New release! Taking Chances – Episode One: Ellen’s Bet
Mature content warning!
“Ellen’s Bet” is the first volume in a collection of erotic literary stories called “Taking Chances”. They are stories about contemporary women, who for various reasons – sound or unsound, considered or impulsive – make a wager. The result of her wager, win or lose, will have a significant impact on the direction of her life and of her relationships.
August 29th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
I make it a point to give a chance to everything offered on Podiobooks.com. Sometimes it means that I listen only to the first few minutes of a reading, due to bad audio quality, bad reading or a dull story. At other times it means that I fall in love with some writers work and then I go and buy their books.
In this case, since the story is relatively short, I listened to it all… Here are my observations.
This is definitely a guy story : it’s written as a porn movie. It is really graphic and crude in its descriptions, with no sugar coating whatsoever. There’s nothing wrong in that, just make certain you have your earbuds on and that you know what you’re getting yourself into.
The reading is as mechanical as a porn movie too. No emotions, no finess, just plain descriptions. I don’t mind a man reading female parts, but here the story might have gained in entertainment if the reader had softened his voice, made it a little more breathier in texture. Or asked a lady to read it. The reader’s deep and mechanical tone often wrenched me out of the story.
The biggest turnoff was the audio quality. All along the reading there’s an electrical hum that goes up and down and makes you want to scream. It is really painful. Add to that various sounds, mouse clicks and repeated lines, and you get a very unpolished production.
With a good pair of headphones, the reader would have noticed these problems… I heard them very well with my 5$ earbuds. A couple more hours of post-prod would not have made it perfect, but at least less painful.
August 29th, 2012 at 8:17 pm
ick
August 30th, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Thanks for your answer, Mr Thalia. As I said, I sample everything that appears on Podiobooks.com and I listen to over 40 hours of podcasts in a week. Had not the subject of your book been relatively short and of interest to me, I would have stopped listening after 30 seconds. Had I read your story in written form, I would probably not have critiqued it the same way I did though.
But as it is presented in audio format, this is how your story will be judged first. And because it is your first audio prod, I felt like I had to be fair with you and give you some hints of what you could do better next time. I hate to see podcasts suffer.
Have you listened to your prod after it had been converted in mp3 and uploaded to the site ? Just click on the sample button on your page and you will have a better idea of what is the first thing your listeners experience. That’s how they choose to listen or not to a prod.
Conversion tends to enhance problems that don’t seem so obvious at the start. A little audio artifact can become a major issue. Good STUDIO headphones are a must when audio editing (you can own a pair for about 70$). And you have to become really anal about it.
Having someone else listening to your finished product, in mp3 format, can be of great help too. They will see things that you can’t because they won’t be so familiar with your work.
Also, listening to other podcasts on this site would help you realize what is expected of a good audio prod. Paul Cooley, Abbie Hilton, Nathan Lowell, and such set the bar high for audio quality and listeners are now expecting that kind of polished content. And you don’t need to have a costly studio to produce good quality, just a wish to give your listeners the best experience possible.
Here’s a great podcast about podcasting prod : http://podiorookie.com/ He explained things in simple words with a great amount of examples.
August 30th, 2012 at 12:52 pm
I would like to underline Lulu’s review. This book, in its current state, has no audience that I can imagine.
B., I would be happy to put you in touch with open_minded voice talent who would give your story a better treatment than you have done.
August 30th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
Once again, this has nothing to do with your content. Your audio sucks and you need help to get it better. Podiobooks listeners might be masochist in their private life, but not when regarding podcasts. You won’t have them listening to your story if the sound make them cringe in pain. And believe me, it’s that painful.
August 30th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
“Do you think Nobilis is correct that there are no readers at podiobooks who want adult-themed stories that don’t fall into the garden variety erotic/porn genre formulas, but instead explore real characters and plot and literary and human themes like any other fiction?”
This is a gross mis-characterization of what I said.
In fact, I know that there are listeners at Podiobooks who enjoy such stories, because titles like “Magical Clothes,” “Jujun,” and “A Foolish World” consistently get ratings in the 4-5 range, and have been downloaded (in their entirety) thousands of times.
Horrific audio quality aside, here is your fundamental problem:
Your main character’s motivation for taking the initiating action of the story (that is, putting her body up against thousands of dollars on a bet) is highly unrealistic. Since your main character is a woman, this will make many women (and a significant fraction of men) unlikely to find her appealing.
This would not be a completely damning criticism if it weren’t for the other slice of bread in your sandwich: the fact that you’ve voiced this female character’s story yourself. The delivery is flat, emotionless, and most importantly, masculine. The cognitive dissonance inherent in this presentation will make many men (and a significant fraction of women) uncomfortable.
Now this is not to say that a story with a woman whose motivations are hard to accept can’t be appealing. We’ve seen quite a few of those rocket to the top of the bestseller lists. So I really don’t think it’s the writing that’s the problem. It’s the fact that you have got quite possibly the worst voice to read this story that could be imagined.
August 30th, 2012 at 10:40 pm
“The book, in its current state, has no audience I can imagine.”
Herman Melville wants me (and you) to believe that some guy is going to spend the better part of his adult life sailing the world’s oceans looking for a white whale to give it a little pay back. Now that’s what I call highly unrealistic.
But I can read Moby Dick and appreciate it for the well-drawn characters, themes, symbolism and other literary merits.
All an author can do is lay out character motivations (however as yet ill-understood and previously submerged). Some readers have the ability to read a story and accept the premise carefully constructed by the author. Other readers have no ability to take themselves out of their own frame of reference and place themselves into the frame of reference of a work of fiction and its characters, and that’s a shame – they miss out on a lot.
I don’t know (which is to say I don’t at all think) that a character, even a title protagonist, has to be appealing or entirely virtuous, or that such a character must be flawless (at least outside of Walt Disney’s animated films). I find characters without flaws or rough edges or no unfathomable traits to be boring.
I really can’t seriously address the choice of voice gender. The story is the story. This issue just goes to reinforce my growing impression that readers/listeners here just have a great deal of difficulty engaging with the literary elements of the works available to them (or – in fairness – at least of this sort of adult-themed work that doesn’t follow the the formulaic conventions of standard erotica/porn).
I appreciate your comments and observations, and your taking the time and effort. Thank you.
October 24th, 2012 at 8:31 pm
I’m sorry, but you make quite grandiose claims for the quality of the writing and the characterization, and then launch straight into a ludicrous wooden fabrication of a two dimensional woman, whom we are given no reason to engage with – nothing much to like, dislike or be interested in in any other way, taking her clothes off.
The problem I have is with the dissonance between your claim and the reality.
November 8th, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Ok…. I listened for myself instead of letting the comments decide for me. This is pretty bad I found myself skipping ahead in the audio because of a few different reasons. First off your voice is wrong for the story, and it was very off putting. Second, there was no let up, after the first part it was just one big porn, and to be quite honest I felt a unconfortable listening. I have no problems with erotic stories, in fact I enjoy them just as much as any other form of literature, but there is nothing here to make me think that I should feel for your character. Even erotic stories can have good character development and ways to make you feel attached to the story, but this just made me uncomfortable.
May 12th, 2013 at 7:50 am
First of all, get someone else to do the audio. You dont have the voice or the pace for it.
Secondly, this sounds like the only experience the author has of pornography is from his high school mates talking about the videos they found going through their parents bottom drawer, and an excuse to string words that make him giggle together into some semblance of a horrid porno script.