Going Audio
March 27th, 2008 Posted in AndreaBooks were once words on pages bound together. Then, they went audio and digital. I’m always looking for new markets (not exactly brand new but new to me) all the time and I’ve noticed something. There are quite a few audio magazines for short stories floating around in cyberspace. Am I the only one? I thought seeing my story in print or on the web was pretty exciting, but to hear someone reading it is a whole other thing.
The first one I came across was Pseudopod, a weekly podcast of horror fiction narrated by their talented performers. They have two sister sites: Escape Pod, which is science fiction oriented, and PodCastle focuses on fantasy. Well Told Tales is fairly the same as Pseudopod and Escape Pod as it looks for horror, sci-fi and hardboiled stories. However, they go for the pulp-fiction feel and their talented performers are of the Hollywood type.
Drabblecast looks for Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror stories that are humorous, bizarre, gross or disturbing, the weirder the better. While Wrong World Stories isn’t an audio magazine, it does follow the trend of the next big thing in short story market. Accepted stories are produced and distributed on DVD-Video and PFD and includes opening and closing narrations. Now, you can read short stories on your TV or computer screen.
What do you think? Are audio magazines the next hottest thing for short stories? Would/Do you listen to short story podcasts?
2 Responses to “Going Audio”
By Paul Anderson on Mar 27, 2008
I don’t think (or certainly I hope) that audio will never replace the written word, but I certainly think they are an excellent complement to it.
I listen to Scott Sigler’s podiobooks, which he recorded as podcasts. From this, he has secured a publishing deal and has done remarkebly well, as have podcast authors like JC Hutchins and Seth Harwood. Although these are full length novels, both Harwood and Sigler also do short stories, and are well worth checking out.
Of course, audio novels require commitment, and you can’t just skip an episode - audio short stories I like the fact that you can dip in and out. I subscribe to a lot of podcasts, more than I sometimes have time to listen to, so if the backlog gets too much, I know that anything that isn’t episodic, I can skip over without feeling too guilty. I’ll have to check out some of these links Andrea!
And if I may be allowed some shameless self-promotion, I am experimenting with short story podcasts myself…
http://www.paulanderson.org.uk/podcasts.htm
By Chefdruck on Mar 27, 2008
I like the thought of listening to horror fiction. It’s like hearing a good ghost story around the campfire.