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The Book Club problem.
As I see it, the book club's format of requiring you to have read the book in question before you can enjoy the episode runs opposite to it's goal of getting people who don't read books regularly to give reading books a try.
While it would take some form of poll to determine if people are actually going out of their way to read books beforehand, I suspect that most people just listen to the first half of the episode and turn off when Rym says "Before you continue, go read this whole book.".
The reason for me suspecting as such is that, most of the things I have tried due to them being recommended on Geeknights, have been things I later came across and Geeknights' recommendation is what made me choose the item over another.
Another related reason is that, when I'm casting around for something to enjoy, I'll often go through Geeknights episode categories and listen to whatever takes my fancy and I skip over the final thoughts episodes, as I assume most people do.
In short: Making books approachable for people who've rejected books most of their lives as being something that requires a lot of effort to appreciate begins with imprinting as much of a positive expectation of the entertainment contained within. Final thought's episodes should be kept for things most people have experienced.
I propose that, for the book club following The Lies of Loch Lamora, you do the book reviews as a standard review show and ask people to email in or put poll on the website to ask if they felt more or less compelled than with a normal final thoughts style book club.
While it would take some form of poll to determine if people are actually going out of their way to read books beforehand, I suspect that most people just listen to the first half of the episode and turn off when Rym says "Before you continue, go read this whole book.".
The reason for me suspecting as such is that, most of the things I have tried due to them being recommended on Geeknights, have been things I later came across and Geeknights' recommendation is what made me choose the item over another.
Another related reason is that, when I'm casting around for something to enjoy, I'll often go through Geeknights episode categories and listen to whatever takes my fancy and I skip over the final thoughts episodes, as I assume most people do.
In short: Making books approachable for people who've rejected books most of their lives as being something that requires a lot of effort to appreciate begins with imprinting as much of a positive expectation of the entertainment contained within. Final thought's episodes should be kept for things most people have experienced.
I propose that, for the book club following The Lies of Loch Lamora, you do the book reviews as a standard review show and ask people to email in or put poll on the website to ask if they felt more or less compelled than with a normal final thoughts style book club.
Comments
While Scott has a staunch non-political thing going on. You seem to talk about things directly relating to society, and thus politics, quite frequently (The Nimbys and Bananas issue, Problems with public transport, technological acceptance, vaccinations.) so having some Society and Civilization Thursday episodes would be appreciated.
This said, I think things like the Mocca should be kept separate but if another Mocca crops up, it would be combined with the Mocca episode.
I have a whole thing about how convention culture is going to be very important in the coming decades, but that will have to wait for its own show.
The problem also lies in how many people were "Meh." or "That was pretty good." center of the bell curve people who are hard to make respond.
If we do things the Apple way, we won't even look. We'll just do what we want to do, and what we feel is best. Then we'll impose our will upon you, like it or not. You'll complain at first, but you'll listen anyway.
I think right now we're doing a pretty good combination. We have a vision, and we follow it. We do what we want, and not what the listeners ask for. However, we do listen to feedback, and make alterations where the feedback agrees with us, and we just hadn't thought of it before.
Re: Book Club episodes - I think the spoiler-line type of episode is probably the best way to handle stuff like this. I personally enjoy in-depth discussion of a book and its plot. Top of the episode should be the usual chit-chat and fluff, a mention of the book you're going to be discussing along with a short, spoiler-free synopsis, a quick recommendation (Yea/Nay) and then the reveal of the next book to be read. Following that, spoiler line break so that anyone who hasn't read the book can stop listening, and then the in-depth discussion of the book, not just a "Yeah, this book was so awesome"-fest.
Re: Convention episodes - I'm on the fence about them myself. While I do enjoy hearing about other peoples' experiences at cons, it becomes monotonous if the tale drags on. Plus it loses quite a bit when the episode devolves into 'Remember that one panel?' 'Oh yeah, how awesome was that panel?' 'So awesome.' 'Remember that one guy?' 'Yeah, how awesome was that guy?' 'So awesome.', especially if the listener wasn't able to attend the same con. When I was typing out the extended show notes for the ConneciCon episode the whole listening experience seemed to drag because you guys kept flipping back and forth between the meta and "So Awesome". Don't just name-drop on the panels you thought were awesome - tell us more on why they were awesome. If you saw some dude in a wicked-cool cosplay outfit and you want to mention it, have pics to put up in a flickr stream, and link us to it. If someone was doing something really cool that other people could have seen (like the hypnotism guy), tell us about why it was cool (which you did, in that case). If it was just something cool that someone did for you (i.e., "oh mans, that dude who went and got me a burrito was so awesome") then save it for the shout-outs. If you're worried about the episode running long then don't do it stream-of-consciousness style immediately after the con. Take down notes of the stuff you thought was cool, let it rest a day or two, figure out what you want to talk about, and edit out the fluff. Make it more entertaining for the listeners that weren't there and I guarantee you'll see the hating on the con episodes go down and the number of people attending the same cons you do going up.
There was a time when GN was worth waiting up until 4AM for because I was learning all new stuff but now it feels like there's so much meta, here's what we did today stuff (Yes, isn't there forum.) and now, more than ever, is the time when listening to all nights versus just the ones you are already interested in seems at it's lowest.
Meta and reviews of the same old stuff = Bad.
Examples: Non-lego, Anime Scott fell asleep watching, Living in the City.
Learning, discovering and discussing things we didn't previously know about = Good.
Examples: Shock, The complex tech episodes, What happened to programing, Internet Ruins.
You aren't going to please everyone all the time but that doesn't mean you can't please more people more efficiently.
Just some perspective. ^_~
Like?
What are you basing the popularity on? Email is susceptible to the vocal minority while download numbers tell you how much interest was shown in an episode which, in the case of Geeknights, isn't a great metric as many people may listen to just the first half.
Hold on with the re-post problem, I'm working out what's wrong and I'll report back when I put my finger on it.
Feature the book club books more prominently on the site/forum and set a fixed date for the episode.