Podcast Novel Collects Thousands of Readers

Posted on May 30, 2005

The typical print run for a first-time novelist ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 copies. EarthCore, one of the world's first podcast-only novels, already has over 5,500 readers after just four weeks and five episodes. EarthCore chapters are hosted at Podlot.com, which provides the statistical tracking that validates the subscription numbers.

"Podlot.com confirms that each chapter of EarthCore has distributed nearly 5,900 copies in the month of April," said Russell Holman, president of Podlot.com. "Based on its record of growth, we expect that number to grow to over 6,300 by then end of the month."

EarthCore, written by Scott Sigler, is a free action/suspense audiobook that was launched on March 24. Listeners tune in to EarthCore in two ways: subscription to the RSS feed, and by clicking on the chapter links to manually download the MP3 files.

EarthCore currently has 1,400 subscribers to the RSS feed, with another manually 4,500 downloading each chapter. EarthCore is syndicated by The Dragon Page, a highly-rated podcast, which is key part of the novel's success. The Dragon Page also syndicates Moravi by Tee Morris and Lisa Lee, and The Pocket and the Pendant by Mark Jeffery.

"We're a mixture of proud, pleased and surprised at the success of Scott's podiobook," said Evo Terra, Dragon Page co-host. "Scott's EarthCore should act as a shining example to all podcasters: Develop quality content, find a great distribution partner, and tell the world."

Terra coined the phrase "podiobook" to refer to serialized audiobooks delivered via an RSS feed.

Sigler's goal is to reach 10,000 subscribers and use that momentum to land a publishing deal for a print version of EarthCore. EarthCore has a total of 30 episodes. The novel is available only in weekly episodic format, creating format similar to weekly television suspense shows with continuing storylines.