In late 2021, I stopped writing stories for print publication and moved my energies into audio production. The publishing industry has called what I do by several different names “audio dramas,” “audio fiction,” or “podcast novels.” Since I work primarily with shorter works of fiction, I simply call my work “audio stories.”
In January 2024, we optimized our Website, Appaloosa Radio Online, for the iPhone and Android. As I write this, it hosts 167 audio stories created by 16 different writers. We believe that most of our audio stories are experienced on mobile devices. Last year, we had about 4,000 listeners.
While 4,000 listeners in twelve months is not phenomenal by current YouTube standards, it represents, I believe, an audience significantly larger than what I probably would have gotten by publishing print stories on Amazon Kindle.
This week, I researched what other advantages publishing audio stories has over printed publications.
The first advantage to audio stories is the immediacy of the connection between the storyteller and the listener. Audio stories create a tight personal connection between the two. Sometimes when reading a great book, you become so involved that you just can’t put it down. However, that (in my experience) is a rare experience. On the other hand, I have found that a well-constructed audio story nearly always creates both intimacy and intense involvement. I believe there is a unique magic in the spoken word. Hearing a story engages our minds, brings us back to when listening by the campfire was an essential form of human communication.
A second advantage, I believe, is the ability to enhance the story telling with music and sound effects. Listening to a well-crafted audio story is an immersive experience. You are in the moment; in the place. And the experience is in real time. It is happening now.
Unlike video or film, an audio story has no visuals, no pictures to shape mental images. Therefore, the listener’s own mind must create the visualization. Call it imagination or mental visualization, but each listener must create their own images. In a sense, it is more work for our brains, but when seem to enjoy doing it, and by creating our own images, the sense of being there is enhanced. The immersive quality of audio stories comes (to a great extent) from our own minds.
As I shared earlier, Appaloosa Radio Online has now been optimized for mobile devices, which means it is available almost anywhere, at almost any time, right in your pocket. Riding the bus, working out at the gym, listening while you cook a special meal, breaking the monotony of waiting in a doctor’s office Ebooks are also largely available on mobile devices, but listening allows you to do other things while enjoying the story. Reading an ebook requires focused attention.
Not only are our audio stories available everywhere, they also give listeners access to a large library of stories without the need for a physical space to keep them in You don’t need a room full of shelves to house your library.
Another advantage for me as a content producer is the fact that my production timeline has been significantly compressed. I can complete a story and then have it posted in less than 20 minutes.
A correlated advantage is if I find that I need to correct or revise a piece, I can also do so in minutes.
I have also enjoyed the ability to tell stories using voices other than my own. Writing is a very solipsistic enterprise. It is me talking to me. I have found that when I record a section with various different voices, I gain insight into the characters, settings, and plot threads that I did not have before. It is listening, particularly listening to readings with very different voices, that bring these insights. Being a listener to my own work has helped me to transcend my personal limitations.
Finally, I have found that producing audio stories is less expensive than creating stories for print. Let me emphasize that does not mean they are less work. For Appaloosa Radio, I do most of the work and (of course) I don’t charge myself for me time. Nonetheless, I have found that for me, creating audio stories is less expensive than creating either eBooks or print versions.
There are now a plethora of writing and editorial assistants that help both the writing and the editorial processes. There are, however, far fewer tools available for audio production. I am primarily using tools that I have had on my computer for several years. They produce a quality product, but they require that I do the work of importing, editing, mixing, and producing. The software does not do it for me.
With that said, I have found that producing an audio story is less expensive than either an ebook or a print publication. I did a cost analysis last summer and estimated that it costs me about $1.79 to produce and publish a 2,000-word audio story.
As I said that figure does not include labor costs. However, it does reflect my actual costs for generating computer voices, creating (or generating) music, creating art for covers, and the costs of my Webhost and my podcast service.
There are major disadvantages to creating audio stories.
The first is obvious. Not every story works well in an audio format. Stories with a clear linear structure work well. Stories with multiple flashbacks or that frequently switch settings do not. Stories with a complicated sentence structure do not work as well as stories with simpler, more direct sentences. I have also found that stories with surprising endings are sometimes hard to do in audio. Foreshadowing has to obvious, not subtle.
Generally, audio stories need to be less than 30-minutes long.
Whenever I have created a longer story, I have found that I need to provide explicit scene shift markers, so the listeners know something different is happening. Listeners will continue with a longer story that has clearly designated scenes, especially if there are unresolved story tensions that need to be resolved.
Research has shown that listeners seldom return to a story once they have left it. So, a story needs to be shory enough so that a listener can complete it while commuting to work, doing a workout in the gym, or some similar activity.
Another disadvantage of audio stories is that they are ephemeral. For a listener, an audio story is a listen and be done experience. They don’t return to it, replay it, or re-experience it. A book, on the other hand, has a lasting physical presence. It is there if you wish to re-read a section or a chapter at a later time. I have, for example, books in my personal library that were published in 1891, and many of my books (including those) have a yellow sticky marking a passage that I thought worth returning to.
Finally, the most significant disadvantage is locating and paying for professional-level voice actors appropriate to the story’s content.
Traditionally, the highest quality audio theater productions have used a full cast of actors, a director, and sound technicians. I found a podcast interview with a BBC audio producer who said that he would never begin a project unless he was guaranteed at least £50,000 British Pounds for the series.
I have shared elsewhere in the blog series that Appaloosa Radio Online began as a collaborative audio theater project. We successfully complete one project, but circumstances intervened and the collaboration dissipated. Our first project attempted to replicate the traditional production model.
However, when I began doing the work alone (and without a large sum of available cash), I looked for alternatives, particularly using computer-generated voices. Unfortunately, the only voices available in 2021 were the collection of Microsoft voices. These voices were free to use, but all sounded very robotic. Fortunately, technology has improved dramatically since then. I frequently use the many voices from either Eleven Labs AI or Amazon Polly.
Nonetheless, matching a voice to a character is time-consuming and sometimes frustrating. Every computer-generated voice that I have used has limitations. They work well for certain kinds of story text, but not others. Likewise, I might find the perfect voice for one character, but never find one for the other character in the dialogue.
Unfortunately, I may have to re-write a section in order to work around not having the right voice for all of the characters.
Still, even wit these disadvantages, I believe that the choice to move from publishing print stories to producing audio ones was the right one for me.
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