A free book? There’s no such thing as a free book! What’s the catch?

No catch. It’s free. But, Mur asks that if you like it you purchase it from Amazon.com on August 25. She’s making a run on Amazon and really needs us all to pitch in and help her get noticed. She, like so many others, has a book contract now. But podcasting novels are still a new medium for delivery and we need to show the publishing industry that this makes a difference. 

Martha and I have read the PDF version multiple time. We help Mur by making the PDFs and doing layout and formatting. We also did a little editing. All of this was to help Mur make the best product possible. We bought the first version of Playing for Keeps when it was self-published on Lulu.com. And now we’re joining her for her run on Amazon and we’ll be buying multiple copies of Playing for Keeps as published by Swarm Press.

Mur has delivered countless hours of enjoyment and encouragement to the pod-o-sphere. She has also inspired and rallied people including me. It is not an exaggeration to say that if Mur wasn’t here I wouldn’t be either. I wonder how many other people to whom you listen, read, and watch are here because they were inspired by Mur Lafferty. I’m guessing the number is larger than you think.

So be ready to place your order from Amazon.com for Playing for Keeps on Monday August 25. Be there! Aloha.

• Dogfish Head 90-minute IPA for Paul
• Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout for Jim
• Ravenswood Cabernet for Mur
• Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications, Second Edition: A Programmer’s Guide at Amazon.com
• It was funnier the first time
• Mur’s first fiction novel is coming out from Swarm Press on 8/25
• Playing for Keeps at Amazon.com
• This week we experiment with asking questions from our followers on Twitter
• PROMO: Astral Audio Experience
• Jim’s Essential Math website
• Favorite TV Shows: for Mur, The Office and for Jim The Closer. Together: Heroes or Battlestar Galactica
• Heroes, feh
• Favorite books from childhood
• Dr. Horrible vs Playing for Keeps
• The News from Poughkeepsie
• The Piddler
• The games Jim would bring back from obscurity if he could: Liubo, Shuanglu, and Magic Realm
• MUSIC: Playing for Keeps by The Beatnik Turtle
• PROMO: Playing For Keeps experience. Join us on 8/25 to help Mur make her run on Amazon.com

• Beverage roundup
• Black Adder
• Quantum Leap
• Don’t mess with the librarians
• PROMO: Christiana’s Shallow Thoughts
• PROMO: I Should Be Writing
• Cataloging duels of librarians
• Fear the weeding policy
• Kitties!
• I AM Survivor Dad!
• “The dark goddess must dine on tears!”
• PROMO: Metamor City
• PROMO: Reality Break
• Tee Morris in a barrel
• Double Trouble (links galore)
• Free PDFs have over 50,000 downloads!
• Why haven’t they been Boing Boing‘d?
• Don’t whine Tee
• If you want me to post your PDFs you have to ask me
• If you’re going to buy, please do so on 8/8/08 on Amazon.com
• Getting voice parts for future podcasts of Digital Magic and Pitcher’s Pendant
• Tee and Pip talk about the plots of their upcoming books
• Pip and Tee trapped in the same body
• Erotica a la Carte
• Tee will be organizing live events at Balticon 43
• MUSIC: Girls, Skirts, Boots, Bikes by The Buck Brothers

Guests include Tee Morris, Marc “Grailwolf” Bailey, Heather Welliver, Brand Gamblin and his girlfriend Allison

• Plug galore – It’s so annoying I’m not giving anyone links, so there!
•  I Will Swallow Your Soul
• A little review of Farpoint Convention
• Erin Gray
• Sonic Boom thinks the studio has a revolving door
• Marc’s convenience store sickness
• Burger King chip
• PROMO: Stranger Things
• PROMO: Aliens You Will Meet
• Scott Sigler needs antibiotics: help him with his Infection
• Pimpage/Bell abuse
• More questions for Cthulhu
• Thank you for your service to your country
• Live Calls for Cthulhu at Balticon
• Would you want to see a live Hey! Want To Watch A Movie?
• Stop The Noise!
• Morevi spoiler alert
• Be on the lookout for J.C. Hutchin’s Obsidian

MUSIC: Shoot Him Down by Babylon Bombs

Show notes and original post.

• Sweetie
• Tracy Hickman’s thought provoking positions on NaNoWriMo
• It’s not about getting published, it’s about getting read
• The mystical powers of Mur Lafferty (is she the cause of our Skype problems)
• Tracy is a big fan of Mur’s
• Tracy’s segment on NaNoWriMo
• Editors notes
• Nuri joins us for NaDruWriNi (take 1, we’ll try it again at the end of the month)
• NaNoWriMo allows interconnected short stories to be counted
• Nuri is writing about 2 characters in a Steampunk world
• Drinking wine, skype in the ghetto, living in bad neighborhoods
• Table wines as a reference to 7th Son
• Doing laundry in college. Bar and laundromat in one
• Martha reads our script for The Monster Under The Bed
• Nuri reads from her short story
• Nuri loves Balticon
• Artist Alley
• Balticon Podcast

PROMO: Playing for Keeps / 7th Son

PROMO: The Commandline Podcast

MUSIC: Old Lady with a Hammer by Chris Hardy

• Yusuf The Wonder Neighbor
• Calls you never want to get when you’re on the other side of the planet
• Our LOL Cats Contest ( link )
• High Fiber Cat
• PROMO: Asian Variations, a free download album
• PROMO: Christian Ellis‘ The Sounds of Awesome
• PROMO: Better Late Than Never Podcast
• We summarize the movie Princess Mononoke
• What’s the hero’s name?
• We talk about how the movie makes us feel and how awesome it is
• FarPoint Media’s big announcement (Special thanks to Summer Brooks, Mike Mennenga, and Jeffery Willerth for their hard work)
  
• MUSIC: Black Heart off Asian Variations by MoShang

FarPoint Media/Podango Partnership

We, at FarPoint Media (www.farpointmedia.net), a leader in creating, producing and distributing quality audio entertainment, are happy to announce that Podango (www.podango.com) has become our partner with a multi-station deal that will allow this new media broadcast platform to host all of our FarPoint Media podcasts and future vidcasts.

Podango is a new media broadcast platform that will enable FarPoint Media and our advertisers to better reach our target audience for all of our podcasts, vidcasts and their accompanying Website’s.

“Podango offers us a complete and reliable hosting solution with full WordPress integration, robust ad insertion capabilities and a variety of easy-to-use management tools,” stated Michael R. Mennenga, founder and CEO of FarPoint Media. “[The Podango platform] lets us concentrate on creating and delivering the best audio content for our growing legion of online fans.”

Lee Gibbons, CEO of Podango, said, “FarPoint Media is leading the industry in creating and producing highly popular, award-winning and diverse new media content. We’re thrilled to welcome the family of FarPoint Media audio shows to Podango and look forward to collaborating in reaching even wider audiences.”

“The ease and reliability with which this format will afford us will lessen the burden faced with less than adequate service,” said Samuel K. Sloan, FarPoint Media Executive News Director. “I am looking forward to working closely with Podango and its rich platform.”

FarPoint Media is happy to be able to be working with Podango to continue bringing you all the best in entertainment, news and information the Internet can provide.

About Podango
Podango is a new media broadcast platform that enables podcasters and advertisers to build audiences and connect with hard-to-reach, niche market segments. Running such hit shows as The Apple Phone Show, Podango hosts over 1,000 video and audio programs—including a third of the top twenty-five shows—on a wide variety of interests and topics.

The company’s innovative Web broadcast platform features diverse shows distributed through a sophisticated set of syndication tools. Broadcasters producing their own channels of episodic video and audio content also share advertising revenue. In today’s increasingly fragmented marketplace, Podango provides advertisers with the highly targeted audiences and robust content opportunities critical to the success of business and consumer brands.

About FarPoint Media
With 73 shows currently on the air or in development , FarPoint Media is a leading producer and distributor of quality radio and podcast entertainment, with its eye to the future of vidcasting. The company offers a variety of content with channels designed for diverse programming choices.

We have sci-fi media and genre-related literature shows featuring news and interviews with actors, producers and writers creating your favorite TV programs and books, and we have discussion shows fans can immerse themselves in.

FarPoint Media has quality audio dramas to fire your imagination, specialized sports news and information shows that take you beyond the box scores, comedy and variety programming that will have you laughing out loud, and shows with experienced advice that can help improve your tech skills, sharpen your writing skills or make you more environmentally conscious and knowledgeable.

The three jewels in the FarPoint Media crown are the “Dragonpage Cover to Cover” (C2C), “Wingin’It-3D” (WI-3D) and “Slice of SciFi” (SoSF) programs.

C2C is the show that started it all. Each program hosts an award-winning author of fantasy, fiction and science fiction, covering the latest offerings from the writer being interviewed and the novel under discussion.

WI-3D is just want the name implies, an irreverent time where friends, celebrities and personalities get together in the studio in a no-holds-bar romp where the discussion can end up on just about anything.

SoSF is an hour-long show of news, entertainment and guest interviews centering on the world of science fiction, horror, fantasy and other genre-related topics. Very structured, SoSF works off of a tightly written script and has featured interview with actors such as Samuel K. Jackson and Amanda Tapping, producers/writers and directors like Peter Mohan, N. John Smith and Martin Wood. Also featured are young up-and-coming filmmakers like Mark Lund and Shane Felux, as well as, award winning authors like Peter S. Beagle, Tanya Huff and Jim Butcher. SoSF has made the unique crossover from a stand-alone podcast to where it can now also be heard on XM-Satellite Radio.

FarPoint Media is podcast entertainment at its best. No matter what your interests are, we have a show that will be sure to entertain and inform you. See what the fastest-growing network has to offer you. It is a world of wonder that awaits you. For more information visit: www.farpointmedia.net.