As many of you know, I have produced my Guild of the Cowry Catchers series as fullcast audio books with voice actors, music, and sound effects, and I release them as free podcasts. As of this writing, I have released four of the books and I still have one book to go. I also co-host a podcast about this kind of production called Fullcast Podcast with Bryan Lincoln.

You may have also heard me say, both on the podcast and elsewhere, that I have no plans to produce future full length novels in fullcast (aside from the final Cowry Catchers book, which I will produce later this year). I always intend to have audio versions of my books available, but not in fullcast and not necessarily read or produced by me. I have enjoyed working with my voice actors immensely, all of whom are volunteers, and the podcast has brought me many fans and launched my career as an author. However, Cowry Catchers is a staggering amount of work, specifically because it is a fullcast production. I could have written many more novels in the time I have spent producing Cowry Catchers. If you are an author, you probably know that various companies and individuals online offer to produce your book for you as a solo read, either for an upfront fee or for a royalty on your sales. However, there aren’t a lot of companies offering to produce fullcast versions of novels at any price. Why?

I had a fan ask me recently what it would cost to have Hunters Unlucky produced in fullcast the way I do Cowry Catchers. What kind of Kickstarter campaign would be necessary to make a fullcast production worth doing for me?

Hunters will probably be around 210,000 words once it’s polished. As a comparison, The Prophet of Panamindorah series (which I produced as a solo read) is about 150,000 words, and the entire Cowry Catchers series is about 300,000. So Hunters is a little longer than Prophet and not quite as long as Cowry Catchers.

A minute of audio = about 200 words. 210,000/200 = 1050 minutes/60 = 17.5 hours of audio.

Professional voice work is paid at about $200 per finished hour (which is quite reasonable considering it takes a lot more than an hour to produce that “finished” hour). $200 x 17.5 = $3,500. Cheap, no? That includes paying everybody, including the narrator, who may be the author.

Ah, but now we come to production. When newbies ask me how much time they should expect to spend creating fullcast audio, I tell them an hour per minute (as opposed to 10 minutes per minute for a solo read). That is an infinitely reasonable time-budget for someone starting out. This is assuming that the narrator is also the author who is also the producer, so some of that time involves recording narration, but that’s not the lion’s share of the time. It’s about 10%.

A slick, efficient, experienced producer who is not also recording narration (or at least not counting it against production time) might be able to cut that time in half. Let’s say that your producer can crank out 1 finished minute per 30 minutes of real time.  1050 minutes x 30 = 31,500/60 = 525 hours of production labor.

At 40 hours per week, that’s 13.125 weeks or about 3 months. But let’s say that your producer is willing to work week-ends and burn the midnight oil. If you worked 8 hours per day every day including week-ends and threw in a few 10 hour days here and there, you could get in 525 hours in 2 months.

How much should that cost? Well, I say your producer should at least not be worried about starving or getting kicked out of her home or not paying her taxes or missing major bills. For me, my monthly budget is $6,000. That’s $2,000 for taxes, $2,000 for student loans, and $2,000 for everything else (rent, utilities, food). So, for me to work like this for 2 months, I would need at least $12,000.

$12,000 is not excessive for this amount of labor (which, realistically, will exceed 525 hours for sure). If I was able to keep the project within time-budget, that’s only $22.86 per hour. If memory serves, that’s comparable to what I made in my first nursing job right out of college. I think that any sane person would charge more if that’s all the money they’re going to see, particularly if they’re expected to work nights and week-ends. The only way this makes sense is if the producer is the author and she will see more income trickling in over the life of the book.

Finally, you need a little cash for file hosting, some cover art, a few judicially chosen sound effects, and a little paid music. You can get away with using mostly royalty-free music and sound effects, but a sprinkling of higher quality makes a much better product. Say $500 for all that.

$3,500 + $12,000 + $500 = $16,000 minimum Kickstarter campaign for a project the size of Hunters. Add in enough money for prizes and a more realistic production budget by someone other than the author, and you could easily be looking at $20,000.

For a single Cowry Catchers book (~60,000 words), it would be around $10,000. If I were to pay my voice actors, pay for all music (most of which is only free if I’m not charging for my book), and get paid for my time, the Cowry Catchers series would cost in the neighborhood of $50,000 just to get them off the ground, and that does not include illustration.

These numbers are optimistic. In truth, no producer can work at maximum efficiency all the time. Some finished minutes take the full hour, and you hit snares, both human and technical, that cause delays and eat up time. For instance, this plan assumes that your voice actors get you their lines without delay during those two months. That would never happen. You’d have some lagging behind, slowing down the whole thing. When you involve a large number of people, that happens.

Returning to the larger question—is fullcast worth what it really costs?

Financially, no! I think that most authors and most readers would say that, as fun and entertaining as fullcast production is, it’s not worth the cost. I am certain that I would not succeed in a $16,000 Kickstarter campaign. I have lovely fans, but only a fraction of them would be interested, and it’s not enough to carry that kind of campaign. I am also certain that, if I shouldered the whole financial burden myself, I would not make back my investment for many years, perhaps a decade or more. I’m not sure that I would ever truly make it back, because most people who would have bought the fullcast production would also have bought a much less labor-intensive solo read. In that case, you’re looking at maybe $5,000 to do a pro job.

To put it another way: Fullcast costs 3-4x as much to produce as a solo read, but 3-4x as many people will not buy it. For the most part, exactly the same people will buy it either way, and they’ll expect fullcast to cost the same as any audio book. You cannot charge them 4x as much. If you do, you won’t sell many books.

All of us have had the experience of seeing some piece of art or furniture or clothing and *wanting* it sooo badly…and then getting a look at the price tag and realizing, regretfully, that we don’t want it to the tune of $X. That is how most listeners feel when you truly present them with the price of fullcast audio.

For me, it’s also relevant that I make $92-$100 per hour in the operating room. That’s my point of reference. I would never spend 525 hours in the operating room in a 2 month span. I would find that soul-destroying, and it would prevent me from writing novels. However, you can see how it makes more sense for me to work part time in the OR and spend the rest of my time writing, rather than setting aside giant chunks of time to produce audio that my fans don’t truly want to pay for.

I hesitated to write this post, because I’m afraid the people who enjoy my fullcast audio will think that I’m bitter or that I regret producing books that they have loved. Neither of these things are true! I could never put a price tag on the friends I’ve made while producing Cowry Catchers, and fullcast audio has helped me stand out because so few authors are willing to go that extra thousand miles. However, that doesn’t mean I should keep doing it for every book. That certainly would make me bitter, because I would end up writing far fewer books in my lifetime and possibly going broke.

There may come a point in my career when I have the size of audience that could pay for fullcast books (and wants to). It’s not impossible, but it’s not true right now. Authors reading this post may have audiences who could foot the bill for this kind of production. If that’s you, I hope this post gives you an idea of the budget you would need. Fullcast is a truly unique art form

Lu is an 18-year-old apothecary, trying to get along as an immigrant in the port city of Seashine. Her closest friend is a young assassin named Silveo. Lu doesn’t like to think about how Silveo makes his living, but she owes him her freedom, and she cares for him deeply. She also happens to be an excellent chemist with a knowledge of dangerous substances. When Silveo asks Lu to formulate a new poison, her involvement brings her into contact with a dangerously attractive pirate captain, as well as thugs and slavers in the belly of Seashine’s underground. As pressures build, Lu makes a mistake which may cost both she and Silveo their lives.

“Chemistry” is an 11,000-word novelette from the world of Panamindorah, related to the Guild of the Cowry Catchers series. The story has some mild sexual references and innuendo. It is not intended for children. “Chemistry” is a stand-alone story that can be enjoyed without reading Cowry Catchers, but the story will have more meaning for fans of the series.

The audio version has a square cover and is $4.99 on Amazon and Smashwords. (It also includes the text.) Look for the link and password at the end of the ebook. You can listen to the first half for free here.

The text-only version has a rectangular cover and is $2.99 on Amazon and Smashwords.

As you may know, I'm trying to give you new content every month this year. "Chemistry," the short story about Lu should be finished in less than a week. It was actually finished a month ago, but I promised an audio version for this one, and audio takes a long time.

For my April offering, I'm going to let subscribers to my list vote on a character. The survey closes on April 1st at 1 AM. If you're signed up for my mailing list, and you didn't get an email from me, check your spam folder. If you sign up at any point between now and then, the welcome email will give you a link to the survey. Look to the right of this post, and you'll see the place to sign up. I only send you emails when I have new stories for you, or when I need your feedback about my work.

The characters I've given you to chose from are:

Paper versions of the Cowry Catchers books are here! They’re on Amazon, and they’ve been linked to the ebook listings. You can toggle between the two versions.

If you want a 25% discount on paper books anytime between now and March 5, sign up for my mailing list. I use it to let people know when I have new material available. If you think you're on the mailing list, but you did not get an email with a coupon code for 25% off the paper versions, check your spam folder. If you don't find the email, let me know. If you sign up for the mailing list anytime before March 5, you'll get a welcome email with the coupon code.

Paper versions of the Prophet of Panamindorah books are also in the works, along with Crossroads and (hopefully) Feeding Malachi. Malachi is the only paper book that I'm attempting to produce with illustrations. We'll see how that goes.

The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 5: Shores Beyond the World illustrated ebook is here!

Chaos is sweeping the islands of Wefrivain—slave revolts, attacks on temples, and questions about the true nature of the wyvern gods. The catalyst is a single book called The Guild of the Cowry Catchers. The authors are a band of pirates.

Gerard and his friends are not content to merely spread unrest. They’re determined to free the fauns of Maijha Minor, who are scheduled to be sold or slaughtered. This is a situation that Gerard, Silveo, and Gwain created, and they want to make it right.

However, things are not as they seem on the deadly island game park. Priestess Morchella is pulling strings, and the fauns may want their own brand of revenge. Gerard lost everything last time he stepped onto Maijha Minor. If he’s not careful, the same could happen again.

This 70,000-word novel is DRM-free and carefully formatted. It includes 13 character portraits, 16 full-page illustrations by Sarah Cloutier, and 2 versions of the map.

The book is $4.99 from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, or Smashwords.

If you want it soon from anywhere other than Amazon, you should snap it up. I'm planning to do a Kindle Select campaign for the entire series, beginning in about two weeks. This will involve pulling books 2-5 off all other sites for 3-6 months. The books will be back on other sights by the time the podcast for Book 5 launches. They're not DRMed, so you could buy them on Amazon and convert them to other formats.

The Kindle select campaign will also involve offering some or all of the books for free for a few days. I haven't decided which ones I'll offer. If you want a heads-up on the free days, sign up for my mailing list. I'm also planning to start offering some other perks to people on the mailing list. If you're interested in reading cut-scenes or getting the occational freebie, sign up.

If you read my New Year's blog post, you know that one of my goals this year is to have something new for sale each month. "Sky Dance" was my offering for January. Shores Beyond the World is my offering for February. A novelette about Lu will probably be my offering for March.

Thank you for supporting my work!

Thessalyn Clambottom is a gifted, blind child from a peasant family. She’s been sent to the prestigious school of Minstrels on the island of Mance, but she feels like an awkward outsider. Things seem to improve when the school loans her a griffin, Chesher, for reading and navigating. However, Chesher has her own handicap—stumps where her wings should be. One day in the library, they find an ancient book in a language that Chesher can’t or won’t read to Thessalyn. Chesher seems frightened by the mysterious book, but hums a bit of the tune at Thessalyn’s request. The haunting melody is the key that will unlock secrets from the past and change the course of both their futures.

“Sky Dance” is a 10,000-word novelette from the world of Panamindorah, related to the Guild of the Cowry Catchers series. “Sky Dance” is a stand-alone story that can be enjoyed without reading Cowry Catchers, but the story will have more meaning for fans of the series. You can purchase the text-only version of the story on Amazon, Smashwords.

EDIT

I have now spun off the Audio as a separate purchase. As of March, 2013, the text is $2.99, and the Audio is $4.99. The audio cover is square as you see below. It's an ebook with instructions for downloading the password-protected audio (very simple, no DRM, just MP3s). The audio is over an hour long. Amazon, Smashwords.

I hope your new year is off to a good start. I am currently working on a short story about Lu for next month. The free audio of Cowry Catchers Book 4 is in release on the podcast website, and the free serialized version of Hunters Unlucky is still in progress on my blog. I'm waiting on 2 more illustrations for Cowry Catchers Book 5, and I'm very closed to finished with the paper editions of that series. I've also gotten some lovely new Cowry Catchers fan art recently that you might enjoy.

I set aside my day job to write for January this year, I've definitely gotten some work done. I hope you enjoy Sky Dance!

So here’s my year in review and my goals for 2013. As mentioned, I traveled a lot this year, though only in the US. I worked in 3 states. I agreed to cover the holidays for a hospital halfway across the country, and that was probably a mistake—not because it was particularly difficult, but because it added a lot of extra plane travel to an already travel-weary year. It was a little too much. I’ll know better next time.

I went to Balticon and Dragon Con, as well as NMX. I hung out with fantastic, brilliant people, and they made me feel at home. I traveled on my own all over Arizona and took a family vacation through Southern Utah, where the scenery is jaw-dropping.

I sold 2,378 ebooks for a total of 4,655 since I started two years ago. I more than doubled my average profit per book when I raised my prices. Although I sold about the same number of books as last year, I made more money this year. The $9.99 Cowry Catchers Complete Series was my best-selling title this year with 719 copies sold. However, The Prophet of Panamindorah Complete Trilogy continues to be my bestseller of all time with 1,161 copies sold. It’s now $7.99, although it was $2.99 for most of the first year. Cowry Catchers Complete Series is far-and-away my highest earner.

I produced and released Cowry Catchers Book 4 in illustrated text and fullcast audio. I spent hours watching InDesign tutorials from Lynda.com and learned to use the program to lay out paper books. After several failed attempts, my cover designer and I managed to produce a good-looking paper version of Cowry Catchers 2. (The final proof came in the mail three days ago!)

I wrote 105,000 words on Hunters Unlucky (for a total of 140,000 words on the novel) and 10,000+ words of annotations published on my blog. I’m not pleased with the word count. It’s a puny output for me. I typically average 1000 words/day when I’m drafting something new. I averaged 1200 words/day for most of the year I wrote Cowry Catchers.

In order to maintain that output in the past, I’ve needed (1) a single, sustained project (which I had) and (2) a predictable schedule with my social needs easily met. That last part I did not have. I’ve got a great set-up with my apartment near friends, but that doesn’t matter when I’m gone for months at a time, doing jobs which are stressful by definition. That’s why these hospitals hire travelers – because they can’t keep permanent staff. These are not the easiest jobs.

I’m not sure I’m ready to give up on the travel thing, although I will examine nearby options that present themselves. I think I need to be more judicious about taking lots of small gigs. The jerky stop-and-start messes with my writing. My computer also began a slow death roll near the middle of the year, which did not help. Fortunately, I jumped ship before it sank. But moving computers always takes time, and you can’t write if your computer is overheating.

Over 100,000 words is the best I’ve done in a year since anesthesia school, so maybe it’s just part of getting back on the horse. Still, I hope to do better this year.

Like most people selling ebooks, I did not see much of a Christmas bump this year—a little, but nothing like last year. January was my best month last year, as people who received ereaders for Christmas filled them with books. Again, I am seeing a bump this January, but not like last year. This corresponds with what most over authors are saying and seems to be a sign that the ereader market is leveling out and finding its normal footing.

I’m still not making a profit on my books. I’m a few thousand dollars behind, mostly because I just purchased the illustrations for Cowry Catchers 5 and also a license for InDesign. InDesign is the (very expensive) industry standard program for laying out the paper books. I could have kept renting it by the month, but I figured in the end, I’d be better off buying it. So I put myself back in the hole. However, I’m confident that my books will dig their way out of again.

I’d like to say that making a profit is one of my goals this year. It’s certainly one of my expectations. But I have no control over whether that happens. I can’t make people buy my work or review it or talk about it. I can only put out great books and stories and make sure people know they exist.

I’d like to release something new for sale every month this year—either a short story or a novel. That’s a high bar to clear, but if I succeed even half the time, I’ll be doing better than last year. Here’s what I’d like to write and the approximate word count. Most of these names will change.

Thessalyn novelette – 10,000*

Lu short story – 6,000

Finish Leopaard short story – 3,000

Finish Hunters Unlucky novel – 60,000

Hunters short story 1 (already written)

Hunters short story 2 – 4,000

The Scarlet Albatross novel – 80,000

Holovarus novella – 30,000

Sunkissed Isles novelette – 20,000

Memoir** - 30,000

That’s 10 things, although 1 or 2 of them might not be able to count towards my goal. I may get more ideas, or I may have a contest or two and do a few more character short stories. If my word counts are accurate (haha! Never), that’s 243,000 words for the year. I know myself well enough to add another 10 or 20K. Let’s say 260,000. And that comes to about 700 words per day. So, there’s my goal.

If I succeed in finishing these projects (an unlikely event, though not impossible), I'll be nicely set-up to begin rewriting Walk Upon High in 2014.

I’d also like to produce Book 5 of Cowry Catchers in fullcast audio this year, and I'll produce most of these short stories as solo readers. If I end up at home for more of the year, I might even record Hunters as a solo read, but that will depend on proximity to microphones. In addition, I hope to release all my novels in paper editions this year. We might not get through the whole list, but I have hopes.

Thank you so much to everyone who bought books, left reviews, hunted for typos, donated to Podiobooks, designed or drew or painted my characters or covers or maps. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their voices, their music, their sound effects. Thank you for entering contests, making fan art, making dolls! Thank you for coming to meet me at Balticon and Dragon Con and New Media Expo. Thank you for your time and your eyes and your ears. These stories are for you.

________________________

*I only know the story is that long because I just finished it.

**This will not be published under my name and I probably won’t tell you about it on this blog. Sorry!

Hey, Cowry Catchers fans! The fullcast audio of book 4 went live today on CowryCatchers.com If you're a fan of the series, I think you'll dig this. The feed is here.

This kind of question drives me crazy. I hear it a lot on interviews, and it always makes me shout pointlessly at my MP3 player (no offense to the Roundtable folks). The implication is that there’s some inherently female way of thinking and that it is so different from a man’s mindset that special training is required to navigate this foreign country. Usually, this question is directed at men who write women, but sometimes women (like me) who write a lot of male characters also get hit with it. Tim’s answer was superb. Spot-on. Absolutely perfect. He said, “You make sure they’re actual people. They want the same things as men - to succeed in their chosen field, to achieve objectives, or take care of their families.”

Women are not aliens, gentlemen. They are not from Venus or any other extra-terrestrial location. Perceived differences between men and women often arise from personality differences that the male author observes between himself and women in his life, which he then extrapolates to all women. These prejudices reinforce themselves in exactly the same way that racial and other sorts of prejudices do. A white guy sees a black guy with a messy yard, and he says to himself, “Black people are messy.” He sees a white guy with a messy yard, and he thinks, “Jim sure is messy.” He does not for a moment extrapolate Jim’s messiness to all white people. But in the case of the black guy, he extrapolates.

So, a man marries a women who likes to visit the restroom with an entourage...or who is particularly emotive...or who is often late, and he says to himself, “That’s women for you.” Each time he meets a similar woman, he attributes her behavior to her female-ness. Each time he meets a women who does not behave in this way, he attributes her difference to her individual personality. In this way, prejudices reinforce themselves.

Tim went on to explain that what authors need to think about when they write the opposite gender, is how society will treat that person in ways that society does not treat the author. Societal pressures on women and men are different and may be even more different in the world you are writing.

I think it’s pretty obvious in Cowry Catchers that Gerard comes from a privileged class. He is accustomed to an ease of movement through his society which is not possible for Lu...or Silveo...or certainly for Thess. It takes him a long time to fully grasp this fact. Most of the differences between Gerard and these other characters do not devolve from Lu’s femaleness, Silveo’s species/gayness, or Thess’s handicap. They devolve from the societally pressures on these characters and the behaviors and patterns of thinking those pressures produce. Silveo, for instance, has to be better at his job than any grishnard in order to keep that job. This is often true for minorities.

So, writer, if you are writing someone not of your gender, think about what societal pressures might be acting upon that character. Think about how *you* would respond to those pressures. Think about how someone of any gender with your characters’ personality would respond to those pressures. Write that. Don’t try to write “a woman.” Because generic woman does not exist.

The same is true for women trying to write men. However, women are often forced, from a young age, to empathize with male characters. Every one of my favorite characters as a little girl were male. They did the interesting things. Lots of little girls have that experience. In some ways, it’s sad, and in other ways, it stretches our empathy at an early age. We realize, quite young, that there’s no fundamental difference between boys and girls in stories. You can empathize with either. Little boys aren’t often required to perform this exercise. They don’t meet girl after girl after girl in stories with which they are expected to identify. Maybe this is the origin of the myth that girls are more empathetic. Maybe we are required to be.

I wasn’t going to write about this, because I don’t usually write about divisive topics on this blog (read my books for that! ;), but then I read an article in which a heterosexual man tried dressing in slightly girlie clothes for 3 days to see what kind of reaction he got from his progressive community. He was smart enough to try, not just one kind of girl clothing, but several kinds.

And, boy, was his experience eye-opening. It encapsulates my own deep ambivalence towards dresses and all that they represent. Go read it. Think about it. Particularly if you’re a man trying to write women.