Modern Evil Press – Page 33

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.

Press, Release. Marketing, Products.

Haven’t decided whether I’ll be verbose or brief on this subject, here, today. Have to look back and see, I guess.

Conversation threads this morning on Twitter (which I can’t retrieve, on account of Twitter is “stressing out” – and I don’t feel like trying to track everything down with tweetscan/summize), included one creator saying they were thinking of planning on releasing a project they’re working on … in September or October. To which my mind replied: “I don’t understand. If you have a releasable product, why not put it out there as soon as it’s ready? For a finished product, why wait?”

Now, I can see how with certain products – say, a dancing Santa Claus doll or a new line of Valentine’s Day candies – releasing at a particular time of year might be appropriate. And I can see how products which will only be relevant for a limited time should be released in a specific time period – though that’s now, not later – to avoid irrelevance.

I can even see where something like a blockbuster movie, trying to maximize attention and profits would want to schedule its release to not be the same weekend as a directly competing release, which would not only compete for viewers dollars but for the actual, finite number of screens, but — and this is a big but — I can’t see why a studio would hold off on releasing a movie for months or, as actually happens more often than you’d think, years after it was ready to be shown. The finite number of screens is (I believe) now well over 30,000 in the US alone, and even the widest of releases hasn’t topped 1/3 of those – there’s a LOT of screens, if you have a movie ready to go, put it out there! If you don’t think it’ll make “enough” money in theatres, throw it to DVD – as long as you keep it in print, it’ll be available to whoever wants it. As long as it’s sitting “in the can”, unreleased, it’s not making anyone any money, it’s not entertaining anyone, it’s not communicating anything, it’s wasted.

Which, I think, is part of my problem with the whole thing: Someone, possibly a lot of someones, put their hard work and creative energy and ideas into creating something, and that work, that creation, is being held back, hidden, kept from its audience. Continue reading Press, Release. Marketing, Products.

Dragons’ Truth Audiobook options

Dragons’ Truth, which has been available in paperback ($12.99) for several years, is now also available as an audiobook in two physical versions. I made the little video above (less than 90 seconds – you have 90 seconds, right?) to show them to you, inside and out. Dragons’ Truth is a 4hr, 24min audio program, read in its entirety by myself, the author. The entire audio content of the book is available, under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license, to remix, re-use, mash up and re-purpose (please email me if you do, and I’ll link to it). The two versions are:

The entire book on 1 MP3 CD for $12.99:

A single CD-R disc
Individual files for each chapter
Premium Jewelbox
Two-page insert with CC license info.

The audiobook as a 4-disc audio CD set for $24.99:

Four CD-R discs with matching labels
Individual tracks for each chapter
Blue multi-disc wallet
Two-sided insert with CC license info.

Please visit http://modernevil.com/ for more info, or to order Dragons’ Truth in any of the available formats.

First Video Promo for Dragons’ Truth

First, I want to start by saying that at the end of the video, there is a lie. Or, as they say in the business world, a “future-looking statement.” I say that Dragons’ Truth is available as an episodic download from Podiobooks.com – I have been too afraid, so far, to submit it there. I don’t even know how long the process will take, from submission to getting online. And even though I’ve read through all the documentation at least twice, the stress/fear-of-failure/fear-of-rejection I’ve been experiencing re: the whole thing has apparently made me feel like I don’t even know what to do to submit it. Bleh.

But it is available in paperback, and as an audiobook on (MP3) CD. And I got the packaging in today for the multi-disc audio CD sets. Now I just have to wait on the new printer (which can print to MUCH smaller margins) so I can print the covers & inserts for those sets, and I’ll put them for sale, and this whole video will be true.

And yes, I’ll probably embed it again when everything in it is true. I’m sortof just testing YouTube and my ability to make and post videos, right now. This is my first attempt. Yes, I looped the audio. Yes, I know it’s a bit off. I’m sorry. Kill me. I can’t afford a shotgun mic or lapel mic right now, and haven’t worked out a setup for my condenser mic that I feel safe with yet, and which looks okay on video. I suppose the alternative is lip-syncing to pre-recorded audio, but … that’s a bit weird, too. What do you think?

To Do list for today, 5/12/2008

(in no particular order)

Shave
Make breakfast
Record Dragons’ Truth Promos:
— 30sec audio promo (35 seconds)
Cancelled: — 30sec video promo
— 60sec audio promo, incl. Ep.1&2 teaser
Added: — 60sec video promo (I’m still finishing up onthis, but it’s recorded)
— 60sec video promo, incl. Ep.1&2 teaser
— 60sec audio promo for Ep.3
— 60sec video promo for Ep.3
— Video reading from Ch.1 (<5mins)
Check on ASU re-admission/FAFSA (FAFSA received, transcript not yet, check later in week)
Look at Podiobooks.com submission guidelines
Upload basic audio promos & new outro to Podiobooks Mentorship forum
Fold clean handkerchiefs
Put together tithe ($5 short – get more cash before next Sunday!)
Pay April taxes (business) (State paid – need to take $1.34 downtown for City Tax, because they don’t allow online payments yet.)
Print First Friday balance sheet
Do necessary filing (piles of stuff on desk)
Recycle old Canon printer
Look up how-to re: Bookkeeping, online
Write followup letter for 4 First Friday contacts – mail paper letters, if possible
End of day: Shower

NOTE: Most of these are small, fast things. There’s no real reason I can’t accomplish everything here in 1 day.

Oh, and I’ll come back through and strikethrough items I’ve completed, periodically through the day. Too bad making this post wasn’t on here.

Items completed, not on original list:

Blog about to-do list
Take out the recycle / to the curb
Calculate Biblical figure timeline from Adam through Israel, verify Adam died before Noah was born, Noah was still alive when Abram(Abraham) was born, Methuselah died AFTER the flood, and if I did my math right, the flood lasted negative two years.
Murder my neighbor for blowing leaves around his yard with a gas-powered blower at 11AM, whil I’m trying to record promos for Dragons’ Truth. Seriously; do your yard work on the weekend, man!
Make dinner (bleh – not good tonight)