Audiobooks – Page 7 – Teel McClanahan

I don’t write every day

I am not one of those writers who writes all the time. I am certainly not one of those writers who swears by writing every day. Something, every day, no matter what. Not for me. (Though I have calculated that if I did, I could come out with something in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 new books a year, every year.) Looking back, I haven’t written any new fiction (or produced any actual pages of the two non-fiction books I have in mind) since NaNoWriMo ended November 30th, 2009. Four and a half months now, I guess, without writing a word.

Some writers include everything – from my thousand-word blog posts down to my 140-character (or less) Tweets, and grocery lists besides, but that always seemed disingenuous to me. Until I take the time to put together a book or two from my blog posts (that pot is still boiling away at the back of my mind, believe me), writing blog posts isn’t the sort of writing that I consider Writing. Using Twitter more mostly improves my ability to use Twitter more. Most of the time the write-every-day writers seem to be doing so in the hopes that it is like playing an instrument & they just need daily practice to get better and better. Which is an interesting idea. Have fun with that.

I just choose to think every day, instead. A lot of the day, every day. Thinking.

One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is my audiobooks. The audio version of Forget What You Can’t Remember was completed this week, both on my feed and on Podiobooks.com. I began podcasting the audio version of UTFBF-RoaAP, Book One on my own feed yesterday (it goes live at Podiobooks.com April 27th). Book One will be 10 episodes, after that I’ll start Book Two, then probably Book Three – each of them about 10 episodes, since the books are all about the same length… And then, in about 30 weeks, I’ll be out of novels to podcast. According to the Google Calendar, where I just mapped out those 30 episodes to Fridays, I’ll run out in mid-November.

So one of the things I’ve been thinking about is that, between now and then, I’d better write something new. Maybe the Self-Publishing book I’ve been thinking about writing will be podcast-able, but in addition to that I’d better write some new fiction. There’s a good chance that, reading UTFBF over and over again for the next six months will get me to a place where I can write Book Four (and maybe continue from there with the series). And I realize that since I can certainly write a book in a month (and have produced various first drafts in: 3 weeks, 2 weeks, and even 3 days, once upon a time) that six months is plenty of time, but … I also know that for me, a big part of writing is thinking and I’d better get to thinking. Thinking I’m going to write more books.

One of the other things I’ve been thinking, along these lines, is maybe I’ll not do that cards/book thing I was thinking about. I dunno. Thinking about the packaging/marketing/sales side of it has been making me queasy. Writing the book is one thing, painting/creating the cards is another, each difficult in its own way, but then … I can’t just set it up with Lightning Source and know that anyone can walk into a book store and order it, or get it on Amazon/etc.. I can’t have it set up for Wholesale/POD at all, really, since I need the cards to be packaged with the book – I’ll have to order a huge amount of books, order the same number of decks of cards, package them together all by hand, and then … frankly, sell them by hand. Which … I, ugh… I mean, in person sales at Art Walks and Art Fairs and even via social media is all fine, but … going to stores and trying to get them to carry my product, dealing with consignment and/or other even-more-bizarre methods everyone apparently uses for accounting for business transactions… the thought of it makes me sick. I really like the idea of the product, but dealing with getting it to market makes me feel like shit.

Which has a lot to do with why I haven’t moved forward with the research and/or the art for that project. At all. bleh. (Overwhelming depression is also a factor, but one that I’m at least able to grind some productivity from.)

I’ve got to go get ready for an Art Fair today. Maybe I’ll get a chance to think more, in between customers.

Contest: What’s FWYCR book about?

“What’s the book about?” – It’s the question everyone asks, and they want a quick and easy answer. People who think like marketers want it in the form of an “elevator pitch” and people who browse in book stores want my book covers to fit neatly into the patterns they expect – but everyone wants a fast, easy way to make a snap decision about the book.

The problem I have with this is that if I could have expressed what I wanted to express in a hundred words or less, it wouldn’t have been a book, it would have been a business card!

So, I’m having a contest:
Tell me what my book is about, and you could win a prize. As Forget What You Can’t Remember draws near to its final podcast episode and people all over the world hear its convoluted conclusion, I thought the time was right to ask readers and listeners this oft-repeated and oh-so-important question. But what are the prizes?

One (1) First Prize: I’ll name a character after you in my next novel & let you decide whether that character lives or dies, plus send you a signed paperback copy of one of my books (your choice).
Two (2) Second Prizes: I’ll send you a signed paperback copy of one of my books (your choice).

How to enter:
Email your answer to the question “What is Forget What You Can’t Remember about?” to teel@modernevil.com. The deadline for entry is May 1st, 2009, two weeks after the final chapter goes live at Podiobooks.com.

Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary: You can read the eBook or listen to the podcast for free. Officially open to US Residents only – but only because I don’t want to deal with shipping books internationally. You can still enter from anywhere & if you win I’ll still name a character after you… and… I don’t know, maybe look up international shipping rates & customs paperwork? Winners will be selected by whatever method I want – probably I’ll just pick the answers I think are best, but I’m not ruling out asking people on Twitter or some such. By submitting an entry you are granting me an unlimited, nonexclusive right to use your entry and any derivations thereof for any purpose, including commercial – ie: the point of having a better answer to this question is to be able to get more people to read and/or buy my book, so I need the right to use the best answers to that end. I will be running a very similar contest for both Lost and Not Found and Dragons’ Truth in May, in case you want to go read and/or listen to those books & prepare your answer in advance.

Failure to Follow Through

I was working on another idea I’ve got (it can wait – it doesn’t require any action until 2013, so posting about it here a few days later won’t make a difference), and I went back and was reading my blog posts from Fall of 2003 and I re-discovered something I’d forgotten. Now, if you go back and try to look at the original posts for yourself, please keep in mind that there were some problems converting the site from MoveableType to WordPress last year that I haven’t taken the 100+ (estimated) hours it will take to go through and fix, yet. So, some posts are just a mess, right now, and some are almost entirely missing. Still, from what’s there, I was able to piece this together:

I started recording and posting my first Podiobook online 16 months before the word “Podiobook” was coined. Heck, it was two months before the word “Podcast” was suggested, according to Wikipedia. (Consequently, I wasn’t trying to podcast it at that point – I was simply blogging about it & trying to sell it through my blog.) I had even found a way to monetize it from day one, with a now-defunct micro-payments system called BitPass – at 25cents per chunk or about $1/half-hour (ie: about the same price for the whole thing whether you buy it all at once or a little at a time). My plan, according to this post from September, 2003, was to simultaneously release the book in paperback, electronic format, and as MP3s (and possibly CDs). By the first week of December, 2003 I had the first four files recorded and available for purchase, right from this post (broken links now removed).

I was testing the waters, trying to see if anyone was interested in an audio version (trying to see if anyone was willing to give micropayments a try, too). The plan, as of December 11, 2003, looks like it was to post the rest of the audiobook serially, for micropayments, but also to offer options to buy the whole book as MP3s together, an MP3 CD, and possibly a set of audio CDs (since the MP3 Audiobook was unheard of at that point, I thought I should at least offer it in the old way). Unfortunately, no one bit. No one even commented to say they were interested. According to my posts about stats, my blog was getting between 10k and 30k “unique visitors” per month (in the months I mentioned stats) from September 2003 through February 2004, and had fewer than a dozen regular commenters. By March 2004, thinking there was no interest and it was taking WAY too much work to not be heard, I’d given up on the audio version of Lost and Not Found.

I didn’t persist. Well, I did keep working, I kept writing, I kept creating, I just didn’t try to do audio again until 2008. And by 2007-2008, when I looked into it, I discovered that what I’d thought of doing 4-5 years earlier had taken off and now I’m late to the party. In the intervening time, I’d never given up on the idea of someday recording audio versions of my own books in my own voice, but in the insulated world I lived in I didn’t know anyone else was doing it. And since I was working full time and splitting my off hours between having a life, writing, painting, and more, there wasn’t time to be doing the audio versions.

“If only, if only…” If only I’d followed through on my idea. If only I’d finished recording it, despite an apparent lack of interest from my audience. If only I’d heard of Creative Commons (founded in 2001? Who knew? Not me!), or thought to give away my content instead of insisting on trying to sell every copy in every format. If only I’d somehow thought of podcasting prior to its adoption and… umm.. yeah. ((I was SO reading RSS specifications in 2003/2004, and was only thinking of enclosing files for my online comics and my occasional “audioblog” posts, not for books.)) So. I have a long history of thinking of things a couple of years before anyone else, and then losing interest in them and setting them aside long before they suddenly hit it big. I need to work on my follow-through, and I need to work on persistence, even in the face of adversity.

I have good ideas, I even often know what to do with them, and I need to get myself to actually follow through. To carry my ideas to fruition. So that the next time I invent the next big thing, maybe I’ll be at the center of it instead of on the outside, looking in.

Not about Tools of Change

Last week I was in New York, NY for the first time in my life. I won a free conference pass to O’Reilly’s Tools of Change for Publishing conference from Booksquare, managed to afford the airfare and hotel (Would you believe I flew to NYC, stayed for 3 nights within 1.0mi of the conference at Times Square, was fed the entire time, and flew home for under $550?), and had a great time. I have tweeted a bit about it, from the conference, and I have many, many pages of hand-written notes I took over the two days of the conference I attended, but this post is not about Tools of Change. I may (or may not – but probably will) blog extensively about it later. There’s a good chance I’ll write a thousand words or more per page of notes, not to mention anecdotes about everything that happened between sessions and at night. This is not one of those posts.

This post is about everything else. This post is about how, in between the last two First Friday Art Walks (ie: basically in January), I painted 6 new paintings, recorded the audio for the podcast version of FWYCR (inlcuding 6 chapters ahead of where I needed to be), wrote 5 (mostly long) blog posts, did my taxes, et cetera, et cetera. This post is about how, since the February First Friday Art Walk I haven’t painted anything new, have only written this blog post, and have only finished the single chapter of MEPod that was due today. This post is about how I don’t know when my next book will be ready for publication, or what book it will be. This post is about how I occasionally notice that I don’t have a “marketing strategy.” This post is about feeling insignificant, helpless.

After this month’s First Friday Art Walk in downtown Phoenix (I show among the vendors known as “Roosevelt Row” – the booths in the blocked off streets of Garfield between 4th & 6th, on 5th between Garfield & McKinley, and starting next month on 6th as well – I’m there every month, I pre-paid for all of 2009, and you can see/buy my art and/or books in person there for cash), I sold two paintings. Did not sell them at the Art Walk, one because I don’t take credit cards on site, the other because there wasn’t a convenient ATM, but sold them after being seen there. Gladly drove across town on Saturday to deliver one (after processing the payment through Google Checkout) and to a different part of town on Sunday to deliver the other. I’m always glad to put my creations into the hands of people who appreciate them. People who love them. People who are excited to be able to see them again and again. These kind of sales are awesome.

Very early Monday morning I left for NY. Thursday evening I returned to Phoenix. Friday I did laundry and tried to recover from the conference & the trip.

Saturday I had another Art Walk / Art Fair, this time at Angel’s Serenity in North Phoenix/Scottsdale. The Angel’s Serenity Art Fair is a Saturday, daytime event. It had better turnout when the economy was in better shape (and when there was an open coffee shop involved – since gone out of business), but I still feel it’s worthwhile to show there. It certainly doesn’t cost anything but my time and effort. Sold a few books (You’ve seen the new books, right?), about half to returning customers. That’s my favorite and most reassuring sort of customer, the ones who have bought my books before, read them, and want to buy the new books, too. That’s the basis for my publishing model; to build an audience of people who will continue buying my books as I continue to write them. Didn’t move any art at the Art Fair, but a past customer and I spent a lot of time discussing the 5 or 6 pieces he wants to buy – if only I catch him at the right time of the month. I’ll follow up with him after the first of the month.

Writing it out, I know it hasn’t been a lot of time – especially since the conference was actually work. Yet I feel unaccomplished, so far. Dilligent, yes. I recorded three more chapters of FWYCR yesterday, and worked on trying to figure out what to do about the final main character’s voice – it needs to be distinct, striking, but not distracting or confusing. I edited, mixed, compressed & posted chapter 15 today, went to two banks and a book store, and am writing this blog post. I’ve been working on some other ideas (more below) as well. Still, I feel I haven’t done enough. On the other hand, a big part of why I chose not to buy the big TV was so that I would be able to work longer without stress and worry – so that I would be able to go at my own pace without having to freak out about whether my art & writing were bringing in enough money on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis. So I’m trying not to freak out.

I’m also looking at some new projects. I’m considering designing a deck of cards – you can think of them like tarot cards or fortune telling cards, though I’m developing them largely from scratch. I’m working out some planning and manufacturing ideas already, starting work on basic artwork & meanings. Probably a set of 50 cards – thinking of maybe putting it out as a “deck” of moo business cards, actually, though I haven’t fully considered all the different custom card-deck printing options out there yet. Feel free to suggest someone in the comments. Then, in parallel with developing the deck, write a book explaining the cards, their meanings, and how to do a “reading” from them. Publish the book & make the cards available – because I can, and it interests me to do so. Not sure how to market such a thing, and certainly can’t bundle the cards with the book via Lightning Source, but it’s an idea. If I decide to paint the images for the cards, that could mean up to 50 new Mini-Paintings – I’d want to do them at a size I could scan with the equipment I have, so probably 8×10″ or smaller canvas or canvas boards. Or perhaps illustrations on paper, but then I’d have to mount/mat/frame them. bleh. But either way, that could be a gallery show I could shop around. Hang the originals on the walls, sell the cards & books (& originals), and have me (someone) do readings for guests all night/nights.

I’m also increasingly thinking of trying to put together a music “album.” Probably a “Christian music album,” at that. I keep having to compose my own music for the podcasts (because I’m quite stubborn and independent) and thus to think about music, to design music, and to practice with its creation. I’ve been vaguely thinking about creating music since middle or high school, but have rarely stuck with any physical instrument for more than a few weeks at a time & have never studied musical composition. Having Garageband in front of me several hours a week, listening to music I’ve composed play behind my audiobooks, it’s been pushing me more and more toward writing songs & putting together an album. That, I don’t have outlines or plans or marketing plans for (yet), unlike the cards/book thing above, but it’s rolling around in my head, closer and closer to the front all the time.

Which brings me around to what may be a lack of focus. If I’m writing/composing/recording/producing an album of Christian music, am I focused on art? On writing? On publishing? I’ve squeezed the designing of a deck of fortune cards (did you know the Old Testament condemns divination?) into the art/publishing worlds with the hand-painting of the art & the writing/publishing of a companion book, but has my focus slipped? What happened to the anthology of short stories I was working on last year? When is UTFBF-RoaAP: Book Four going to be written? Will I paint anything other than these cards any time soon? What about my next podcast novel (due in April)? What about marketing?

Marketing? Fuck. I knew I was forgetting something. I still haven’t figured out how to do marketing. Sigh.

In other news, since my books are increasingly apparent as some sort of idealized-communist propaganda, I’ve begun slogging my way through Atlas Shrugged. The Fountainhead is next. Then probably the Communist Manifesto, Wealth of Nations and Mein Kampf. I’ve never read any of these, but time for reading is part of what I bought myself when I didn’t buy a 73″ HDTV. Speaking of which, I’m going to go work on Atlas Shrugged right now.

Free copy of FWYCR paperback!

I’m giving away 5 copies of my new novel, Forget What You Can’t Remember, through Goodreads‘ First Reads program. “How can I be the lucky recipient of one of these free books,” you ask? It’s easy:

1) Sign up for a Goodreads account.

1b) Actually use your account; put in books you’ve read, are currently reading, want to read, write reviews, and otherwise participate!

2) Go here and click ‘Enter to win’.

No, really, it’s that easy to enter. Then, at the end of the month (ie: January 31st, 2009) Goodreads will work its mojo and semi-randomly select 5 people to receive free books. ((They have an algorithm and everything: “Goodreads will collect interest in the book, and select winners at our discretion. Our algorithm uses member data to match interested members with each book.”)) Then I’ll ship out the books personally to the winners, and they’ll bask in the wordy-goodness that is the new book.

For those of you who either a) don’t win, or b) don’t like paper books, but still don’t feel like paying: Please feel free to enjoy the free serialized audio version of the novel, either by signing up for the Modern Evil Podcast or by going to Podiobooks.com and signing up for either the default feed (which gives you episodes as I post them) or a custom feed (and get episodes on your own schedule). The free eBook version should be available in February, 2009, as well. Enjoy!