Last Bender

My dear and generous friend Miette has done a wonderful thing for me, she is going to begin podcasting The Man Who Can’t Die today, here: http://themanwhocantdie.com/

Miette has a wonderful podcast. She reads, sometimes from the bathtub, an eclectic slew of matter that staggers me with its breadth. She is also a great writer and fearless slogger through the trenches of publishing and fiction. I was unaware of the market strength of audio books until during a recent visit we discussed her idea of turning MAN into a weekly podcast. Her concern was that i would be unable to publish it, because audio rights are such a big part of publishing these days. Well, my friends, no one in the print part of the trade wants to read, much less publish, The Man Who can’t Die. It is too long and I am an unknown. I was more than delighted and my gratitude is inexpressible. As we discussed it further I realized that e-novels, as promising as they are, are still print, and MAN is still a 700 page manuscript. But as a podcast, as an audio book, it might find an audience (remembering that Audience means a group of auditors, people who listen; Ben Jonson insisted on this aspect of the theatre over the spectacle, which he considered to be vulgar, but I have always disagreed with him on this, i am no Son Of Ben, despite what some might say)…in any event, she will devote part of her time to my book for the next year and a half or so, and our hope is that auditors will sometimes elect to download the book, and sometimes elect to donate to her site, with the idea of exploring the viability of straight to audio web publishing. At least, I think that’s what we’re up to, and no doubt Miette will correct things in the comment section.