So, its #FogboundFriday already and I have a few exciting items for you this week.
Fogbound: Empire in Flames – Launch Date
As you’ll have noticed from the image above, Fogbound has an official launch date of 8th August 2019.
I am busy preparing the final versions of the ebook and paperback versions and uploading to the Amazon KDP platform as we speak to be ready for you all to rush and buy hundreds of copies each on the 8th. ;o)
So, exciting news there, which leads me onto…
Read Fogbound for FREE!
Yes, in the runup to the launch I am publishing the initial chapters of the book on Wattpad in a serialised format. If you’ve not checked out wattpad before, then do. It’s a great place to find cool writing both novel and short story length pieces by a variety of fantastic authors.
I will release a chapter or scene (around 1,000 words) each Friday along with the blog updates. If you subscribe to the author or books you like on your mobile phone, you get a ping every time they produce a new chapter for you to read.
It’s a massive platform that grew up around fan fiction writers – but don’t let that put you off. Some big names publish their shorter pieces of work there – so go check it out: https://www.wattpad.com/user/GarethClegg
Fogbound: Empire in Flames as an Audible AudioBook?
Yes, it’s very exciting, but early days, but I am investigating getting an Audiobook version of Fogbound produced.
It can be a costly process, especially if you want the top tier of narrators – which of course I do. But some other options spread the cost to make it a little more manageable.
Amazon (KDP) provide options for matching authors and narrators and have three pricing models.
- Pay Upfront: You cough up the cash to pay the narrator their going rate for producing your audiobook then you receive all of the royalty payments for each audiobook sale. Cool but initial costs need to be covered, and with premier narrators charging in the region of $200-400 per hour (Fogbound is 14.5 hrs by the way) you can see this adds up quite quickly to a whopping $2900-5800.
- Royalty Share (RS): This means you and the narrator agree to split the royalty payments 50/50 to waive any upfront fees. Now, this sounds fantastic, no upfront costs, but there are a few caveats. Firstly you are not going to get your AAA+ narrators to do this unless you can guarantee shedloads of sales, so they know they will recoup their time. So this means you are looking at newer and emerging narrators, which is cool – everyone including the Triple A’s needed to start somewhere – it’s just a matter of checking and auditioning each narrator carefully. If you find the right one for your book, then great. The other possible downside is, if your audioook sells like crazy, you’ll only be receiving half of the royalty you could, and you might end up paying your narrator much more than if you had stumped up the cash in the first place.
- Royalty Share Plus (RS+): So this is a mixture of the previous two options. You split the royalties with the narrator, but you also pay an upfront fee (which is significantly cheaper than paying their full rates). This allows them to cover their costs and reduce the risk of being out of pocket. This means engaging AAA+ authors become more achievable, but you still have the dilemma of should I have paid them in full upfront if your sales go bananas. Hey ho – who said life was full of easy decisions?
So after that ramble, here’s the really exciting news – I’ve heard Fogbound read by several artists who applied to audition for the job! How exciting is that?
There has been a variety of all the payment options above, and the range of voices and quality of acting is variable. Don’t get me wrong – there wasn’t anyone terrible, but the field went from Good to OMG they’re amazing!!!
So its been an exciting few days listening to my story told by someone else – both from a narration viewpoint and more especially from someone else bringing those key characters to life with accent and attitude.
If any of you guys who auditioned happen to read this page – thank you for your efforts – I have been wowed by what can be done and all your efforts at audition.
And Finally…
So to finish off this week, I’d like to say – expect more FogboundFriday content as the August deadline approaches rapidly.
I am trying (yeah, yeah, I know) hard to get into a routine of blogging each Friday at a minimum now that I am no longer working at a proper job.
My contract with the NHS came to a finish last month and so I’ve decided to take some time out, probably 12 months to start with, so I can focus on following the dream of writing full-time. So as of the 1st July, I am now a fulltime author – and that’s both hugely exciting and a little scary.
Thanks to everyone following the blog, I couldn’t do it without your support.
So if you get the chance, please go to Wattpad and read my work – the big thing is to click on the VOTE button (a star) if you like it, as that shows my work is worth reading to others, and to comment as much or as little as you want. Wattpad allows you to comment on the piece, or on any single line of the story.
You can say lots of lovely things about how that passage made you feel – or how poorly written it was – or how I’d obviously lifted it from another published writers work lol ;o)
That’s all for now, so until next time, Be Splendid to one another.
#Steampunk #Fogbound #FogboundFriday