In today’s Journal
* Topic: Audio—It’s not what’s for breakfast.
* Anything Goes
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Topic: Audio—It’s not what’s for breakfast.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that audio, at least in its current iteration, is a fad. I understand it’s all the current rage. Everyone’s talking about how to do it, or how to have it done. But I think it’ll pass.
Not only because I don’t personally listen to audiobooks (I don’t), but because people far more expert and attuned to business than I believe it isn’t cost effective.
Also, this is not the new technology everyone purports it to be. I recorded some of my short stories myself onto CD back in the 1990s. I am not an actor (voice-over or otherwise) and I have not endured professional voice training.
And today I can tell you, if you aren’t one or the other and if you’re recording your own stories or novels to audio, that’s roughly the same thing as an attorney representing himself in court. Except that the attorney probably has a better chance of success.
My own belief in this regard is go big or stay home. I don’t do royalty splits (I very zealously defend my copyright) and I would have to be independently wealthy to afford the narrators I’d like for my books. And even if I were, the resulting audio sales wouldn’t recoup my investment even in the narrator, much less give me a return on that investment.
Nor has any data shown that audio books drive sales of print books. Ebooks can drive sales of paper books and vice versa, and for a small percentage of readers (or listeners) ebooks and paper books can drive sales of audio. But it doesn’t work the other way around.
Of course, as always this is just me thinking out loud. My own reasons for my own decision not to go down that path. Your results might vary.
Anything Goes
Aw crap. Yesterday afternoon I realized I’ve been doing this writing thing all wrong.
I read about a guy who wrote his very first novel. Got that? A novel. So fiction. Yet he “worked on his manuscript for 33 years.”
That’s fine. As everyone keeps reminding me, there’s more than one way to write a novel. Anything goes. But apparently averaging 16 words per day for 33 years is the right way.
Because his novel was a bestseller right out the gate.
Well, good for him. Lightning strikes do exist, right? But somewhere out there, I absolutely, positively know someone’s thinking, “Well if he worked for 33 years on it, of course it’s going to be a bestseller.” Sigh.
Also yesterday while I was writing along, some 7000 words into the current Rider Jones story, I realized it really is just a straight continuation of the previous one.
I’ll continue writing this one as separate since that’s how I started it, but when I’m through with it there’s a good chance I’ll just append it to the end of the other one and make it all one novel.
But when it’s time to publish, I think I might tell people I started it back in 1956 or something. (grin)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “The Five-Car Metaphor Pile-Up” at https://countercraft.substack.com/p/the-five-car-metaphor-pile-up.
See “Taskforce set up to tackle Disney’s attempts to weasel out of paying its genre authors” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/taskforce-set-up-to-tackle-disneys-attempts-to-weasel-out-of-paying-its-genre-authors/.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 570 words
Writing of Rider Jones and Wes Crowley (novella or novel)
Day 1…… 3288 words. Total words to date…… 3288
Day 2…… 5145 words. Total words to date…… 8433
Total fiction words for April……… 81470
Total fiction words for the year………… 368547
Total nonfiction words for April… 17460
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 84860
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 453407
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 7
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 60
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.