Hello! It’s just over a month since I tweeted and shared things through Viva Survivors. Christmas and New Year was lovely for us, and I hope the same was true for you, however you celebrated the season.
Looking Back
2014 was an interesting and good year for the podcast: despite a long break from producing new episodes, the end of the year finished with two episodes each month, and the podcast had growing numbers of visitors and downloads – the Ask an Examiner special was so popular that it was the 8th most downloaded episode of the year despite only being shared in early December. Already it is the most downloaded episode this year – so I’ll do my best to organise more interviews with examiners throughout 2015.
I experimented with Patreon as a possible way to support the growth of the podcast, but with changes to UK VAT laws for digital products I’ve decided to suspend this until there is more clarity on what this would mean for me as a freelancer. Thanks to everyone who tweeted and shared this.
Looking Ahead
I’m trying to be more prepared for producing episodes this year, and aim to continue creating a minimum of two episodes per month. There are two episodes already lined up for January:
- January 19th 2015 – Episode 33: Dr Helen Kara
- January 26th 2015 – Episode 34: Dr Grant Aitken
I have a proposed schedule for the rest of the year, right the way through to December; this would have a minimum of two episodes per month, and I have ideas for month-long events later in the year. Watch this space for details! Of course, in order to produce these I need your help, so please get in touch if you want to share your story or join me one of the specials.
My Books
Fail Your Viva is still going strong in the Amazon Kindle Store – the price went up in January, again because of changes to UK VAT laws – and I am exploring a self-published print run at the moment. I’ve got some interesting opportunities coming up that I’m not quite ready to talk about, but will do when I have more details. One that I can talk about is my second book, Frequently Asked Questions about the PhD Viva, which is currently in production and is on track to be in the Kindle Store by Easter. And I will update on this soon!
Finally, look to the right – I’ve put a subscribe link over there if you want to be emailed whenever new updates and episodes appear on the site. Thanks for supporting the podcast, sharing it and listening to it through the last year, and I hope that I produce some great and helpful things this year.
Thanks for reading!
Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)
