R.J. Blain's Blog, page 14

RJ’s 2024 Reading Challenge!

Yes, I am two months late starting my reading challenge for this year, but there’s a good reason for that.

Until now, I didn’t really want to do one.

But, this week, I cleared off my GoodReads account, and I began loading in the books I want to read this year. So far, I’m up to twenty.

Please feel free to follow me on goodreads if you want to follow along. I will be moving things to my read shelves as I finish (or choose to DNF), but unless a book is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE, I will not be ...

Closing down Ream and Some Other Updates…

Greetings, folks!

First, I have shut down my ream stories account today. There are a myriad of reasons I made this decision, but my inability to be twenty bazillion places at once is one of them. Right now, the site has issues… its discoverability leaves a lot to be discovered, there was not much interest in readers for such a model, and it can’t (and won’t) compete with my Patreon.

I’d hoped to turn it into a web-based reading catalogue for those who wanted access to older books on the ch...

Winter Wolf Audiobook now at the Patreon Store!

Patreon is the place to be if you want Winter Wolf in audiobook format. Only the Patreon edition of the audiobook includes the extended epilogue edition of the book. (Narrated by Ivan.)

Ivan is very bouncy. Ivan is the narrator you want when you. really don’t need listening stress. Ivan is fun. Good luck, you’re in for a ride.

The Patreon edition is $14.99. Retail edition will be $12.99. The price difference is due to the extended epilogue. (Please note that bonus short stories, etc, are p...

State of the Blain: Week of February 21, 2024. (News, Updates, Etc)

Greetings, folks.

As most of you are aware by now, Spotify (Who owns Findaway Voices) did a major stupid and attempted to grab rights. I said no, and I have successfully reclaimed rights to everything. Please note that the following titles were part of the rights dispute, and there may be a temporary outage of them on Audible:

Fowl PlayOwl Be Yours Whatever For HireSerial Killer Princess Hearth, Home, and HavocLast but not Leashed Playing with Fire

What does th...

Cindercorns ($25 a month) Patreon to receive new audiobooks.

I pitched my Patreon subscribers about giving Cindercorns and Spicy Ponies with Bite new releases of audiobooks. (And while I asked for their feedback, the reality is… the Cindercorn and Spicy Ponies with Bite bracket is absolutely fair for adding audiobooks to, so I’m going to. I mostly asked so they can add to the conversation.)

Here is the post I sent to the Patreon membership. (You can check out the Patreon here.)

Howdy, folks!

The Findaway Voices problem (where they tried to grab u...

I have some good news for everyone! (Audiobook related still)

I am in discussions with my producer, but we should be moving forward with a super fun project: standardizing narration on the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) books!

That means Keira Grace will be narrating all of the female-led books. Assuming all goes well, Ivan (who did that hilarious short story that’s available on Patreon) will be voicing the male-led books.

Yes, Burn, Baby, Burn would be re-recorded with Keira and Ivan working together to bring Bailey and Quinn to audio l...

Findaway Voices, Intellectual Property Rights, and the Future of Audiobook Production!

Now that the fireworks are a yesterday thing, and I survived the doctor’s appointment (which went poorly because SURPRISE, I’m fat and lazy, y’all), I wanted to do my best to expand on the audiobook thing, what I’m doing about it, and how things will move forward.

Status on Chirp Books: I do not know if Chirp will remove things from libraries like Audible does. They SHOULDN’T, but that doesn’t mean anything. (By contract, once you buy the license, it’s supposed to STAY yours.)

Status on Ko...

A little more about the Audiobook Situation…

I’ve had some questions about the events of earlier today, so I’m going to do my best to explain the problem in layman’s terms, what will happen from here, and how you can get audiobooks without worrying about them being yanked out of your collection. (Something that ALL of the vendors tend to do.)

I’ll begin with what happened and why I had to remove my audiobooks from distribution most everywhere.

I’ll break this down a bit:

“Accordingly, you hereby grant Spotify a non-exclusive, ...

Important Update on Audiobooks!!

Today, I got a notice from Findaway that the terms of usage is being changed. They are owned by Spotify. The contract contains the following:

Licenses that you grant to us

a: User Content

You retain ownership of your User Content when you post it to the Service. However, in order for us to provide the Service to you we do need a limited license from you to that User Content. Accordingly, you hereby grant Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free, fully paid,...

Moods Behind Series: Some Discussion about Mood, Tension Levels, and Stress.

One of the comments from the previous post (regarding my severe levels of negativity with the Royal States series) has created a brain worm. This is not a bad brain worm. It just is. But, it is a great discussion point.

Why do I write the type of books that I do? Why don’t I do the “industry standard” escalations of conflict? Why are my books… calmer?

There should be books for every audience on the market. There should be light and fluffy books that leave the reader happy. There should be ...