. Since there clearly aren’t as many potential audience memebers as there are subatomic particles in the Universe, it isn’t a surprise.

    The real problem is that i don’t see how any of this is going to get me the hour of sleep i lost to daylight savings time. And looking under the sofa didn’t help any either.

    Frack.

  2. I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you brought it up, I know where your extra hour went.

    When I flew back from Japan, I left Tokyo at 6:45 pm on Sunday, crossed the international date line, and landed in New York at 5:45 pm on Sunday. Not only was my travel instantaneous, but clearly, I have your hour.

    And I’m keeping it.

  3. Well, I don’t have the de Medici family’s pocketbooks but I’m willing to cough up my $20 for such a worthy cause. My only question is where does a kind/decent/helpful/loyal/brave patron do such a thing? I know you can on the podiobook site, though I would prefer you actually get 100% instead of 75%

    Tiff

    P.S.

    I also lost an hour as well although I believe the proverbial “They” took it. I’m not too concerned about it because I usually get it back in the Fall, but since “They” borrow my hour every year I’d like to know when I’ll be getting my interest on it……

  5. Questions on who “They” are? http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/They

    Anyways, I have a good chance on getting my first job soon, and with the job will come my first debit card. And with my first debit card will come the ability to purchase stuff online and donate money! And with that ability will come my donation of $20+ to this wonderful podcast/comic endeavor. I shall join the 1000!

  6. Well I have had the unfortunate opportunity to lose my job. Don’t get me wrong I didn’t like said “job” (pay $5.50 per hour). But with the losing of said job, brought the sudden shortage of the green stuff. But it gave me time to catch up on my Seanachia podcasting. So, when I get a new job, a job that I will more than likely not enjoy. Anyway I will make a donation of $20.00 and maybe more to the cause.

  7. I love your work and would be happy to contribute $20 a year. That’s waaaaay cheapter than my Public Radio membership!

  8. I’ll be glad to sit on the sidelines and tell you what you’re doing wrong….. 🙂

    Anyway, I’d love to see you exceed all of your wildest expectations. I haven’t free cash “Driver carries no cash, he’s married.” and I, as we’ve seen, haven’t enough free time to do the things I’ve promised much less the things I’d like to do.

    With that said, I can only offer some loud-mouthed opinions. I don’t need a weekly episode from the Seanachai, I am more than content with one every two weeks instead. Why? A couple of them have been so good I listen to them over again. A piece of your work 10mins long is actually like listening to a 30min piece. If you’re a fan of the dialog of “West Wing” (when Mr Sorkin was still involved) you’ll understand.

    Time to go do more work. TTFN.

    Thank you for your hard work.

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