You may well be wondering what this green frog is all about. His name is Bertie, and he’s the host of a new podcast for kids called Storynory.

Why are we so interested in Bertie and his podcast? Not least because Matthew and I are the the publishers of this little venture.

We’ve hired a tallented young actress, Natasha Lee-Lewis (who just happens to be Matthew’s niece) and we’ve spent the last couple of weekends recording stories including Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and the Snow Queen. We aim to publish one a week from now on.

Natasha tells you about Storynory in this audio promo.

Not to be outdone by Matthew’s relations, I asked my cousin, Stephen Fowler, to draw Bertie the Frog with an iPod. If you listen to the stories, you will soon get the idea that Bertie used to be a handsome prince. In fact, each podcast begins with a little gossip about Bertie’s pond life. Our aim is to build up a brand.

If you have been following our blog here, it’s pretty clear that we are fascinated by podcasts, and we think they have huge potential. We are pleased to see the likes of Bloomberg and The Telegraph getting into podcasting, and making it more mainstream. BBC Radio 4 has already proved that there is a large and sophisticated iPod ready audience.

Our idea is to not try and emulate the immediacy of live radio, but to build up an archive and a library. Our stories will be just as valuable in a year’s time as they are now.

Nearly all our stories so far are out of copyright (except one written by Angharad Lynn, Matthew’s wife (this really is a family affair). We’ve launched with fairy tales by Andrew Lang, who collected hundreds of stories in the Victorian era. We’ve taken out a few long words here and there, but they seem work very well today. Perhaps they have a slightly old world charm about them. Other authors we have in mind include Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens.

I’ve very much enjoyed the recordings, and I suspect that some adults will be secretly downloading storynories too. Natasha really does read them beautifully.

I have to admit, that the money side is more of a gut feeling than what you might call a business plan. We have advertising and affiliate links on the site, and we hope that parents will be tempted to click through to Amazon to buy children’s books or even iPods. Eventually, we will need commercial sponsorship for our stories.

Do drop by and say hello to HRH Prince Bertie the Frog at www. storynory.com