I’m posting notice of two changes I intend to make before the end of the financial year, and seeking feedback from anyone who objects.
Audiobooks
The first is that I’m planning to stop producing audiobooks. The existing ones will remain on sale, but I’m planning to not record any more.
The reason for this is simple: money. I’ve recorded 16 audiobooks so far, and none of them have sold well enough to justify the cost of recording them. Over the past 12 months, my total sales of audiobooks were only $40 USD a month, total.
There are certainly several ways I could make the audiobooks more attractive. Fans have suggested a female-presenting voice as narrator, for example. But even assuming that any improvements I made had absolutely zero cost to implement, I’d still need the audiobooks to sell three times as many copies to justify the time and effort of making them, and that doesn’t seem like a reasonable expectation.
In addition, my own recent stroke and minor vision impairment has made recording the books more time-consuming and stressful at my end, which makes it even harder to justify the effort.
I’m particularly seeking input from anyone who has been buying the audiobooks for accessibility reasons, either due to vision impairment or some other factor that makes these audiobook editions uniquely useful. If there were long-time supporters who needed this service, it would be something that might sway my decision.
In the meantime, the upcoming May re-issue of Golden Sins will NOT launch with an accompanying audiobook.
For any feedback or commentary, either leave a comment on this post, or get in touch with me at all.these.roadworks@gmail.com
Novel pricing
It’s a relatively minor matter, but I plan to raise the price of the two full-length novels, Titcage and The Lesbian Debt, from $9.99 USD to $12.99 USD. I’ll be honest that the primary reason for this is simply that I think people will pay it, because these two stories remain in extremely high demand and are exceptionally popular.
But there are two other factors playing into this decision:
1) The novels are significantly longer than the Premium Collections, but the current pricing of these two product groups doesn’t properly reflect that increase in content.
2) Inflation since the books were launched means they were eventually due for a price increase anyway.
I intend to bring the price increase into effect before the end of the financial year. This will NOT affect the availability of these books in the library of books available to Premium Members.
Again, if you think I’m wildly off-base with this decision, please get in touch via comment on this post, or at all.these.roadworks@gmail.com.
With thanks,
All These Roadworks
13 May 2022
Regarding your audiobooks and having a female voice actor. Do you think it would be at least worth trying out a single story as an experiment and i guess to have somthing for posterity,experience and portfolio.
If it works you can take it further if you want and if it doesnt then you’ll know for certain that the demand isnt there.
As for the books pretty sure i already own both so its no big deal for a price increase to me.anyway.
Thanks Braydox!
I’ve already implemented the pricing change – we’ll see how it goes.
Sadly full-length novels don’t magically happen, and staying invested in a story to see it to completion at that kind of length is a challenge for me. Both the existing novels took several years to complete, not because of the overall work, but because of the difficulty of pushing them to their end motivation-wise. I’d love to have more novel-length stuff in a fit state to publish, but focusing on it is likely to leave me with no new content and nothing new to sell.
The sales of the audiobooks are *really* low. Even if a female-voiced audiobook cost me nothing extra to make (i.e. the actor works for free), AND it sold as much as 400% more than the existing ones, it still wouldn’t justify the time of producing it.
That said, if a professional female-voiced actor wanted to do one for free (or possibly on a commission basis, for a percentage of profits in the first six months of sales), I’d be willing to give it a go. Definitely no budget to pay someone upfront, though.
– ATR
I would think investing time in what sells, and drew your audience in the first place. e.g. Full length novels along the lines of the lesbian debt.