https://mcahogarth.bandcamp.com/
After many technical and legal difficulties, I have finally gotten my audiobook catalog onto Bandcamp, including these full series:
• All of the Stone Moon Trilogy, starting with The Worth of a Shell
• All of the Blood Ladders Trilogy, starting with An Heir to Thorns and Steel
• All of the Godkindred Saga, starting with Flight of the Godkin Griffin
• All four of the Kherishdar Books, starting with The Aphorisms
Additionally, I have these partials:
• The prequel and books 1-4 of the Alysha Forrest books (so, Alysha’s Fall, Second, Who is Willing, Sword of the Alliance, and Either Side of the Strand). I’m only missing Faith and In Good Company.
• The first two full novels and half of the third of Princes’ Game (starting with Even the Wingless)
• A Standalones album that has 11 shorts that are part of ebook collections I haven’t done full audio editions of… things like Broken Chains, some of the Jokka shorts, some of the Alysha shorts.
I also have a continually updating “From the Author’s Mic” album where I drop my various behind-the-scenes and ‘how to pronounce’ guides. There are a handful of audiobooks I haven’t added because I’m dithering on whether I want to get them re-recorded, including Claws and Starships and the Her Instruments books… but other than that, what’s there is everything I’ve got!
Because Bandcamp lets me keep so much of the money, I’ve priced them lower than most retailers would set the price: $10 for novels and $5-7 for novellas or chapbooks. Some other cool stuff about the site:
• When you buy from Bandcamp, you own the album. You can download the whole thing (or stream it if you prefer from their app/player). No more ‘I think I’m buying this from Audible but it might disappear tomorrow and I’ll have no warning, because it’s actually a rental.’)
• Bandcamp lets customers pay more if they want. So if someone wanted The Aphorisms (at $5), and wanted to pay $6 or $10 or $100, it can totally be done.
• There’s an option to allow people to buy your entire catalog at once for a discount, so if you wanted all 21 audiobooks you could get them in one fell swoop for 35% off. That’s all of them for $120 or so, I think.
• Bandcamp has ‘Bandcamp Fridays,’ where they don’t take a cut of the sales: all of it goes to the artist. The next one is February 3rd… today! You can read more about Bandcamp Fridays here: https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-update
• Bandcamp not only lets me set prices, I can also give discount coupons and freebies. I can even set albums free, or ‘free but you can choose to pay’ (which I did with my ‘From the Author’ album).
• I can also let people buy tracks separately, so if (say) you wanted to buy the bonus track from the end of On Wings of Bone and Glass, you could pick that one up and not bother with the rest of the album.
I’m not sure whether my audio catalog will make it to other retailers in its entirety because of technical issues—Findaway, my other distributor, has more stringent audio requirements that would force me to edit every single file before uploading—but Bandcamp will always have my full catalog, and I’ll put new audiobooks there first. So if you’re an audio listener, this is your bookmark.
I want to thank all of your for your patience while I swam through the morass. I’m so glad to be on the other side of it, and able to offer these to you at last! And for fun, please check out the From the Author album, where you can listen to the ‘How Do You Pronounce That’ audio I recorded last week, just to kick things off. It should be free!
Or at least, I intend it to be relaxing. Hopefully it delivers.
4:22 minutes
Materials:
- Pen: Moonman Starry Glass dip pen, Mars: https://www.jetpens.com/Moonman-Starry-Sky-Glass-Dip-Pen-Mars/pd/31536
- Paper: Strathmore Writing Series 500, lined: https://www.jetpens.com/Strathmore-500-Series-Writing-Pad-8.5-x-11-Lined-50-Sheets/pd/15322
- Ink: Robert Oster, Rose Gilt Tynte: https://www.jetpens.com/Robert-Oster-Rose-Gilt-Tynte-Fountain-Pen-Ink-Shake-N-Shimmy-50-ml-Bottle/pd/25170
In which I talk about the paper, the paint, and the experience of oils versus gouache. Fun stuff, will do more.
Thank you Locals supporters! Your contribution to my art war chest here is what's powering these experiments and videos. For now I'm keeping them public but I may start doing some subscriber-only videos if you all are interested.💖
Thanks for your comments yesterday on the business post... all very provocative, in a good way. I'll try to respond to all of them today.
Some Alysha misc now, since I'm gearing up for the results of the Kickstarter!
Petrov is giving away coupon codes for every book in the Alysha series (and has some leftover coupons for Marda and the business book). You can pick those up here (and please do! The books are bought already, someone should use them!) https://twitter.com/PetrovNeutrino/status/1457344535843987461
Our own @JudasComplex sent along a sample of the Faith in the Service audiobook, which I've attached for your delight! I... haven't had a chance to listen to it. Don't ask me about my past week and a half or so. Putting it here will guarantee I get to it.
After hearing the amused comments during the livestream, I went ahead and added all the ship type illustrations I have inked from the 90s to the wiki. Glory in the rampant adorableness of their anthropomorphic stylings! See those ...
A little comedy today, at least in the link. Transcript follows.
Hi, all. Welcome to this episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
A while back I was introduced to a comedy sketch about Cuban coffee by a Mexican comedian, Gabriel Iglesias. ( The sketch begins with him greeting all his fellow Latinos and then backing up to say ‘but we’re all different, aren’t we’ which is a segue into a demonstration of how different Hispanics speak Spanish.
It is hilarious. First, because I am a Spanish speaker and a linguistics hobbyist, and his portrayal of various accents resonated with my experiences in trying to make sense of them myself… Not always easy, since from culture to culture, slang and accent are often totally different (and sometimes grammar! Spaniards use a grammatical construct that has died out in many other Spanish-speaking countries, the plural “you.”)
I also loved it because the Cuban coffee part is real. I grew up with Cubans. I know how we are....
One of the most common things I hear (and say) right now is "the asymmetry is the story." Here's one about how none of us are innocent of the sins we hate in others.
Hi, all. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
It’s been weeks since the Baen’s Bar incident and I’m still thinking about it... because the longer I do, the more I feel, overwhelmingly, that it’s obvious that the problem is deeper than “this forum was saying stuff that offended us.” We have to back up to the glaring fact that people on opposite sides no longer consider each other human. Nothing I say will matter because the people disagreeing with me don’t think I’m human. They have denied my humanity; they have not bothered to listen to my beliefs, or have fake-listened to them in that way that people do when they’re so ready to prove you wrong that they’re only using your speech to provide talking points for their own ideas.
We have forgotten how to listen.
Increasingly, we have also ...
I have been hacking at this for nearly two weeks! But I think I'm minimally viable (other than a few niggling CSS errors I'm chasing down). Everything's been redesigned around the quiz, and the store in particular got overhauled in a way that hopefully makes what you want to shop for easier to find. Please go wander my website and my revamped shopify store and tell me if there's anything that breaks for you (or that delights you - there are easter eggs!). The site should change colors based on the time of day, and there are random fun facts to read (and click on) and other things, too. Plus, the quiz! And such. :)
Website: https://mcahogarth.org
Quiz: https://mcahogarth.org/bookrec/
Shop: https://studiomcah.com/
Mostly, what the jaguar is up to is resting, because I managed to overuse my hands/arm/shoulder and now every time I type or sit at the computer or drawing board, I aggravate the injury. Very frustrating! But I wanted to get out this (mostly dictated) update for you!
Kherishdar 5 is about 2/3rds done, and Conversations 3 is 90% done. (Yes, imagine my frustration that I’m this close and can’t keep going!). I’m still anticipating an early summer date for those.
The gamelit novel is now available at retail, which means it’s officially out! It will finish serializing on PatreLocals and then I’ll decide what I’m serializing next. If you’ve read it and feel like dropping a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or my shop, I’d appreciate it! And the special edition will be available once I okay the new proof, which probably won’t get to me for another month or so. Sorry! Special editions take a long time to print. Here's the "Every retailer" landing page; note that AI-audio is the only ...
KICKSTARTER KICKSTARTER GO GO GO
The Jokka kickstarter launches Thursday! And runs for 12 days, so if you want any of the original art (or one of the few “get yourself drawn as one of the Jokka” slots), go sign up to be notified of launch!
ON THE HORIZON: A LOT MORE ART
Scott Adams is fond of saying that you either want something, or you decide. That if you’re in the ‘I want’ phase, you don’t actually take steps; things only start happening when you have decided they’re going to happen. And I, ariisen, have finally decided I’m sick of not scanning and archiving my sketchbooks and turning them into stuff you can enjoy, like art books and prints and wiki images! I’ve already done Sketchbooks 1-10, and I’ve made a start on the next set of ten.
My plan is to run a Kickstarter for the first art book in a month or two (so if you’re a fan of my art more than my writing, your campaign is coming!) and use that as the proof-of-concept for the process for the remaining 200 or so… see where the issues are, streamline where I can, order proofs of the art book and decide what paper I like and what kinds of covers are economically feasible. I’ve timed myself and it takes about two hours to scan one sketchbook, if I stand there and do nothing but turn pages. I don’t think I can make that part go by faster, but I might be able to do something about the post-processing phase. Let the experimentation begin!
While I’m doing that, I’ll be posting some of the scans here! These posts will be separate from Back in Time Tuesday, which is for finished artwork dug out of the closet from whatever time period I feel like sharing. This means the Patreon will be getting EVEN MORE ART.
I’m debating right now whether the art sharing will be my “serial” until I’m ready to serialize new fiction. Someone also suggested writing wiki/worldbuilding entries as serial content, which might be fun. But I’m still only wanting to do those things—I definitely haven’t decided. Until then, there definitely will be an art explosion. I’ve montaged some things up there as demonstration of what you have to look forward to!
If you are a lurker, now’s a good time to decide whether you want to subscribe to contribute to my coffee fund. I do, in fact, literally drink a cup of coffee while trapped in my laundry room, turning pages and leaning on the drier! Or if you’re a paying subscriber, consider buying me a monthly coffee if you’re currently in the ‘tossing the jaguar a buck’ club. My coffee capsules are closer to $2 after shipping. XD
We’re all overloaded and looking for moments of beauty and cheer and inspiration in our days. A lot of this older artwork is silly, or delightful, or cartoonical, and I think it might be just what we need.
Seriously, check out happy bee guy there. What even was that. Lol.😂
Anyway, I'm doing the things! Jokka! Art! Fun! Forth!
