Best, James

I love this story!

As I mentioned in my previous comment, I have listened to many podcast novels and commercial audiobook novels (and of course I’ve read many print novels as well, but that is not pertinent here at that moment). My best estimate is that over the years I’ve listened to many hundreds of audiobook novels, possibly approaching 1000.

I work from home and I do a lot of traveling. I usually do not listen to music either in the car while traveling or on the iPod or boombox while working. Instead I am almost always listening to an audiobook novel or short story collection. In fact I’m actually listening to one right now as I’m typing this! On average I probably go through roughly 4 or 5 audiobooks per week, depending on the length of the book and the amount of time I have available to listen from week to week. Honestly, I don’t remember the last book I actually READ in print. I do know it was more than 5 years ago.

Now, I don’t say all this to toot my own horn. I’m not even sure why anyone would want to brag about the fact that they are (nearly constantly) unplugged from reality and instead plugged into a fictitious world where zombies, vampires and other and varied forms of the undead not only exist, but are being protected by the government from those who might wish them harm. No, rather than to brag, I say all this as a preface to my following comment:

Your first 8 episodes of “FETIDUS: The Damned Heir” are as well produced as ANY of the other audiobooks to which I’ve EVER listened. There might be a FEW, perhaps 5-10 at MOST from those to which I’ve ever listened, that are of quality that is as good as yours with regard to production quality. But rest assured there is not a SINGLE one that is any better.

As far as the writing, the quality of your writing is better than about 98% of the commercially published authors, audio or print, that are out there today. The production quality of commercially available audiobooks from iTunes or Audible? Yours is only distinguishable from them in that yours is better than most of them and as good as any.

Your quality of writing is as good or better than ANY of the other novelists currently publishing via podcast. And I do mean ANY, including such notables as Scott Sigler, J.C. Hutchins, Mike Bennett, Matthew Wayne Selznick, and on and on and on (my apologies to any of the wonderful authors I did not name…there are just too many). Only a few of the currently available podcast novels, or any podcast for that matter, can match your production quality.

And one last thing you’ve got going for you, and this is not so much a skill as it is a gift from whomever decides about such things. You have one of the best voices for this and other sorts of voice work that I’ve ever heard. Very clear, very pleasant to the ear. I would imagine that you’re very good at voicing different characters as well (though its not done on the FETIDUS project because you wisely made the choice to use different voice actors to voice the different characters). I’d be very surprised if your ability to voice various characters does not match your other abilities.

So I guess thats it. I and most of the other fans of FETIDUS will wait patiently for the rest of the story. In the meantime we’ll recruit as many folks as we can and make it as big as possible.

(One small aside. In listening to the story so far I believe it would translate very well to a screenplay/script and into motion picture format. If the rest of the story does not take/make any big turns/changes as compared to the first 8 episodes, then I believe you could be very successful shopping this to the motion picture industry. Just saying… )

But even despite the low, low price and curbing our complaints, that does not make it any easier to reduce our anticipation and appetite for more. So please forgive us if we’re a wee bit impatient.

For what its worth, I’ve listened to a LOT of podcast novels (several hundreds), and other podcasts as well, and the quality of production of your podcast novel so far is already in the top 1-2% of all podcast novels available. In fact, I’d have to say that the production quality is superior to MOST commercially available audiobooks, such as those available on iTunes or Audible. Add to that the fact that the story itself is as good as any commercially available audiobook, podcast novel or commercially published novel, as well as that it is all original music, and frankly, I’m truly amazed.

Your talent is obvious with regard to a lot of things (music, recording techniques, voice talent). But as listeners (readers) the most important thing is the story, and I hope folks are not distracted by how good the rest of this product is (such as the music, voice work, and recording quality) to the point that they overlook the MAIN thing, and that is the writing. Mr. Durham, you are obviously a very talented man, and as such you have put out a product of amazing quality. It would be a good buy at any price but given that it is available for free it is just unreal. But I definitely wanted to make sure to let you know the most important aspect, the writing, is every bit as good as the rest of it, and every bit as good as the writing in 95% of the novels currently on the bestseller lists…..Seriously.

Bottom line, you should not be giving this away.

John Lennon had it right. Believe me, I know all about life throwing curve balls at you, but you have to keep on and sometimes you have to make decisions to get rid of some of the things in your life that cause excess drama. I was in an accident some years ago that left me partially paralyzed and it turned my life (and my wife and 3 kids lives) completely upside down. You have to believe things will get better, or you end up digging a deeper hole for yourself.

Enough of my chatter, I hope things get better soon.. I look forward to the podcast continuing.

~your fan Eppie Black

All the best, looking forward to seeing this complete!