Weekend News – Gym Djinni on Patreon, Doctorow on Audible, and more! · 7:14pm Apr 6th, 2023
Hey there folks! It’s only Thursday, I know, but I’m kicking off this weekend’s news post a little early because, plainly put, there’s news to be discussed! And we’re just going to dive right into it.
First up, there’s a new short story on Patreon for supporters! This one was a lot of fun to write, and it’s definitely going in the next Unusual Events book. Which I do have a decent pile of shorts for at this point. I should get on that. Though give how poorly the last one did, it’s not exactly a red-hot-right-now push.
Anyway, this story is titled Gym Djinni, and it sees a young museum worker at the gym spy something … quite extraordinary. Things only get stranger from there. It’s 7,000 words (actually short, I know) and was an absolute blast to write. Supporters, I hope you enjoy this one. Everyone else will have to wait until a little later. Or … you can just become a Patreon Supporter. It’s not exactly bank-breaking to do so (at least, I hope).
Either way, enjoy the story. I had fun writing it, and I think you’ll have a good time reading it.
Now, on to other news! I awoke this morning to an interesting post in my feed: A guest post on Brandon Sanderson’s site from Cory Doctorow regarding Audible and the unwelcome state—from an author’s perspective—of audiobooks.
And frankly, I think he’s got some very solid points. He echoes a few concerns and gripes I’ve noted with Amazon (and in my case, other places) in my posts about their advertising practices, but also discusses some less-than-savory ongoing problems with Audible that you may or may not have heard of.
Now, I get that people love audiobooks. But I can also see how it’s being abused, and badly, with royalties that are badly out of proportion for the author and worse, some downright nasty dirty moves from Audible (such as outright encouraging people to return audiobooks within a generous window, even after it has been finished, and then taking 100% of the refund straight from the author royalty, whilst keeping the money Audible had made for itself).
You can check it out here. I do recommend it. Especially if you’re a heavy audibook listener, you might want to be aware what’s going on behind the scenes and why that habit might not be helping the author the way you think.
Myself? I still don’t have audiobooks. Though stuff like this makes that less likely, not more, since it seems like it’d be all but impossible to recoup the costs without some sort of external marketing.
Like I said, give it a look. More news after the jump.
