Nathan Lowell

Nathan Lowell Presents: Me On A Blog Tour


Nathan Lowell has opened up his site to fellow authors to plug their wares. He kindly let me put this up:

A Kiwi, A Fairy, And A Troll Walk Into A Bar…

The punchline to that story is an interview. In this instance, the author isn’t interviewing his characters, but the other way around. For today’s entertainment, Nathan Lowell Presents…

Michael J. Parry

 

Gurt: So why’d you want us to interview you?

MJP: There is an art to writing good posts, there is also an art to writing good advertising material and then there is the art of writing good stories. If you can do one it does not necessarily follow that you can do the others. I think I can do the third, but I am not so hot on the first two.

Elanore: I can understand that. When writing my recent philosophy treatise, I found that very different to writing reports for the Captain.

Gurt: That’s why I let you write them.

Elanore: I had noticed that.

Continue Reading at Nathan’s

The Writer’s Choices: Reflections On Owner’s Share


It has been a while since a piece of work has had me thinking so hard about the writing process as Nathan Lowell’s Owners Share. I have lots of thought on the story, and on writing, especially the choices authors make.

I have to give a lot of props to Nathan for superb delivery, engagement with the fans and support to fellow podiobook authors. As a series comes to an end it is a good time to say thanks for all the effort he has put in. 🙂

I won’t say too much about Owner’s Share, except I didn’t like the ending. As an ending to a series and a book, I can see why Nathan took it there. But for a number of reasons I feel it was a bad way to end. It is my personal view but I think a series ending should always be upbeat, leaving the audience with a strong feeling of satisfaction, and with the promise that if we never come back to there again, we can be happy with where we leave the story. The ending just didn’t deliver that for me and for a number of other fans. 😦

This has led me to reflect on the relationship between authors, readers/listeners and their characters. It is true that in the end the author “owns” the destiny of their characters, but in a series often the readers/listeners will feel a strong level of ownership of the character. They will have an invested interest in where the character ends up.  Where that differs from the authors, how much notice should the author take of the “fans” views? It can be problematic for the author as they risk alienating the fans if they take the story too far from where the fan base wants it. I am now unsure as to how I feel about the Share series as a whole, but I will still listen to my favourite stories again, and again, and agian. And then maybe a few more times. 🙂 So yeah I would recommend the series to anyone!

As an author I hope to one day have a strong fan base, so how I deal with that is going to be important. In the end I think as an author I need to listen to where my audience wants me to take them. In the writing of my current Fursk and Gurt story I started to take one of the characters down a particular path, and my chief sounding board sat me down and told me in on uncertain terms that as a reader she didn’t want me to go there. That story arch was cancelled and after a while I can see that was the right choice. It is still my story, and the characters destinies are wholly in my hands, but I feel I should  take that into consideration. Next time I come to that point I wonder which will win, the author’s voice or the fan’s. Best two out of three?

Podiobooks, Itunes And Reviews


Podiobooks has had a little hiccup. It seems that there has been so much traffic recently that the hardware supporting the site fell over, and we need to get a new one. It’s mainly the fault of Nathan Lowell and his Ishmilites, who managed to double the normal traffic in their desire to read his latest offering Owner’s Share.

You can donate to Podiobooks here. All this is done by a lot of people committed to free serialised audio fiction, so your support is greatly appreciated. You can also donate to your favourite authors, with any donations being split %75 to the author, and %25 to the site. Another way to support us is to leave reviews and ratings on Itunes for your favourite authors. That is part of the whole rankings scenario, where more positive reviews and ratings push our stories further up on Itunes, and makes our podcasts more visible. Then we get more readers who may also like to donate. 🙂

I don’t really feel comfortable asking for money or reviews, without Podiobooks I wouldn’t be writing as much, nor would I have found such wonderful works. So thankyou for those who have already given enough to help get us over this bump in the road, and thanks for the continued support which will help ensure a continuity of service. 

 

The Final Countdown: Podiobooks and The Spiral Tattoo


It’s less than twenty-four hours until The Spiral Tattoo gets released on Podiobooks.com and I am both excited and really nervous. I hope people like it. 🙂

In a lead up to it’s release here is a shoutout to my favourite podiobook authors, the ones who really switch me onto this media.

First up is Nathan Lowell author of the “Share series”. This is science fiction at it’s best, and probably the series I have re-listened to the most. When the first one hit the dead tree format I ordered as soon as I could and bought in hardcover, as I will for the rest.

Then there is Scott Sigler. I love his Galactic football series, which is sort of The Godfather, meets Alien, meets Any Given Sunday. I have the first two in hardback. Interesting I read the second, but the podiobook version hasn’t been released, and I didn’t enjoy it as much. I think for the third I will buy and then lock away, so I can listen first. 🙂

Philippa Ballantine is a kiwi author based out of Wellington who has managed to hook a book deal from EOS [now Voyager]. Her new novel Geist comes out internationally in October, and she is the one who gives me hope that I too can get the book deal and be published in a major way.

There is a whole heap of stories waiting to be discovered at Podiobooks.com, so go check them out. I would also look for P.G. Holyfield, Tee Morris, Derek Gilbert and J.C. Hutchins.