I have a setting on my mp3 player that plays in alphabetic order by work, not chronological. So all my podcasts play by TITLE and not by date. Ironically, it’s call the “audiobook setting” – but I don’t use an iPod and I don’t use iTunes as my downloader.

I think that’s the problem. iTunes lists the episodes in reverse chronological order (newer episodes at the top) so it looks fine in iTunes with the reverse dates, but when they are loaded onto an iPod/iPhone, the software tries to be smart and lists them in regular chronological order so that the older episodes are first, and will play through in the correct order in which they were “published”.

I think the other problem is that once I download an episode, and then the feed updates with new episodes, iTunes keeps the original release date for any episodes that were previously downloaded, so that’s why my episodes are in a funny order and backwards. e.g. Today I downloaded episodes 12 – 16, and they are in reverse chronological order:
Episode 16 on the 4th
15 on the 5th
14 on the 6th
13 on the 7th
12 on the 8th
The batch before that was episode 10 and 11, which, when I downloaded them, are marked as Jan 6th and 5th respectively, so my episode order starts getting all messed up in iTunes as I now have multiple episodes that were released on the 5th and 6th.

I wonder if it’s the incremental dating and the fact that I release multiple episodes at once.

[ update: no. I put my unified feed into iTunes as a podcast subscription and it shows up just right and in the correct sequence. Of course, I didn't down load any as the book was going up so I got them all at once with Episode 1 dated 1/19/2010 and Episode 16 Dated 1/4/2010.

This is *correct* btw. Podiobooks reissues the feed with each new release to make sure that the episodes appear in the feed in reverse chronological order so when you listen to episode 1, it then goes "back in time" to episode 2, and back again to episode 3, etc. ]

You’re right about the title, too. When I built that I didn’t really think about changing to a new universe.

Let me try to fix that.

[UPDATE: I've changed the name of the feed and added Ravenwood to the mix. 01/04/10]

The unified feed has the name “Golden Age of the Solar Clipper”, which is great for a unified “all the works of Nathan Lowell that are in the universe of the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper” feed, but I would *guess* that most of us who want a unified feed would rather “all the works of Nathan Lowell, period”.

How about a feed named “Nathan Lowell’s Podcast Fiction” or something that really includes everything? I don’t know if that is the existing unified feed tweaked to add Ravenwood and change the name or if I am suggesting yet another feed.

I was just a little late on the Yahoo Pipes bandwagon that let me create the unified feed out of the standard ones.

Ravenwood will be out probably the second week in December. I just finished the first draft and need to do a second (and probably third) draft before I do the recording.

My goal is to have it DONE before Christmas.

First, you have the demand for the unified feed – that indicates that you’re not really forcing anyone into anything. Second, you’ve made no indication that you’re discontinuing the separate feeds, which again means, you’re not forcing anyone. What you are doing is making it easier for people to find what they want. Those who are only interested in individual projects will get those feeds. Those of us, like me, desperate for ever little dribblet you put out, will sign up for the unified feed. It’s all about choice.

Now, to go check Podiobooks and see if the new one is starting up yet. I personally don’t use a feed reader (I think there might be some way to set up LiveJournal or Facebook for that purpose, but I haven’t done so yet), and I kinda wish Podiobooks would actually have a list of authors that brings up all works by (or involving) that author. A listing of notable voice talent would be nice, as well – I do find that the voice and inflections of the presenter does make a difference in my enjoyment… (And now…. SHADOWMAGIC! kinda got on my nerves after a bit…)