I've begun to emerge from the funk that my life has been in for the last
five or so months. A lot happened since the end of last year, I
finished a series (Valens Legacy) that had consumed two and a half years
of my life (And it's really not done, there's a possibility of a series
being bandied about in Hollywood). The lawsuit got very heated and
hectic and expensive during that time. It's actually now finally over
after like the 6th of this month (that's when the ability for the other
side to enter an appeal expired).
Then there was my mother's failing health and eventual passing. Which
makes my cat getting cancer and dying the month before seem like a minor
deal (even if it wasn't to me). A few other minor legal issues that
I've been putting off dealing with, the need to take a vacation, a
-real- vacation, but not being able to because of the current state of
affairs (and also having my once a year vacation canceled and losing a
lot of money on airfare when it was).
So yeah, been a few rough spots there. Thank the good lord that those are all in the past.
Going forward, I am working on a plan to get ALL of the Portals of
Infinity series (under my name: John Van Stry) recorded under one artist (or perhaps a man/woman team).
This won't be cheap, because it's over 70 hours long at this point
(it'll probably cost around thirty grand). I need to write an addition
30K words or so to make this happen, for legal reasons.
You see, I want to combine books 1 & 2 and books 3 & 4 into two
recordings instead of the current four, because they each run about 5-6
hours in length. Back when I created those audiobooks, short books were
okay, Audible didn't discriminate against books under 10 hours. However
now
they do, they've changed the way the market works completely. But I
can't just put them together because the people at ACX are assholes. And
I have to go through ACX. Also their contracts are 7 years long and
they do tend to play fast and loose with the contract terms. (Note above
'need to hire a lawyer' comment).
Another reason to re-record the older books is that first I'd be on the
third
VA (Voice Artist) for the series, and that's just not fair to the
listeners. Second, I want to increase the quality of all the recordings.
Some are not apparently up to the level they should be. I realize that
I'll probably not make back the money on the first four books when I
redo those. I
may make back the money on the fifth one. The rest, as they've never been recorded I expect to make the money back on.
Portals of Infinity was the first series I ever turned into an
audiobook, and it was still a new frontier when I did it. The rules have
changed drastically since then and costs have gone up a lot while
royalties have dropped significantly. However I've learned a lot in the
process so I'm hopeful that going forward things will improve.
On the story front I actually have several things I'm working on, and
there's a bit of juggling going on. I have to do the 30K words mentioned
above. I have a new series under my pen name (Jan Stryvant) in the offing. Results of
that will probably be seen in September. I have a sequel to Take Two
that's being worked on, though it's been pushed to spot 'b' in my queue
now. There's also a space opera thing I've been messing with for a while
now. I'm debating a rewrite on it, but I need to think about that. It'd
be under my name and not the pen name. At least I think it will.
There's a bunch of shorts I need to write as well, for a number of
different things.
I don't know if I'll be able to get these on a schedule. I used to work
like that but I developed some bad habits in the last year. We'll see if
I can get back to that.
Oh, and as long as POI Consequences does well, there will be a book #10.
So yes, a lot of work.
Thanks to all of your for being fans.
