Dear listener,
You’ll notice I’m not recording this, I can’t, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
For the last 21 months I’ve tried to bring you the most haunting stories I could find, read to you by the best, most sought after voices. I’ve done both because I love dark fiction, and I felt there was room for one more voice in the podcast world. I also thought maybe, just maybe, I could learn something about writing, how it works when it is done well, and why it doesn’t when it’s not. The measure of my success can be debated, but I’m one hell of a lot closer to where I want to be as a writer than I was when I started. Some of you have been with me the entire time. You’ve listened and supported my various ventures outside of short fiction, listened or read when I mentioned a fellow writer who had something new available, stuck with me when I uploaded a bad file or two, and let me know when I muffed a sentence here and there. All of those things are important, critical even, to the success of this endeavor, and up until now, it’s been enough. Things have gone well, at least from my perspective, but eventually problems always arise, and a question must be answered.
1. Can the audience support another paying market podcast?
Until recently, I never really thought much about it. We weren’t a paying market so other than the expense of the domain name and hosting, donations weren’t much of a concern. Also, I waited until I had enough in donations to purchase both. It took awhile, and that’s fine, but authors aren’t going to wait to be paid. Also, I’ve had a bad turn of luck this last month as my primary recording computer’s motherboard went belly up. I don’t really need the thing, except that it has all the software, and most of my files for the podcast on it. My question isn’t rhetorical. Until this last weekend when Carrie Clevenger made a donation, the podcast had 11000 downloads so far this year, but had brought in exactly ZERO donations. I’m at a point where I can’t even buy the stories I want to buy because in order to do so I have to either use the money I’ve made writing (which isn’t much) or take from my own personal account. Doing either, to me, is out of the question. Not because I don’t believe in the product or the stories, it’s more a sense of taking a realistic look at the situation, and asking the question: Will the audience support it? If not, I’m willing to accept that and move on to other things. If so, that’s great, but we have alot of work to do in order to save it.
There are several ways you can help, the best and maybe easiest way is donating to the podcast. It isn’t cheap to run even when I don’t have computer issues. Like I said, I’m going to need to replace the mother board in my machine if I am to continue, for that I’m looking at a minimum of $120. Also, my domain registration and hosting is due (7/25) once again. Then there are the stories. If I continue I’d really like to get back to doing more than one story a month if possible.
There are also other needs to be addressed. I’d really like to have a semi-regular host to help out for times like now. I’m currently working 60 hours a week and have been since February. This person would be capable of reading or deligating a story to a reader, then producing the episode in it’s entirety, uploading to the server and posting. I’ve thought about possibly taking on a slush reader as well, but it would have to be just the right person, someone with similar interests, likes and dislikes.
This is possibly, even probably, to much to ask, but it is what it is. This is my last ditch effort at keeping the podcast afloat. The thing is, even if YOU DO decide it’s worth the effort, it’s not just a one time request, and you should consider that before agreeing to do anything. This, like any other podcast or print publication requires hours and hours of work and $$. I only ask that you consider what I’m saying and ask yourself if it is worth it to you as a listener. If not, I understand, if so, We really could use your help. There are several donation options available on the right hand side of the page, or you can always e-mail me at the address ShadowCastAudio(at)Gmail(Dot)com.
All the best,
Jason Warden – Editor and Host
