Marketing – Page 21 – Teel McClanahan

Lost and Not Found audiobook, coming soon

I’ve been working on various aspects of this project throughout the month of August, and there is yet quite a lot of work to be done before the project is complete, but it is complete enough to begin putting it out there for the world to see (by which I mean hear). Tonight I submitted the first episode of the Lost and Not Found audiobook to Podiobooks.com. I am assured that their queue is not too long right now, so it should go up there … well, relatively soon. Maybe next week, but certainly within September. *cough* I hope to have everything in place to start my own podcast/feed of my audiobooks by the end of this week, at modernevil.com.

The podiobooks.com feed will be strictly the book by itself, same as for Dragons’ Truth. The Modern Evil Press podcast (Should that be just “Modern Evil Podcast”, or “Modern Evil Press Podcast”? Hrm…) will also include short stories and future audiobooks (including the followup novel to Lost and Not Found I am currently writing) as well as a small amount of “chatter” and promos for other podcasts / podiobooks I want to spread the word about. It should be an ongoing / continuous podcast, going forward. bleh.

I never really wanted to do a podcast of my own (though I did try my hand at audio blogging now and again, long before podcasts became popular, and it recently occurred to me that I was doing a sort-of podiobook back in 2001, when I “released” a serialized audiobook as I was recording it, week by week sending out installments… by snail mail, rather than the as-yet-uninvented RSS), so I’m not sure how much “chatter” I’ll actually be doing, but at least some more information and advertisement than in the 20-second intro/outro I did for the podiobooks.com version. At least to remind people that there are paper versions of the books available, and perhaps updates on what else I’m working on that week, instead of just saying “see modernevil.com for more info…”

I’ve never been much good at maintaining regular content-update schedules, so we’ll just have to wait and see how things go with the podcasts. I’ve got 5 episodes of Lost and Not Found recorded and -nearly- ready for upload. I can record/edit/mix roughly an episode a day at this point (since I’ve done most of the music and planning work in advance… though my crazy plans require a certain amount more work on the music for a few future episodes… you’ll have to wait and listen to find out what I mean), and I expect there to be in the vicinity of 15 episodes total, so even without working on it every day, I should still be a couple of months ahead before my birthday rolls around, which will make things easier in that regard.

Anyway, along with the podcast, I plan to be adding a proper sort of “news feed” to modernevil.com (and to wretchedcreature.com as well) with updates on things like the next Art Walk at Intatto Coffee (September 27th! Come and see my latest art, and get books signed!) or… well, I’ll probably go do the Phoenix Art Walk October 3rd, as well. And I need to throw together a website specifically for Lost and Not Found, like I did for Dragons’ Truth … except I need to let people know this one exists, rather than putting it up late and not really linking to it. I own lostandnotfound.com already. In fact, I’ve put a couple of media files there, already: Listen to a “five minute” preview of the Lost and Not Found audiobook, or grab the 60-second promo for Lost and Not Found to share with your friends/blog-readers/podcast-listeners/pets/self/et cetera.

That’s it for now… getting sleepy. Been up (and working) since before 7AM. Mostly on the audiobook. Forgot (slash was too busy for) to paint, today. In the middle of at least 4 new paintings, and have another I need to photograph & get online… Exciting stuff. And did I mention I’m over halfway through the new novel? I’m sure that’ll take up some of the days I’m not recording & editing audio between now and forever… So, lots of stuff in the works, I hope you tune in, and I’ll try to post again soon.

Pretty Good Art Walk

The local Art Walk at Intatto Coffee was yesterday. Length-wise it was somewhere in between a weekend festival (two or three full days) and the First Fridays Art Walk (four hours), with setup starting at 9:30AM (7AM at home, for me) and breakdown around 6PM. Daytime show in a shopping center meant plenty of casual walk-up traffic over the course of the day. Nothing like the downtown art walk, which typically has tens of thousands of disinterested people walking by in a rush every hour, but since people weren’t trying to ‘see everything’ and fight the crowds at the same time, it was easier to take a few minutes and talk to people about my books and my art. Usually people at First Fridays want me to be able to explain 8 books and 10 years’ worth of art in 30 seconds, and -oh, yeah- they didn’t bring any cash with them. This environment was somewhat more casual; people were willing to take more time and discuss the works.

Over the course of the day I sold (and signed) several books (good thing I brought them along, instead of just the art, eh?), and talked to a lot of people about the paintings I brought, and ran into a couple of old friends. Then, when I thought for sure I’d make more money from books than art at an Art Walk (which is about the opposite of my typical average sales numbers), in the last hour of the day, I sold one of my latest paintings, ‘fibonacci series #1’. Yay!

Between these actual sales and the fact that I didn’t have to pay for the privilege of setting up (well, aside from all the $$ we spent eating and drinking at Intatto over the course of the day…), it was infinitely better than First Fridays. No, seriously, I’ve never sold more than a single paperback (and usually less) at the First Fridays Art Walk. Maybe in the fall, but until and unless and in a few weeks I’ll be at Intatto again. I’ll let you know when I know more.

Art Walk at Intatto Coffee, August 23rd

Saturday, August 23rd during the day, Intatto Coffee (an independent, locally owned coffee shop which roasts their fair trade coffee daily – located at the Southeast corner of Tatum and Greenway in North Phoenix / Scottsdale) is having a small, local “Art Walk” showcasing local artists. I will be there with my art (and my portable wall, which I need to remember to repair before the 23rd. Hmm…) available for view and for sale in person.

I’m told the event officially starts at 11AM, and according to the sign on the door they close at 6PM, so I guess we’ll be done by then, right?

If you live in the area, or if you haven’t had a chance to come see my art in person at the Art Walks downtown this summer, or if you just want to come out and show your support for indie business and indie artists, you should come have a look and a cuppa.

Intatto Coffee Art Walk
August 23rd, 2008, from 11AM to 6PM
4847 E. Greenway Rd., Scottsdale, AZ
(Greenway & Tatum)

An idea about reviews for new media & independent publishers

Alright, so here’s a post about a concept that has occurred to me. It would probably serve me well to implement and participate in it, but -like so many of my ideas- it will probably not get further than this post. Depends on how ambitious I feel, I suppose.

It’s a pretty basic idea: Old media’s old ideas about reviews don’t work in the new digital world.

Not just because fewer and fewer book reviews are being published, and not just because the old media isn’t interested in new media, independent and self-publishers, and anyone who happens to use the ‘new’ tech of print-on-demand (unless they “hit it big”, sell out, and stop being those things). The old ideas don’t work for reasons I discussed here semi-recently: More books are being written and published than ever before, and more than could ever be reviewed in the old media without overwhelming everything else. Over a thousand new books a day in North America alone, last year. Heck, five of those were mine. So what’s the solution for getting all these new books reviewed? Heckifiknow. But I have an idea for getting some of them reviewed.

How about creators themselves -rather than just pro and amateur reviewers- review each other’s work? There could be some sort of central site where authors could log in and connect with each other and readers could come and see all the reviews in a central, searchable, well-organized location. The reviews could be done quid-pro-quo, ie: I’ll review yours if you review mine, and every book review then brings visibility to both works (because there’s always that “[name of reviewer] is the author of books such as [blah] and [bleh] and writes a blog at [blerg]” at the bottom of a review). Authors could exchange PDFs (MP3s, HTML files, URLs, et cetera), or probably, if they wanted a paper copy of the book, send them a pBook at cost (instead of full retail, since you’re getting a review, but also because none of us wants to go broke trying to get internet reviews). Reviews could then be cross-posted to the authors’ blogs, linked form their books’ sites, et cetera… Increasing the visibility of the review site. And the site would be able to scale better than most of the solo-blogger-reviewers out there, since every new author that wanted to be reviewed would have to become a reviewer. It should be media-agnostic, since we’re all internet people, here: eBook, audiobook, POD book, dynamic hyperbook, whatever, it’s all good. Lots of duplicate reviews are (I think) good, since different people have different opinions on different books – book reviews aren’t objective. A system similar to the one they use at MiniBookExpo For Bloggers could be used (except not just for Canadians), so one could be restricted to three (or so) pending reviews at a time.

Obviously, such a site would take a certain amount of work to be put up and maintained, but since it’s powered by the strengths of the network (each independent author / publisher handles their own distribution of the books, and is in charge of posting their own reviews, and for generating traffic to the site, and the more authors are involved the better the whole thing works), it’s mostly a matter of getting it off the ground.

Ooh, or does this exist already, and I don’t know about it? Point me in the right direction. I’ll sign right up. I should be doing more reading, myself, and adding the selfish motivation of getting my own books reviewed sure would help get me to review other people’s works. I bet it’d do the same thing for yours. Know anyone who could help put this thing together?

Dragons’ Truth is now a Podiobook

Dragons’ Truth is now available in an additional format. Sticking with the idea that it’s reasonable to charge money for physical products and that digital products should be available free (or at least published under a CC license), the downloadable version of the audiobook of Dragons’ Truth is available for free through Podiobooks.com. As with the E-Book versions of my novels, you are welcome to pay for the digital copy if you like (see modernevil.com or the Kindle store to pay for the E-Books; more options coming soon), through the donation link at podiobooks, and I’ll get 75% of whatever you donate (the rest goes to running the site & feeding to all the people who download and don’t donate), or you can just grab the entire book for free and enjoy it without spending a penny. The whole book is available there now.

So, the formats Dragons’ Truth is now available in are:

Digital, for free under :

E-Book in any of (currently) 7 DRM-free formats
Episodic Podiobook subscription

Physical, for $:

Paperback book for $12.99
Audiobook on 4 CDs for $24.99
Audiobook on 1 MP3 CD for $12.99
Kindle E-Book, list price: $8.35 (usually available for $6.68)

You can also listen to the first chapter of Dragons’ Truth for free without signing up for a Podiobooks.com account by visiting dragonstruth.com. If you enjoy what you hear, please consider buying the audiobook on CD, on MP3 CD, or in paperback. If you don’t want to pay full price, there are usually stores listed at AbeBooks or in the Amazon Marketplace that will sell you new copies of the paperback at a significant discount (and I still get my share of the wholesale cost – though obviously, ordering directly through modernevil.com is the best way to support me as an independent creator, I understand the need to be frugal), and you still get a “real” book instead of data on a disk.

Oh, and one more thing: If you do decide to read the book for free online, or listen to the audiobook for free through Podiobooks.com, could you please take a couple of minutes and review it? You can rate/review it at Podiobooks.com directly, Amazon reviews are always helpful, blog posts are great, even a < 140 character review on Twitter or Plurk would be good. I will gladly link to any reviews, blog posts, SM profiles, et cetera from both dragonstruth.com and this blog, so please let me know if you do write something about any of my books. (Even if you just talk about what you didn’t like! I can certainly work to improve future releases.) Oh, and be sure to tell your friends, too. I’m sure they’d enjoy it.