Internet Radio 2016 - your own online radio station

Internet Radio

2016

Launching your own online radio station

on Kindle

and 'in print'

  

Earlier this year I published a book called "Internet Radio 2016". It tells readers what's needed and where to find everything that you need to set up and run your own Online Radio station. It is a mighty work - around 77,000 words and was designed as a reference work as well as an educational read.   The reaction has been very good - and we know of several who have launched stations with the E-Book's help. 

It is difficult to gauge the response of niche books such as this. My previous books have sold up to 10,000 copies but this one, well, perhaps we are expecting not quite so many!   To print and bind large numbers of books is very expensive, and you need to do so on a large scale otherwise the costs (for short runs) quickly escalates until the actual cost of a book goes well beyond what most buyers will be willing to pay for a title.  

The size of this book for a Kindle was around 350 pages, and to print and bind up 1,000 copies used to cost about £50 a copy, so we decided to go with the initial publication being as an eBook.  

Many people are convinced that this digital route to publishing is the future of book publishing, although if you look at any crowded book store any Saturday afternoon, you will see there are still tens of thousands of books being sold every week. Most of them are about cookery, or children's stories, such as the highly successful Harry Potter series but there is still a good market for popular books.  But a book will only ne successful if sufficient marketing is done and the title is of interest to the public.  You can have the best book in the world, but if no one knows about it, then it simply will not sell. 

Where can I read E-books?

E-Books are more versatile than the printed editions, as you can incorporate audio and video recordings into them as well as web links to other sites for more information. You can read an eBook via any device with a screen: a desktop computer (Apple Mac or Windows, they work on all types), laptops, tablets (such as the iPad) or even Smartphones.  And of course the many Kindle based devices, including the Amazon Fire. One huge advantage with eBooks is that the reader is able to vary the size of the print to suit you eye's capabilities. It’s so easy to increase the size of the print, which makes for a really easy reading experience. 

Similarly, pricing is just as important as availability.  We studied the few books that are available about radio stations, and the number is not huge. (There is a section on them in the Internet Radio 2016' book; the Bibliography includes a guide to the content of such radio books.).  The average price of general radio books, the semi-autobiographical ones, is from £10 to £25, and the more information, technical and academic books that impart knowledge, etc, sell for about £30 to £45, as anyone who has had to buy text books for university courses will know!

Internet Radio 2016  - now IN PRINT 

We decided to pitch the "Internet Radio 2016" book in its printed form at £25 or so. By removing a lot of the logos and using a slightly smaller text size we have been able to trim the size down to 280 pages and the cost to just below £25 24.50 in fact, which  includes post and packing!

So, in answer to those who want a hard copy of the Internet Radio 2016 book, its now available, either via bookstores (who take a few weeks to stock such specialist items) or via AMAZON's excellent mail order service, which can get YOUR copy despatched almost immediately and in your mailbox by tomorrow! 

http://amzn.to/29SjuAl

Radio Adventures of the MV Communicator

Radio Adventures

 of the 

MV Communicator 

Its over thirty years ago that I wrote the book "Lid off Laser 558", a story about how we set up one of Europe's most successful radio stations, on board a ship! The book was a great success, just like the radio station, Laser 558, which attracted over five million listeners in the UK and a similar number on the continent.

The story of Laser 558 is now being retold, along with ten other stations that broadcast from the same ship over a voyage across the airwaves of Europe lasting 21 years.

Although very successful at getting large audiences, Laser 558 was short lived, thanks to a totally inept New York based management who tried to control the station from the Big Apple. They spent a fortune entertaining prospective advertisers on a series of junkets to Las Vegas but starved the poor DJs out on the ship of food, wages and even water. Eventually the crew mutinied and in true pirate fashion took the ship into port, where creditors waited with writs!

The ship was sold for a pittance to pay her outstanding bills and her next owner put her back to sea as Laser Hot Hits. He was even less successful and soon the Communicator was languishing back in harbour again. Her next owner was Fred Bolland who had run the very successful Radio Monique. He took her to Portugal for a refit as a four station radio giant, but the Dutch secret service got very scared about one of his customers - a fundamental religious organisation called the Underground Church. By spooking the Dutch government's cabinet,  the BVD (Dutch secret police) got permission to take immediate action and mounted an armed raid on the Radio Caroline ship, that crippled the organisation.  They also persuaded the Portuguese to seize the transmitters.       

A few years later the ship was taken to Holland, given a licence and successfully broadcast with a new high power Medium Wave transmitter on 1224AM.  Holland FM, Veronica Hit Radio and Q The Beat were just three of the stations that broadcast from the ship. She broadcast legally in Holland for around eight years during which time she made a fortune for her operators.

 In 2003 she was sold to a British company and taken to Scotland, the Orkney Islands to be exact, and launched a local radio station from there called the Super Station.

Now availabe as HARDBACK
or as a SOFTBACK copy 

This is a collection of stories of those eleven radio stations that were heard transmitting from the Communicator at one time or another. They are all "from the horse's mouth", either the owners, the engineers, the DJs, the suppliers  and, in many cases, my own. I also examine the background into the many other projects that planned to transmit from her.  The midnight raids, the extortion, the takeovers and of course that other big lure of pirate radio - The Loot! 

Among the questions answered are:-

• Why was it on board a ship?
• What were the qualifications DJs needed to join the ship?  
• How did they live and spend their time on board?  
• What did they eat and drink ? 
• What did they do for recreation?
• Who was the ghost who appeared in the transmitter room?

 Its a fun-filled, action-packed tale of 
dramatic events on the High Seas.  

Over 200 pages of swashbuckling excitement!  

To get a copy you can either order it at your local bookshop (ISBNs are below) or order via Amazon, or direct from the publishers who can supply a personally signed copy in either Hardback or Softback with whatever dedication you wish.   Find it at the WorldofPages web site. An excellent idea for a Christmas present perhaps?

Radio Adventures 
of the MV Communicator

by Paul Alexander Rusling.  

Published by World of Radio Ltd

ISBN   Hardback   978-1-900401-14-2

             Softback   978-1-900401-12-8

The original book about Laser, called The Lid off Laser 558,  is currently being reprinted.  

Internet Radio in 2016, how to launch your own radio station

Internet Radio in 2016

How to launch your own Internet Radio station

I've worked as a broadcast consultant for many radio stations since the early 1980s and recently have had a lot of calls from people wanting help in setting up radio stations online; internet radio, or web radio, as they are known. It's now possible for almost anyone to run their own radio station 'online' and have it heard all around the world. No licence is necessary (in most countries) and it can now be very cheap to set up a radio station to run pretty much automatically. 

Indeed, some of the service providers let you upload your programme items, say music, announcements, commercials, etc and the transmission computers (called a server) will mix the whole lot together in a continuous stream - a full round the clock service provided under the guise of your radio station's name. You don't even need your radio station's studio to be switched on, you just pop in and out of the stream whoever you want to broadcast live.

CLICK HERE

for more details on the Book

Almost 100,000 stations have now gone online and with some developments just around the corner, such as the huge increase in data capacity,  this will rise quickly. We could well see around a million radio stations available to listen to within the next five years.

We are not able to advise every one who wants to broadcast, and so have published a book telling exactly how anyone can set up their own radio station. The Internet Radio book explains the system, how to arrange transmission, what equipment is required and how and where to obtain it. The book also has a lot of essential tips on how to run a radio station to make it successful. How to fund your station, not just the initial finance, but ongoing revenues. What are advertisers and sponsors looking for and how they might provide the money needed to sustain your stationed make it a successful business. 

The Internet Radio 2016 book has over 77,000 words, that's 353 pages long and it's available on line now to download instantly to your electronic reader. You can see it on Smartphones, tablets such as the iPad, laptops and desk top computers - as well as Kindles of course.

It costs just £6.89 and that's for more information than you will hear on a two day seminar.  You can read the book's 38 chapters about radio as often as you wish, and use the links in its pages to contact suppliers and agencies. The book tells how you can make  some great savings and help your radio station to sound even better.

Written in February 2016, the book is bang up to date and includes details of the new CRB copyright rates for American stations and the closedown of Live365. Radio stations needing distribution can get online immediately with a transmission provider, or server company, called Listen2MyRadio, which has a great offers on right now - just tell them Paul Rusling sent you. Click the socks in the picture above for details!   

Have look at the World of Radio web page for all the details and decide if the book could help YOU or perhaps one of your friends realise that long held dream:

 - your very own radio station 

The eBook is called 

Internet Radio 2016: How to launch and operate your own station

Internet Radio 2016 is published by World of Radio. There is also a web site of the same name that also contains lots of relevant information.

The World of Radio web site describes what the specialised pieces of equipment, such as encoders, and processors, are for. It describes why you need them and how they achieve their purpose.  As well as the 'server side' equipment, programme sources are included, such as the radio station playout and automations software, legal sources of downloadable music, hardware such as mixing console and microphones too.

The book also describes the difference methods of digital formatting for broadcast and the various transmission services companies, who is doing the best deals for small broadcasters. This is a constantly changing field and the website is updated on a daily basis.

Click HERE for details of the DAB+ Radio