Audience Relevance and Discoverability Musings - October 25, 2024
Audience Relevance
and Discoverability Musings
- October 25, 2024
Dear Reader,
I'm knee deep in the revisions for scenes in the Monarch. It's too long for the Kings Wilde novella miniseries. I think it may include scenes which should be in other books. So I'm reviewing it, making some corrections, and rethinking the stories as more urban fantasy. Please enjoy some of the inspirational art from the miniseries as you read the post.
I love the story line, but it feels like it should be PG-13 rather than R-rated. It's not a script for multiple seasons on a streaming service, but y'all know the story happens on the stage in my mind. It's as if it were a play or a movie with multiple acts and lots of scenes.
I have to face the facts. The main storyline won't work without the romance elements. That doesn't mean I don't want to play with my stories, try new things, or challenge myself to write better. I enjoy writing it as much as you enjoy reading it. It's not perfect, but I believe it's getting better as I write.
I don't write erotica, so I doubt anyone reads my stories just for the steamy scenes. Surely they could find better Literotica elsewhere. It's always been easier to market the stories as paranormal romances than as urban fantasies as the front stage is a love story. That only means when a book with little or no steam appears in the Draoithe Saga, it could be a letdown for those expecting it to be there.
Kings Wilde isn't a fade-to-black miniseries anymore than it's a pure urban fantasy. There is an abundance of innuendo in the dialogue and the inner thoughts of the characters. There are steamy kiss scenes and references to sexual behaviors, simply no overt descriptions of the sex act.
Why does it matter?
Why not simply write the steamy scenes, gratuitous or not?
Make no mistake. I DO NOT write to an audience which includes children. I write to escape the day job, which deals with children. Children are wonderful, but they are not my reading audience. They are the reason for the no face podcast, no face video channels, and my pen name. They are the reason I'm a tiger, rather than merely a woman who writes.
What I want is to reach a broader adult audience without breaking my nonexistent bank. I'm a classroom teacher with student loans to pay in the day job, not a wall street broker, raking in the commissions. So, I need to leverage free story discovery methods in my efforts to share the Draoithe Saga with a larger audience.
Many social platforms which might aid me and my lack of advertising dollars plight, such as YouTube, TikTok, or even Instagram, restrict adult content. I believe this is the proper thing to do, as many children have access to the platforms. For me to take better advantage of these outlets for sharing my stories and reach the adult audiences there, I need stories with less steam to use as a discovery tool so there is no harm to the little ones.
Before anyone asks, I started writing this miniseries four years ago. It wasn't with any of this in my mind. I'm not even sure I had a YouTube channel then. The recent disappointment with my attempt to share the Kingdom Rising miniseries audiobook episodes on my YouTube channel, however, has been a serious consideration as I continue to think through audience discovery methods.
While the disappointment with my YouTube efforts spurred the creation of my Substack podcast, The Draoithe Saga by Ophelia Kee and I find I enjoy the podcast, it didn't resolve things for me. I want to build an audience on YouTube because I enjoy multimodal storytelling, and I believe the search engine of YouTube offers a greater opportunity for discovery than my small podcast.
With YouTube, I can create multiple playlists under a single channel rather than needing multiple podcasts to share different but related content which falls under the umbrella of the dream. This allows me to streamline content production and upload time, and time is as valuable as money.
The day job means I need to share content with more of an autopilot approach. Still, I love my readers and my subscribers. I enjoy reader comments and conversations on social media. I have no desire to corrupt the dream, so I don't want to promote any paid sponsored products. The dream is enough to market. My readers don't come to the dream to discover the latest fur trimmers or claw paint. They come for the stories.
Monetization with YouTube has a commonly accepted method using commercial style ads without requiring sponsors or endorsements to produce a revenue stream. So a less intrusive, commercial interruption, requiring no endorsement from me, sounds better.
It also means the videos or audio episodes remain more relevant to my audience over time rather than becoming stale by outdated, random endorsements or sponsored products. I would prefer it if the back catalog of audio and video stories remains relevant, even if my Ophelia Kee Speaks weekly musings must, by default, age without grace.
A Sneak Peek at The Monarch
So read a bit and let me know what your thoughts are. How much steam is enough to pull this off, so it makes my readers happy and works as an inoffensive promotional tool on all the platforms? First the legalese.
Warning:
This is a work in progress and
is subject to change at any time.
Read at Your Own Risk!
Copyright 2024
All Rights Reserved.
In the Mirror
Armand
He should’ve had a perfect life. How had it gotten to be such a total cluster fuck disaster? Armand couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
He was drowning in self-pity. That was getting him nowhere. His work suffered. His life was in chaos. In his world, it wasn’t only financially irresponsible; it was also dangerous.
He was Owl, damn it! He had a job to do for his family. Wendigo needed him, and Viktor Wilde counted on him. He didn’t have time for the shitstorm, but he had no idea how to stop it, either. It was dragging on even months after he thought it should’ve ended.
How many bad hands could a man receive in the tournament of life before he finally stumbled upon a hand of kings and an ace in the hole? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he had to follow Nick’s advice and keep playing the game.
He was thirty-three and looking in the mirror. Armand still looked like he was in his twenties. He didn’t have any grey hair, even though he worked like crazy, which led to more self-loathing.
How could his looks matter more than the work he did? They really shouldn’t.
He didn't want to look old, even if he sometimes felt that way. Since the divorce, it suddenly mattered again what he looked like in a way it hadn’t for a few years.
He had to hunt for a fix for his addiction once more. Sometimes, he wondered if he might not have been better off to have suffered with Wendigo. He shook that thought away. No going back. He couldn’t face that scene from his past at the moment.
The hunt wasn’t so hard. It was just old, irritating, the connection fleeting and meaningless. A more permanent solution was preferable. That made his appearance more valuable, even if it meant he felt lower because of it.
He worked out regularly; he watched what he ate, and he never had been a heavy drinker. Smoking? Who needed that garbage?
Health-wise, he was in the prime of his life, which meant that he was better able to perform at the level he desired. That should’ve been what mattered. Instead, he needed to use his looks or his money or both just to relieve the fucking pressure.
He wanted to scream, but he wasn’t a child or a neurotic bitch. He should focus on his work.
His career had taken off. He was damn good at promoting his clients’ businesses. He had some seriously hardcore underworld crime bosses for customers, but that was okay.
He was used to that life. It was better than anything he could’ve imagined before he fell into it. Only, he could no longer seem to negotiate any of it for shit. He felt as if he’d lost himself. That was bad.
The men he worked with knew his reputation. He’d never lived in fear. He was how they appeared clean and legitimate. They needed him.
No money laundering, just proper businesses which earned money legally, mostly. Okay, maybe there was still a bit of gambling, a few sex clubs, and some other crap, but it wasn’t so bad, right?
This isn't a full chapter, but let me know what you think. Are you interested in Armand King? How sexy does he need to be?
I must get some household chores done or the dream will no longer exist. I hope you have a great weekend and when you read, please remember to leave your kind reviews. Until next weekend, please know you are always welcome to the dream...
Be Careful!
Happy Reading,
Ophelia Kee
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Thank you for your support! Welcome to the dream… Sincerely, -OK
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