Publicizing Legamus

FAQ, comments and suggestions
Hokuspokus
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Publicizing Legamus

Post by Hokuspokus »

What can we do to make Legamus better known among the listeners and readers?
Many LV readers know us already from discussions and signatures on LV. That's fine for now.
But it's a bit sad that our recordings don't get the attention from the listeners that they deserve.
Many of you mention Legamus in their blogs. That's great. What else can we do?

- adding links on Wikipedia
I'll try that.

- Open Library
I did that.

More ideas?
Piotrek
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Piotrek »

Talking about Wikipedia, someone could start an article about Legamus there. Does anyone here have any experience writing Wikipedia entries?
Also, last week I gave a link to our site to one guy who was willing to start reading some stuff.
Starting interest groups on various social networking sites can be a good idea, too.
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Cori
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Cori »

June is Audiobook Month (so someone hath declared) ... so perhaps we can springboard from that a little ... a bit more blog activity, perhaps, if we're using it for news as well as cataloguing? Philosophy, reader interviews, author bios, that sort of thing.

Do we have a Legamus twitter account? Daily tweets for the month about what's being recorded and so on would be fun.

Likewise for Facebook (about which I know next to nothing, but it's a big sharey venue.)

We could also list our editions at GoodReads.

A big difference between here and LibriVox, that we may or may not want to promote, is that our books can be downloaded while in progress, since we're not using a limited bandwidth server for temporary files. I've noticed a couple of hits on chapter 1 of my solo through ge.tt.
"The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them." — Samuel Butler
Hokuspokus
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Hokuspokus »

Sometimes I do tiny things in the German Wikipedia so I had a look in the English Wiki.
Things are different there. They are very much against side owners and admins adding information or links about their project. This needs to be done by someone not (so much) involved.

Twitter and Facebook is a good idea but I stay away from social networks as far as possible.

Thanks for the tip about audiobook month. The blog can be used for news and such, too. Let's see if I can up with something in German.
scout
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by scout »

Hokuspokus wrote:What can we do to make Legamus better known among the listeners and readers?
Many LV readers know us already from discussions and signatures on LV. That's fine for now.
But it's a bit sad that our recordings don't get the attention from the listeners that they deserve.
Many of you mention Legamus in their blogs. That's great. What else can we do?

- adding links on Wikipedia
I'll try that.

- Open Library
I did that.

More ideas?
If it's listeners you're after then perhaps you should consider

1. making sure that Legamus is mentioned in all relevant web searches,
2. actually get some projects 'on the books' (how many do we have now?),
3. when 2 above is sufficiently fulfilled, start Podcasts with RSS feeds, and
4. give me the M4B audiobook subforum I requested and spread the word via (professional) quality M4B audiobooks.

That's enough about listeners for now. ;)

As far as narrators/readers go, I'm compiling a list of books that meet our criteria. This is far from finished, but I have come across some entries which I considered would be of interest to some very capable narrators with whom I have good contact. Consequently they will relatively soon begin projects here. :)

scout
The quality of an audiobook of fiction may be defined by its technical quality, the author's storytelling abilities, and the narrator's ability to capture the mood of the text. — scout
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Cori
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Cori »

scout wrote:1. making sure that Legamus is mentioned in all relevant web searches
LOL ... SEO, in other words. Of course; but the question we're asking in this thread is how.
4. give me the M4B audiobook subforum I requested and spread the word via (professional) quality M4B audiobooks.
You could start a thread if you wanted to make some ... we hardly need a subforum for it. But, publicising them faces exactly the same problem as any other file format.

I could pick up Twitter, though I'd appreciate company with it. :) (and does someone here have @legamus? The account was only created in Feb, and hasn't done anything except follow famous people.)
"The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them." — Samuel Butler
Hokuspokus
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Hokuspokus »

A supforum for m4bs is really not needed.
Scout, you can open a thread in Small Talk and announce your work. When there are more activities around here that are not related to recording or general discussion, we can make another subforum but at the moment the forum is so tiny, it's easier to have less subforums.
scout
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by scout »

Hokuspokus wrote:A supforum for m4bs is really not needed.
Scout, you can open a thread in Small Talk and announce your work. When there are more activities around here that are not related to recording or general discussion, we can make another subforum but at the moment the forum is so tiny, it's easier to have less subforums.
I think not. A subforum will make it easier to organize, and M4B audiobook posts will not be 'lost' amongst other posts. I fail to see that it will cause difficulty or work for anyone but me--the likely sole user (at least in the beginning) of that subforum other than those seeking links to M4B audiobooks.

Anyway, you'd needn't bother since I'm retiring from active posting in this forum. Not because of you though, Hokuspokus. ;) Not directly, that is. No, I'm simply appalled that no one is reacting to the insults being thrown my way.

I'm afraid someone else will have to work to get some momentum in the forum. Pity, because I've put a lot of hard work into compiling a list of probable projects. Well, you win some, you lose some--that's life.

scout
The quality of an audiobook of fiction may be defined by its technical quality, the author's storytelling abilities, and the narrator's ability to capture the mood of the text. — scout
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Viktor
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Viktor »

Cori wrote:A big difference between here and LibriVox, that we may or may not want to promote, is that our books can be downloaded while in progress, since we're not using a limited bandwidth server for temporary files. I've noticed a couple of hits on chapter 1 of my solo through ge.tt.
Not wanting to disappoint you, but one of that downloads was certainly just me, I'm backuping everything! :D

In a couple of months, it will be the other way round: both temporary and final backups will come from a limited (but hopefully sufficient) bandwidth server. So you are still right - it does not make any difference!

I wouldn't promote it that much, though... temporary files might have errors and need to change, and maybe the two download locations will be different at some point. It just happens to be the same server at the moment and in the near future.
neckertb
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by neckertb »

Cori, I'm not a big twitter user (except for political propaganda related to the last election) so the only ones following me are the socialist parti and French expat groups.
I'd be happy to help with this, though. I will also set up a Facebook page for legamus soon, I'm much more active there.
Nadine
neckertb
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by neckertb »

And the Facebook page is live...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/413784728643062/
It's just called Legamus.
Nadine
Piotrek
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Piotrek »

My small contribution towards the cause of spreading the word about us:

there is this music-related social networking site called last.fm, where people create their music profiles based on stuff they listen to. I've been registered there for years. Among various interest groups there's also one dedicated to LibriVox. I have a plan to leave some messages about our site on the group profile (already done), and, more importantly, on the non-US groupmembers' profiles ;)
Hokuspokus
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Hokuspokus »

Very good!
catrose
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by catrose »

Ok, here is the Legamus Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legamus I wasn't certain of exactly what to write, so if someone could tell me (either in this thread, or PM me) what to add, or even better, add it themselves, I'd be grateful. I also linked it to the Librivox Wikipedia page, so people can find us through them :D
Cat
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Viktor
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Viktor »

Thanks Cat, but don't be bothered when someone decides to delete that article. Wikipedia is an interesting place with all kinds of people. Some have a tendency to delete stuff. I've often thought it'd be a good research subject for sociologists to compare discussion pages to controversial subjects on Wikipedia in different languages...

Speaking of subjective topics, I think we can omit the "!" from the project name... when I wrote the full domain name (with the "eu") into the forum logo, I just thought it'd look nice to turn the dot into an exclamation mark. Also fits nicely with the Latin imperative. But when the "eu" is not mentioned, "Legamus" is fine, too.
catrose
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by catrose »

I won't be! I've written a bit of a plea in the Talk page, explaining the situation, so hopefully... :) Anything else that needs to be said on there (! is gone)
Cat
RuthieG
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by RuthieG »

As predicted, it's gone. Talk page and all.
Article about a website, blog, web forum, webcomic, podcast, browser game, or similar web content, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject)
I suggest this should be discussed here, and a suitable text devised that will stand some chance of surviving the Wikipedia red pen enthusiasts before trying again. There is no hurry, and the bigger the catalogue gets, the more chance we will have of making it stick on Wikipedia.

Ruth
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Viktor
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Viktor »

Of course, everyone is free to do whatever s/he wants. My personal advice is, however, not to waste any more time with this.

On Wikipedia, you have a lot of excellent and admirable people. Probably also the person who deleted the current article is among them, I don't want to speculate about his motives and intentions. But, on the other hand, I've read a lot of talk pages and Wikipedia discussions, and I have to admit that among the most vitriolic, the most harshest discussions, and the ones most assuming bad faith, that I've encountered on the Internet, Wikipedia is among the top ones. (And I do know a lot of mailing lists which have a reputation for bad manners - I think they're more civil...) This gives the paradoxical situation that I often enjoy reading Wikipedia articles, but I can only advice friends not to contribute, or at least only with a really thick layer of protection on their minds.

I have a theory why this is. First, spoken word and e-mail among anonymous people are most prone to misunderstandings. Second, all people on Wikipedia have to fight in the same space - the one Wikipedia page. In free software, if the maintainer does not want your modifications, you can always roll your own version. In LV and Legamus, if for whatever reason you want to do another version of a text, you're welcome to do so. That removes part of the tension. Third, Wikipedia has been described as "the dictatorship of those that have the most time". The more time some people spend, the more they feel entitled to demand things and argumentations from others before they "allow" some modifications to happen...

I cannot conceal that I'm annoyed at what happened there. Deleting the Legamus article, OK, I kind of expected that. But even deleting the little reference on the LV article (by a different person)... oh, come on...

We are completely non-profit. We don't even show any little advertisements. Anyone can see that immediately. I do not think we are in any need to "prove significance", to defend or to argue about our cause to any "judge". If some people there don't want a Wikipedia article or reference to Legamus, so be it. The most important is that non-US contributors on LV know about us _when_ they think of a suitable text, and that is the case.
Piotrek
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Piotrek »

How about the (non US-based) sources that mentioned LV favourably in the past, like webzines, etc? Maybe it would be a good idea to point them somehow to Legamus, send them some info about our website?
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Cori
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Re: Publicizing Legamus

Post by Cori »

That's a good thought, Piotrek. If there are several external references in the article, I think They are much less likely to delete it. They do like their little footnotes.

We went through exactly the same process with LibriVox 5-6 years ago. It's taken that long, but LibriVox actually has its own Wikipedia code-tag now. :D

I think we ought to be able to link from / to some of our books ... and then we can sweep back through once we get a Legamus page to stick and linkify all mentions. I'll give it a go with my Virginia Woolf and see if it survives.

Here's a LibriVox one, for comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_and_ ... rnal_links

And my new entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Room_of_ ... rnal_links

In the past, They were quite sensitive to 'flooding' -- people adding lots of links at once. Not that we have hundreds of books to put in, but a gradual rate might fare better. Also, I think that links MUST be on the directly-relevant book page, never ever the author page.


Edited to add: for years there was a Catch-22 with LV links too. Wikip wouldn't let anyone associated with the project add links! But, it takes a while for other people to notice a new book and add them in. So my edit above might not survive simply on those grounds. It's all a bit :roll: :roll: :roll:
"The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them." — Samuel Butler
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