When Words Fade and Things Come Alive

I've been getting questions about why I haven't put anything into audio for a while, so I thought I'd better do a quick update.

So, first off, I have actually been putting things in audio--In Other Words...Murder narrated by the wonderfully funny Kevin R. Free went into audio in September. (Which, now that I say it aloud, does sound like a while ago.) :-D

A couple of people asked what happened to the Green Glass Beads project. You'll remember I hired the amazingly versatile Joel Leslie Froomkin to narrate the novella. The result was brilliant; the hitch is that because the story is part of the Irregulars anthology, I couldn't really figure a way to get the audio book listed on Amazon or Audible. I ended up listing it last week on Findaway Voices in their Voices Plus program and I'm just waiting for that to be approved. At that point the audiobook will be made available to certain tiers within my Patreon group--and then eventually it will go into wide distribution. I promise you it's worth waiting for!

I also did three short stories in audio for Patreon last year: The Boy Next Door, Night Watch, and Halloween is Murder. All are narrated by the gorgeous voice of Kale Williams, and those can actually be purchased through Payhip on my website. I struggled with how to price them, but since Patreon paid for the productions, I've settled on $5.99. That seems like the going price for audio shorts?

So that's what's already done.

As I discussed last year, I'm focused on going wide with my audio. There's no question that most of the sales come through Audible (which funnels into Amazon and iTunes) but if no one is willing to take the financial hit and put product into wider distribution, there will be no viable competition. Healthy competition helps us all. Certainly it will mean all the difference in the long run. So that's my position and why I'm experimenting with things like Payhip and Findaway Voices, even though some of you might find that kind of inconvenient.

Anyway, coming up in the short term will be Seance on a Summer's Night and The Ghost Had an Early Check-out. Details still need to be ironed out there. I made a tactical mistake and opened both projects up for auditions on ACX, which I haven't done in years. Within two days I had 76 auditions and because I feel absolutely obligated to listen to and personally respond to each one--which (I'd forgotten) is insanely time-consuming--it's taking longer to get this settled than I wanted. AND it's completely unnecessary because Kale had already supplied me with a list of terrific narrators he personally knows. So...I'll keep you posted.

Oh! Also, yes, I'm planning to do the Adrien English books in audio box sets, and yes, per your demand, I did bring Chris Patton back to narrate So This is Christmas for the box set. You can stop asking. :-D It's done. He's already completed the work and I have the files. There are some technical issues though, so there could be a delay on getting those out. But it will happen. Really.

Basically, I plan on pretty much everything I do this year going into audio. And because I'm doing more this year, there should be more audio. Kale will of course be back to narrate The Monuments Men Murders AND  I've already talked to him about doing my new Bedknobs and Broomsticks trilogy.

In most cases I will always return to my original narrator for sequels and series, but in some cases the narrators have moved on, so it's not going to be possible to get them back. I know you all really, really dislike narrator changes, but sometimes it just can't be helped.

So that's where we are with audio. I'm as much a fan as ever and I plan on providing you with plenty of audio content this year. :-)

And of course, I'm always interested in hearing what's on your audio wishlist!