The Season 1 Finale For "The A.L.I.C.E. Files" Is Finally Out! (And A Peek At What's Coming Next)

It's been one hell of a ride thus far, but I wanted to take a moment to throw some confetti in the air, and to celebrate the completion of Season 1 of The A.L.I.C.E. Files! It's been nearly a year of work (if you count all the pre-launch efforts that went into the first few episodes), and we managed to get everything out without a single delay, and only minimal problems. And even though we aren't where we need to be with it yet, I didn't want to just let this accomplishment pass by without remarking on it.

And whether you've been following the project since its inception, or you're just now hearing about it, I wanted to take a moment to ask for your help. Because in order for us to keep the wheels turning, we're going to need help from listeners like you.

Don't worry, though, we aren't asking people for money.

 

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!

What's The Show About (And What Can You Do To Help)?

For folks who are just joining us, The A.L.I.C.E. Files is a YouTube channel I launched in partnership with Alice Liddell earlier this year. The two of us combined our efforts to produce audio versions of various stories (our own stories, public domain stories, and a couple of fan works), which are all part of an overarching narrative about a young woman designated Alice who has accepted a position with the Carroll Institute. This shadowy organization explores parallel dimensions, and the stories that Alice witnesses are the reports sent back by the agents who went through the Rabbit Hole... and even if they didn't make it back, their stories did.

So the vibe is one part SCP Foundation, and one part Delta Green, with a hefty dose of Alice in Wonderland thrown in for good measure!

 

The trailer is only a few minutes long, if you want to check it out for yourself before reading any further. 

 

Now, the plan for Season 1 was to essentially lay out the general format for the show, and to get listeners used to Alice's new routine. We follow her as she explores the parts of the building she's allowed inside, we meet several of her coworkers, and we get little hints here and there of the greater lore of the setting. Mostly, though, the first season focuses on the files she witnesses on behalf of the Archive. However, sharp-eyed folks (or just those who read the entry Can You Spot The Clues in The A.L.I.C.E. Files (What Are Your Theories?)) may have also noticed that we started dropping plot seeds early, in addition to putting a couple of ARG elements into the show for those who enjoy trying to follow the bread crumbs of an unfolding mystery.

As far as Season 2 goes, Alice was given a serious choice in the finale. Confronted by a bizarre being she can't explain, she's handed a key, and a mystery. Will she report it to her superiors? Will she follow the mystery as it's handed to her? Or will she simply push it out of her mind, put her head down, and just try to keep doing her job? Our goal with Season 2 was to start branching out into an in-universe storyline, and to incorporate a number of popular creepy pasta stories and ideas into the plot, in addition to the more traditional dramatized stories we put together in Season 1.

However, if we're going to get through this, we're going to need help from readers like you.

Again, we're not asking for money. Just the press of a few buttons, and your ears.

Our goal when we started The A.L.I.C.E. Files was to get the channel monetized so that we could earn money from ad revenue, audience tips, and all the other methods available to creators. It would be a tough road, given that YouTube requires a channel to have 1,000 subscribers, and 4,000 hours of watched content in a 365-day period (which is roughly 11.5 hours a day, every day, all year long), but we were confident that we could do that. It might take us a while, but we knew we'd be able to get there eventually.

Unfortunately, thanks to a decision from YouTube, we don't have eventually anymore. We have until the end of the year, sink or swim.

 

I recently laid out the details over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, but the short version is that YouTube is doubling the amount of watch hours a channel needs to have before it can be monetized starting early next year. So we no longer have a couple of years to build up multiple seasons and a large enough audience... we have just under 4 months, and the clock is ticking!

So whether you're just finding out about the channel, or you've been cheering us on since we started back in the spring, please, do the following to help us keep the wheels turning:

- Subscribe to The A.L.I.C.E. Files

- Watch the episodes that are out

- Upvote episodes you like, and leave comments (the algorithm likes it when people do that)

- Share the show on your social media pages to help more people find out about us

At time of writing we have 369 subscribers, and we're just over 1,600 watched hours. We've still got some time left, but we need as many people out there to please add your voices, hit the buttons, and tell people about this project.

There are already a lot of shows that got a 1-season trial, and then disappeared due to audience disinterest. If we can get people to click that subscribe button, and actually show up for our episodes, we've got at least 3 seasons planned. Possibly 4, if folks really want to see more! But if we get the door shut in our face by YouTube, then sadly we might have to move on to something different instead.

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 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!

An Ask Me Anything For The A.L.I.C.E. Files... Our Next Stretch Goal!

I wanted to start this month off with a bit of good news... the audio drama YouTube channel I launched with Alice Liddell, The A.L.I.C.E. Files, just hit 300 subscribers! And since this has been a goal of ours through most of April (the algorithm has been suppressing our signal hard), I wanted to dangle a bit of a carrot for folks who want to see the new project keep picking up steam.

 

Because if we can get that subscriber count up to 350, then Alice and I are going to put together an Ask Me Anything for the channel, and the ongoing stories of Alice and the Carroll Institute!

 

If you've got a curiosity, now is the time to ask!

 

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!

 

You Want To Know, And We Want To Tell You!

 

At time of writing, we're getting a lot of fresh episodes in the can for the channel, and we're finally starting to set things up for the nebulous Season 2, where we're going to start opening the doors of the Carroll Institute, and figuring out some of the mysteries that lie beyond what we see in the files sent up by the archive. And while we're really excited about that, we also wanted to take a moment and let our listeners know that if you're enjoying what's going on, we're more than happy to give folks a little peek behind-the-scenes regarding what we're doing, explaining different plot points, and tossing out some world building explanations!

 

So, if you want to see us put together an Ask Me Anything video about The A.L.I.C.E. Files, here's what we need you to do:

 

- Subscribe to The A.L.I.C.E. Files if you haven't yet

- Leave a question in The A.L.I.C.E. Files Behind The Scenes video with the tag AMA in the beginning

- Watch the videos we have on the channel so far to catch up on the plot

- Tell your family and friends to subscribe as well

 

As soon as we hit 350 subscribers, that's when we're going to go through the questions folks leave for us, put together a list, and sit down to satisfy some of your curiosities!

 

 

As a final note, if you go to the comments section and see that someone has already asked your question, that doesn't mean you shouldn't leave your two cents as well! If we see a question being asked more than once, that's going to make it far more likely that it goes on the list when we hit the magic subscriber number.

Until then, thank you to everyone who has helped us get this far, and a thank you in advance to everyone who will help us hit that goal we've set for ourselves!

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!

The Obligatory Patreon Shout Out (And Progress On A New YouTube Project)!

It's a new month, and you all know what that means... time for my Patreon patron shout out! So, for all the folks who shoot me at least $10 a month, you can have a spot on this list as well. Before I move on, I wanted to offer my regular (and very heartfelt thanks) to:

 

- Joy Von Holle

- Brenton Ayres

- Phillip Litherland

- Tracy Bailey-Matthews

 

If you're a patron who wants a spot on this list, check my Patreon page and see if you can get up to that level! But even if that's outside of your current budget, you have my thanks as well. Big or small, everyone helps keep the wheels turning and the lights on over here!

 

 

Seriously... without you all, I couldn't do what I do.

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my 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!

 

I've Got Some Fresh Updates For Folks, As Well!

 

As I promised in the title, I do have one other update this week that I wanted to get folks in on. If you're a regular reader you might already know about this project, but in the event you aren't, I recently launched a YouTube channel with Alice Liddell called The A.L.I.C.E. Files, which is a sci fi reimagining of Alice in Wonderland. We follow Alice, a witness cataloger for the mysterious Carroll Institute as she sees the reports that agents have filed, and realizes exactly how many other dimensions there are out there.

 

 

The channel currently has 12 videos on it which follow Alice's encounters at the Institute, the files she's examined thus far, a chapter-by-chapter reading of the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (which may have some significance for folks who are looking for patterns), as well as our first behind-the-scenes video for folks who are curious about what it actually looks like to put together an audio drama.

 

And I bring this up at the start of this week because we've been straining to cross a certain threshold for a while. Because while the channel did very well for the first few weeks it was up, YouTube's algorithm quickly clamped on the chains to hold us back. We're currently at 296 subscribers at time of writing, and I wanted to get us at least to 300 before I offered a new incentive to get folks interested in helping us push forward.

 

So if you want to open up that door, and help me put together something new, please subscribe to The A.L.I.C.E. Files, and leave a comment on Episode 1 saying that you came there from Improved Initiative so we can track your arrival. Because while we're shooting for 300 subscribers, we need 500 before YouTube opens up some of the monetization options, and a full 1,000 subscribers before they share ad revenue, so we need all the help we can get!

 

I doubt we'll get there by the 12th of this month, which happens to be my birthday, but if you did want to give me a little present that won't cost you anything, a subscription to the channel and a nice comment will go a long way!

 

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. 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 additional audio dramas over on 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!

Need More Grimdark Tales? I've Got My Own Playlist Over On "A Vox in The Void"!

For all the books I've written and short story anthologies I've been a part of, it seems like most people who know my name recognize me from the work I've had featured over on the YouTube channel A Vox in The Void. From tales of the grim darkness of the far future like Waking Dogs or The Final Lamentation, to installments like my Pacific Weird War story Where The Red Flowers Bloom, or the Dead Space tale Black Marks, literally tens of thousands of people have heard those stories because they appeared on the channel.

But I've hit something of a milestone recently, and I wanted to share it this week... because enough of my tales have appeared on A Vox in The Void that I now have my own playlist!

Seriously, go check it out if you haven't yet!

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!

13 Tales of Blood, Death, and Vengeance!

I've been working with A Vox in The Void for several years now, and I've watched their channel grow, and their professional career take off. I won't say I'm responsible for it by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm glad to have done my part to help grow things, and I'm glad the audience seems to like my work overall. However, given how the Internet is these days, it's entirely possible that there are regular readers here who haven't been over there yet... and if you're one of those folks, take a moment to, at the very least, give my stories a listen!

Additionally, if you find a story on that list that you really like, consider leaving a comment and saying what appealed to you about it! And if you want sequels to any of the stories, make sure you let me know. I only add to things that it seems folks want to read, so your voice is what helps me lock-in to make more stuff!

And Once You're Done With Those Stories...

I will admit, I've only got 13 stories on that playlist. For most folks, that's going to be a long day of chores, or maybe half a week of commuting. If you need more, I have two specific recommendations for you to check out, both of which would help me a great deal!

The first is the ongoing audio drama YouTube channel I just launched with Alice Liddell titled The A.L.I.C.E. Files. In addition to the individual, stand alone stories we're presenting, there's also an ongoing narrative about the new "Alice" who just accepted a job with the mysterious Carroll Institute which is finally starting to rev up a little bit. We've had trouble getting eyes on this channel, and any subscriptions and views would be greatly appreciated!

If you managed to get through all of that, and you still find yourself wanting to listen to more audio fiction from yours truly, I have a rather sizable playlist on the Azukail Games YouTube channel. This is where I first started refining my skills, and if you listen to the playlist from back to front you can actually watch as my audio dramas evolve in real-time. All views are appreciated, as they help put pennies in the jar for Azukail Games, which is my main employer and publisher these days.

For all the folks who check these stories out, upvote, and subscribe, thank you. I like writing stories, and I like making audio versions of them... but doing it for free takes a lot of eyes to make the wheels turn. So if you're willing to put your shoulder to that wheel to help push, I (and all the other folks who work to bring these stories to life) are very grateful for it.

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!

The Literary Mercenary's (And Improved Initiative's) Recent Newsletter Change

The chaos of the year keeps on shifting, and over here on Improved Initiative I'm doing my best to roll with the punches. Which is why, first off, I want to give my monthly shout out to my patrons Phillip Litherland and Tracy for being my VIPs over on The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page. I'm still reeling from the changeover (I lost more than half of my Patreon earnings switching from a per-item account to a single, monthly fee account), so if you want to help me keep my bills paid while working on stuff like this blog, please consider becoming a paid member this month!

However, as if that wasn't enough to deal with, it seems that a certain Digital Ape wanted more bananas from myself, and a bunch of other creators who were just trying to get the word out about our work. Which is why I recently had to switch my bi-weekly newsletter to a new service. So, keep an eye out for Email Octopus, if you haven't seen it yet!

Come, friends. Let me tell you the latest happenings!

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my 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!

So... What Happened (And What This Will Change)

For folks who haven't been with me for a while, a few years back I took the advice from various folks, and put together a newsletter to keep all my interested readers updated on all my recent releases. The idea was that people who like my work could get personal, up-to-date content round ups coming straight from me, rather than depending on social media algorithms to see my posts (since these sites have been blocking, strangling, and silencing creators across the board). I never had a big following (10,000 is generally the number you need for a newsletter to be a money maker), but there were 300-500 folks subscribed to my newsletter at any given time.

And for all the time since I started this newsletter, I was a Mail Chimp user. You could send out up to 1,000 emails or so a month on your free account, and since I never really grew large enough to worry about going over that (as long as I did bi-weekly newsletters), it was a business arrangement that worked for me.

Until last week, when I settled in to send out the latest, and found the monkey with his hand out, demanding that I pay to play.

Your subscribers are waiting... what's it gonna be?

It seems that when I wasn't looking that Mail Chimp changed their policy so that anyone with over 250 subscribers on their list (I believe that was the number, at least) now had to pay to use their service. Well, given that only about 20% of my list actually reads their messages, and I don't really make any money from sending out these two newsletters a month, I wasn't going to just start tossing cash into a hole.

So I decided to use a different service... and that was why I've migrated my service over to Email Octopus (and you can sign up for the new location right here)!

I was fortunate in that all my previous users were downloaded and slotted right into the new service (so if you were already on the newsletter, you don't have to sign up again), but I'm going to be changing over links and trying to make sure that new folks don't end up on the old service as best I can. Sadly, that's a LOT of posts, so it's possible a few will slip through the cracks. My apologies in advance, but having to go through and change everything individually is going to take me a bit of time.

On A Final Note...

Speaking of going back through and swapping out links, I'm going to be replacing a lot of video links in both this blog, and over on The Literary Mercenary. For folks who haven't seen any of the updates, I recently launched a new YouTube channel with Alice Liddell called The A.L.I.C.E. Files, which is going to have a lot of my older RPG audio dramas on it, in addition to all the fresh content we're going to be making for it!

You'll see videos like this latest Deadlands-inspired tale Dead Man's Bluff, which appeared in my collection The Rejects. So stop on in, give us an extra view, subscribe if you like what we're doing, and consider sharing it around so I can keep making more stuff just like this!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. 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 additional audio dramas over on 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!

The A.L.I.C.E. Files Is Here (And Will Soon Be Featuring Various Audio Dramas)!

I mentioned earlier this year that I had a secret project I was working on, and that I would provide more information when it was ready to be revealed... well, that time is now! I've started a new YouTube channel in partnership with Alice Liddell called The A.L.I.C.E. Files, and it's going to be an ongoing audio drama with two different layers. On the one hand there's the tale of a young woman who ends up working for the mysterious Carroll Institute as a witness cataloger, and she gets drawn deeper into the bizarre nature of the organization's endeavors to explore parallel dimensions through the unique device known only as the Rabbit Hole. On the other hand, though, there are the stories in the files themselves; agent reports in the form of dramatized fiction from Alice, myself, and from a variety of other authors.

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.

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.

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!