And at least some of these stories are going to take place in various tabletop RPG settings, which is why I'm giving the project a shout out in this section of my blog.
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| And if we're going to make this project soar, we're going to need your help! |
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
The Settings I Have Ready To Go
While I'm writing, recording, and editing the meta stories about Alice, the Institute, and the dark mysteries that lurk within its walls, I do have a variety of stories that are ready to go, and which will begin appearing on the channel very soon! Some of these include:
- An Exalted story (which falls under the Dark Pack rules)
- A Warhammer 40K collection
- Some Lovecraft/Call of Cthulhu short horrors
- A Deadlands-inspired tale from my short story collection The Rejects
In addition to these settings (and several original stories of my own that either have been, or will be, dramatized), I also have some plans to adapt my story Devil's Night, which was the first story for my group's run through the Pathfinder adventure path Hell's Rebels.
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| In case folks were interested in more tales from Golarion. |
I wanted to take a moment to ask my readers, however, which settings they'd like to see featured on the show. While not all of them will be feasible, I want to at least look into it, and see which stories I could spin into at least one episode of the show... though popular stories are much more likely to get sequels as long as folks keep putting their eyes and ears on what we're doing!
What Makes This Channel Different Than Azukail Games?
As regular readers know, I've been making audio dramas for the Azukail Games YouTube channel for a while now. Which, speaking of, go check out my videos over there and subscribe to the channel is you haven't done so already!
However, there are two things that make The A.L.I.C.E. Files different from what I've been doing for Azukail Games. The first is that while my Azukail Games stories are sometimes connected, generally they're stand alone stories, or they're only loosely related because the shorts come from the introductions to my TTRPG supplements that I write for the company. They're meant to draw in the viewer/listener, and to get them interested in seeing more... they're basically an RPG commercial with voice acting.
The second thing that's different, though, is the length of the average story over on the new channel. For example, consider the trailer:
It comes in at 7:33. It's short, sweet, and to-the-point, while also making sure that the listener gets a full story to draw them deeper into the Institute. However, the first episode of the show is over 20 minutes, and Dead Man's Bluff (which should be dropping next Friday) is also well over the 20 minute mark.
So, this new channel won't just have an ongoing connected story to follow (both in terms of full meta episodes, but the introduction snippets for unrelated stories will also feed into the ongoing narrative), but it will give us room to tell longer, more involved stories in ways that I haven't done before.
What We Need From You As Listeners
First of all, we aren't asking for money. We're very new, and we're trying to earn it ourselves. However, YouTube doesn't share any of the ad revenue with creators until they have at least 1,000 subscribers to their channel AND 4,000 hours of watched content (which is over 11 watch hours per day for an entire year).
And just to add insult to injury, those watch hours can't be from people with ad block. Because our first week had 65 hours of real watch time according to our metrics, but YouTube only counted 4 of those hours as real for the purposes of our monetization.
So... you see the sort of hill we're going to have to climb here.
What I need from you, dear readers, is simple, straightforward, and best of all, it's free! Just:
- Subscribe to The A.L.I.C.E. Files on YouTube (we're 1/5 of the way to the subscriber goal)
- Watch the videos we have up (preferably with your ad block turned off, if you can)
- Upvote the videos, and leave comments of at least 7 words on them (it's for the algorithm)
- Share our videos and channel on your own social media pages (we need a bigger reach)
That's it!
My experience with getting the Azukail Games channel monetized is that what we really need is folks to show up, listen, and share if we want to get our numbers up. Because if something went truly viral today (let's say the trailer garnered oh... I don't know... 20K fresh hits who all watched the whole thing, and then at least half of those people watched episode 1 in its entirety), we'd basically be monetized by the time Monday rolls around.
But that kind of success doesn't just happen out of nowhere. It happens because an audience watches, comments, and shares videos, boosting the size of the potential audience, and getting more folks to walk in the door. So if you're one of the folks out there who has enjoyed my audio drama work, and you'd like to see me really expand on the stories I tell (and you're enjoying a broader cast of voice actors), then follow the steps above to help make it happen!
There Is A Bonus Option, As Well...
I said above that we aren't asking our listeners for money, and I mean that. At the moment we are very focused on getting the channel monetized so that we can just focus on telling good stories.
With that said, though, if you do want to monetarily support us, check the video descriptions because we will have links to the books we're dramatizing stories from. Whether it's my own book The Rejects, one of Alice's short story collections, or even novels like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, buying from the links we have will help ensure that the channel makes some money while we struggle up the hill to force YouTube to actually share some of the profits our work is generating.
Thanks in advance to all who take the bonus option!
Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!
That's all for this week's Table Talk. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my more involved audio drama channel The A.L.I.C.E. Files! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
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