I'm not planning on listening to the audiobooks version of the Sequences, but it seems potentially valuable to me for the ideas in the Sequences to be spread. Can you give us an idea of the sort of listener numbers you've seen for your current Sequence audio offerings? (Any reasons in particular it wouldn't be reasonable to extrapolate those numbers?) Are there reviews out there discussing factors like how well Eliezer's link-heavy writing style transfers to audio?
Can you give us an idea of the sort of listener numbers you've seen for your current Sequence audio offerings?
So far we've relied on people coming to the sequences we've produced via the LessWrong site. As an example of numbers we've had about 100 people purchase the "How to Actually Change Your Mind" sequence.
Any reasons in particular it wouldn't be reasonable to extrapolate those numbers?
"The Sequences" is a mega volume and we're just unsure how well it will sell. We will be making them available on Audible and iTunes in an...
LessWrong is getting ready to release an actual book that covers most of the material found in the Sequences.
There have been a few posts about it in the past, here are two: the title debate, content optimization.
We've been asked if we'd like to produce the audiobook version and the answer is yes. This is a large undertaking. The finished product will probably be over 35 hours of audio.
To help mitigate our risk we've decided to Kickstarter the audiobook. This basically allows us to pre-sell it so we're not stuck with a large production cost and no revenue.
The kickstarter campaign is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1267969302/lesswrong-the-sequences-audiobook
If you haven't heard of us before we've already produced some sequences into audiobooks. You can see them and listen to samples which are indicative of the audio quality here.