What Did You Say?-Making Money Via Audio Books

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January 19, 2021

pexels-yuri-manei-2766408 — Photo by YURI MANEI from Pexels

Just as eBook came to print, audio comes to eBook (and yes, print) as both another way to enjoy a story or 300-page tome and as a separate revenue stream for a writer. And the beauty of audiobooks, at least so far in my experience (albeit I’m not the kind of a writer where a publisher is signing me exclusively or wants to gobble up all my output), is that in many cases, the writer can set a separate deal for an audio version of his or her book that doesn’t impinge on the deal he or she has on the print or eBook version.

Yes, many a publishing house does it all, but there are plenty that only publish eBooks (especially in the erotica field) as there are lots now that are trying to carve out a niche only in audiobooks. As I have said time and again, if you can manage to grab a publisher interested in your naughty little tales and they only will publish you in eBook and print-on-demand (which is mainly how my deals are set up with the publishers I have books with) but give you free reign to scout out and scare up an audiobook publisher for the same book, I say take those freaking reins and go get another deal for the same book!

The publishers I work with see no harm in ‘spreading the wealth’ this way, as I have mentioned in previous columns. The overall thought here (and one I agree with) is that the more of my titles that are out there, in any way that they are out there, the better my chances are that one person will stumble across an erotic audiobook version of one of my books, enjoy it, and not only go a’searching for more audiobooks from yours truly, but might stumble across other titles of mine, from other publishers, and even if not audiobooks, might give one or two of my written or eBooks a try. Or somebody comes to one of my audiobooks from the reverse kind of searching, having read me in print or eBook first.

Especially with erotica, many people find a whole new way to enjoy what I have scribbled when it is read by some professional who can breathe life into my words and scenarios, providing a thrill in a manner just reading the written word can’t. So, yes, audiobooks indeed work for me.

One of the people I work with in the audiobook world (although they publish print-on-demand and eBook) is WORDWOOZE (here is their submissions page). I was just alerted, via their CEO, to a podcast they have been running, having recorded 172 episodes this year alone. You can find them here: Audiobook Test Drive • A podcast on Anchor. I’m letting you in on this podcast, less to sell my wares as to conclude this column assuring you that audiobooks are out there, a viable way to get your stuff published (and heard), and could provide another way for you to sell your book even if you have that book already published in eBook or print form.

So, go out and get your stuff heard!

Writers Chill! A Lesson in Humility: Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously

By

Ralph Greco

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November 15, 2020

pexels-andrea-piacquadio-3907440 — Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Here’s a joke from Steven King that I’m slightly paraphrasing:

A priest, a nun, and a rabbit walk into a bar. The rabbit looks around and says, “I think I’m a typo.”

That’s writer’s humor for ya.

Thank God somebody in this godforsaken shutdown anything-but-normal ‘new’ normal world is trying to make a funny! From all I read daily across blogs, see on the news, hear people twatting and posting about, very few of us seem to take our sense of humor out for a walk these days. Everybody is poised for a protest, looking to show off their offense, wanting to cancel somebody for saying something. Is it Covid’s influence or, could it be that because of social media infestation, we feel our every utterance is worth uttering, and we can rail when we want at everything we want?

Can’t we all just chill out? Take it down a notch?

I feel if anybody should lead the charge of amping down one’s ego, letting go of the supposed righteous indignation, ‘taking a chill pill,’ it should be us, erotica writers, actually, all creative types. Let’s face it; we are some of the worst culprits of taking ourselves too seriously.

Yes, what we do is important… to us, but I hate to burst your bubble; your scribblings, songs, sculptures, or flower pot set-ups are never going to be as important to somebody else as they are to you. As firmly as you may hold them, your opinions are just as valid as anybody else’s… but not more so. You might get paid for your naughty stories, or singing (wonderful, I say!), and the very nature of doing well in your profession might allow you a little more spotlight than the best janitor in the local high school, but what we create, true to our lives and center to our existence.

I know you are trying to sell yourself at the same time, protect your reputation, and self-worth against constant rejection. But nobody really wants to hear anybody going off these days, when all anybody seems to be doing is going off about some new injustice or railing on Twitter about a post.

Take it down a notch, people, please!

Let me leave you with this example from my writing life that reiterated the need for humbleness, for taking one’s head out of one’s ass, for chilling…

The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd

I have made some (a very little some) professional headway in the playwriting field. I haven’t much gone beyond community theater. Still, I have been lucky enough to have had many of my one-acts produced and have had my words acted/spoken by some wonderful people under the direction of other wonderful people in equally wonderful theaters across the US. I have been humbled at each turn, truly; I love “The Roar of the Greasepaint-The Smell of the Crowd” (look that quote up, it’ll be worth what you find). But only once have I been asked to sit in on a rehearsal of one of my plays. I never thought to get in their anyway, figuring the rehearsal was the domain of actors, director, lighting, and sound crew. But I was asked this one time and gladly, humbly, accepted.

I loved it. In fact, the process was an eyeopener as I was able to cut some words, whole passages in fact, after I saw the actors deliver my meaning with a look or the director through some subtle blocking with better intent than my lines could.

But I had been told time and again that writers are especially forbidden in rehearsals because most can’t take a word being changed or a few lines cut, where I welcomed the revisions (and if you aren’t revising, as I have cautioned in another column, you aren’t doing the writing right).

Indeed, ‘putting up’ a play is a unique process for a writer of that play since you are collaborating. Each person’s contribution is equally important (yeah yeah, without my words, there would be no play to perform, I get that, but how would it be performed without actors, directors, crew, and audience?).

My point here, as it relates to the title of this piece and the theme this time out… we all could do well with taking ourselves out of the center of the drama of life, realize we are but one small voice in the great din. Stay true to your opinion, even share it if you like (although I do believe there is too much of this happening these days to serve anybody, really) but remember, even if somebody says something that really gets your goat, rubs you the wrong way way (because everybody wants is to be rubbed the right way right?) realize, please, that it’s just an opinion.

Keep your head down, get to work, take it down a notch.

Go Out And Get That Writing Job, Bucko!

By

Ralph Greco

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November 4, 2020

pexels-andrea-piacquadio-3813006 — Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

I am the last guy to toot my own horn or even go so far as to let anyone know I exist. This is why I get such a kick out of playwrighting (this theatre in NJ being my favorite spot where my plays have been produced). I can watch other people say my words, saunter around the stage in a world of my creating and sit back (usually in the booth with the sound and light crew) enjoying from afar. Unless there is an author Q&A, all anybody knows about me is the very brief bio blurb I allow in the theater’s nightly program.

I just ‘do the words’, which is perfectly fine by me.

In my other life, I am a recording and occasional performing musician. Also, as you know, M. Christian and I teach at kink conventions now and again. So, I have no problem, and in fact, enjoy getting up in front of folks to occasionally making an ass of myself if this situation or work warrants it.

It’s just that I’m not so good at self-promotion or even pursuing work… although, as a freelancer I know I damn well should be.

Years ago, for the website, www.shortandsweet.com, I interviewed the fantastic actor, Frankie Faison, a nicer guy you’d never meet. He was promoting a movie at the time, and I was allowed about fifteen minutes with the guy. Besides playing “Barney” in various Silence of The Lambs, movies, he was also in one of my favorite all-time flicks, the Keith Gordon directed film version of dearly-departed Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night. In talking with Mr. Faison, he told me that although he was a working actor with a good amount of work to his credit and more coming, he was always looking for more.

Let that be a lesson to you and me.

I think I’m getting better at pushing myself, though. I don’t rightly know why or even when a sudden burst of hutzpah will take me, and I wish it took me more often, but I do know I am getting better at putting myself out there.

Just recently, I landed a client in Ukraine, far from my wild NJ suburban environs, by cold calling (cold emailing actually). I have never actually done this before, but desperate times and all that… although, again, as a freelancer, all times are desperate. In this case, I reached out because I happen to receive a weekly newsletter email from this adult toy company and figured, how could it hurt to just say hello and introduce myself, see if, indeed, they might be looking for copywriters.

It took months though to get an interview/consideration/manage a Skype call with the woman who I was emailing back and forth with, and the CEO of the company. As it probably happened for a lot of us, and might still be happening for a lot of us, the pandemic shut these good folks down for a bit, or at least for considering any new employees. Since I had inserted myself unsolicited into their world, and there had been a slow courtship of ‘Do we need this guy?’ ‘Maybe we do indeed need this guy?’ ‘How do we facilitate even considering this guy?’ I waited patiently over the two-months it took to manage that Skype call. Sure, I checked in via email, and I readied further links had they wanted them, but it really came down to the proverbial ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’

The lessons I learned?

1.) Do indeed reach out, even if there is no actual job posting. You might just hit someone at the very moment they are looking for what you do, without maybe, even them truly considering needing someone to do what you do.

And 2.) Stay persistent but do not cross over into annoying. Admittedly, this is not always a balance you can manage or even determine the parameters of. Still, these days with email, Skype, and digital carrier pigeon, you can maintain a respectful ‘just-checking-in’ distance.

The application of these lessons worked for me in this one instance, and I think they might work again.

I’ll add to this advice for those jobs you already have or those people you do occasional work for… keep on them as well. I am lucky to have seen a few articles published here, at Hot Movies. I hope to keep writing for them for a long time to come, and as long as I do, I will keep in touch with my contact there, as much for the work as to… well… keep in touch.

Sure, it makes it easier when your contact person, employer, editor, etc. happens to be a very nice person (as my contact at Hot Movies is,) but it’s good business to touch base every so often, stay on your contact’s radar, to say ‘hi, how you doin?’ in these times when it so easy to keep in touch.

There’s a line from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross I have morphed to fit my philosophy when it comes now to looking/pursuing work. In the film, Alex Baldwin’s character berates the insurance salesman with “Always be closing,” I feel, for us freelance writers, we should “Always be looking.”

I just have to learn to do this more. Maybe you should too?