Ha! Like anyone stores hardcopies nowadays. That should read: ‘…or even just get you to dig out that old story that is buried deep in the recesses of your computer’s memory.’

But what do you think about entry fees?

We’re looking at hosting a writing competition where the winners will have their stories turned into an audiobook. But before we start planning that, we want to see what you think about entry fees.

There are really only two ways to go with this and here are our initial thoughts on them. We’ll expand on these in future posts, but we wanted to know what your initial thoughts were too.

No entry fee

This will allow the most people to enter the competition. Anyone can have a go. But it can cause issues for the judges if they have to hunt through a haystack of submissions looking for good entries.

This could be mitigated with a first pass by someone other than the judges or harsher entry requirements – state that all entrants need to have been published before. But is that good or not?

Entry fee

This limits down our potential entry base. Now only people who really believe in their work will enter. People who will bet their own money on it. But this has problems. We could be excluding some amazing talent just because they can’t afford to enter. Or, even worse, What if a good writer doesn’t believe in themselves enough to put themselves forward.

And how much should the entry fee be?

What do you think? As a writer which works better for you? Let us know.

Image by Tax Credits and released under the Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 licence.

And we have lots planned for the coming year – new releases, new and exciting ways for you to get involved and even a few old favorites.

But we want to hear from you: What do you want to see us doing over the coming year?

• More audiobooks?
• Audiobook offers/bundles?
• New merchandise (t-shirts, limited run audiobook CDs, etc)
• Writing competitions?
• New free-to-download content?
• More podcasts?
• More blog posts?
• More author/actor profiles?
• Or maybe something we haven’t even thought of yet.

Let us know in the comments below. In Ear is about working with and promoting up and coming talent – if you are reading this page that is probably you or someone you know. So let us know what we can do to help you.

You can either comment below, or send us a message through our Contact Form.

But who is Troy Blackford? Why does he write? How can you connect with him on the interwebs? All very good questions.

We have just added his Author page to our site – the first of many, we hope. But below are some excerpts from it:

I’m a 29 year old writer who has been working away on writing when on the bus I take to and from my day job for about three and a half years.

I love gadgets and computers and it is a secret dream of mine to have one of the most powerful privately-owned supercomputers

I write horror, weirdo-crime, science fiction, and the occasional ‘regular’ story, and I love reading all of the above and more. Reading is the most fun you could have, so have at it.

You can read his full profile on the Troy Blackford author page.

Troy’s audiobook, They Who Cry Out Seek to be Heard, is available to buy online through our shop. For 8 short stories it will only set you back:

£3.50 – UK

$5.50 – US

€4.20 – Eurozone

Do let us know what you think by leaving a review.

Breakdown of sales. Who supports up and coming writers more?

It seems that over half of the sales so far have been to UK customers, leading us to wonder: Does the UK support up and coming writers more than other countries?

This is especially interesting when you factor in that Troy Blackford, the author of this amazing collection, is based in the US and already has a strong US following. Could this be linked to the fact that the UK publishes over 60% more books per year than the US?

Take a look.

What do you think? Do you want to help your team? If so, we’ve made it even easier for you with some great money off vouchers.

UK – only £3.50: They Who Cry Out Seek to be Heard UK

US – only $5.50: They Who Cry Out Seek to be Heard US

Europe – only €4.20: They Who Cry Out Seek to be Heard Europe

Maybe you could tweet and let us (@InEarEnt) and Troy (@tblackford3) know which team you are on? #AudioTeamUK, #AudioTeamUS or #AudioTeamEU.

We’ve been working on creating They Who Cry Out Seek to be Heard in secret for the past month or two to make sure we bring you something special for our first release. And we’re very happy to say that we’ve hit that goal.

The collection comprises eight short stories ranging from 5 minutes in length to 25 minutes. The collection as a whole is a thought-provoking and chilling one hour and 38 minutes. We’ve taken eight of his best stories from his blog and brought them to life with up and coming actors. Here’s a quick sample for you:

The audiobook will set you back £3.50, $5.50 or €4.20 depending on where you live. Brilliant value for some amazing stories to keep you company on your way to work, while working out at the gym or just sitting back and enjoying being read to. It will be on sale from midday on Wednesday 1 May.

Troy is a brilliant writer who had worked hard to develop a huge online fanbase. People return time and time again to his stories which combine horror, a touch of the grotesque and a little pinch of Chuck Palahniuk. You can check out his website and follow him on Twitter or Facebook.

Over the coming weeks we hope to have interviews with him plus a lot more. We’re sure you will grow to love his work.

But that doesn’t happen any more.

The major publishers have all moved to the far end of the scale and only concentrate their time and effort on the ‘big names’ who will bring in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds.

Even writers who have contracts with the major publishing houses find themselves having to do more and more of their own promotion. It’s not a good situation and one we feel is unfair on the all the talented writers – and their possible readers.

We want to help these writers by offering another way. Publishing through us.

Publish through us

In Ear is all about supporting up and coming talent and this is a great way to help all of those wonderful authors out there.

We have decided to launch In Ear’s publishing side while focussing on what we do best – providing high-quality entertainment for your ears. We now have an audiobook publishing side where we offer up and coming writers the chance of earn money from their collections of short stories and novellas.

First audiobook due within two weeks

We have already been working with one extremely talented new writer and we’re sure his first collection will blow you away. His collection of short horror stories showcases his talents as a writer and we are certain that one day he will be making a living from writing – we want to be involved, and possibly help, this journey. We will be releasing more details about this over the next week.

Do you want an audiobook?

If you want to know more about our deal with writers – which is a deal where they get paid – then check out our Audiobook Publishing page. We also have information for people who want to go the self-publishing route with their audio. If that is more for you, check out our Audiobook Production page.

If you are an up and coming writer and would like to talk about publishing through us, first read the Audiobook Publishing page and then get in contact with us using the contact us form.

Image by Jeff Golden and released under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0 licence.

In Ear is growing and will soon be selling items to generate a revenue stream. This is a major step towards growing as a company and all of us here are extremely excited about this will bring.

In Ear will develop two distinct strands. The existing ‘for free’ strand will be complemented by the new ‘for sale’ strand. These two areas will run alongside and support each other.

However, we feel it is very important to state that any flow of money between the two strands will only be one way only.

As always we are grateful for any donations to In Ear to support our free-to-download content. For example, if you have enjoyed the two amazing series of Supermarket Matters you can go to the shop and donate some money to us by selecting the Supermarket Matters Supporter item; the same with Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

Note: Now in UK pound, US dollar and Euro. Just use the flag dropdown in the top-left.

And we have also recently signed up to Flattr, a micro-donation service where you can set a monthly donation limit that is shared between any content creators you Flattr that month.

But – and this is the point we want to stress – none of these donations will go toward development of ‘for sale’ products. Any donations or Flattrs we get for our free-to-download content will go towards bringing you more free-to-download content only.

However, and this is where it gets interesting, any money made from our ‘for sale’ content will go towards production of more for-sale content and for-free content.

This way anyone interacting with In Ear can support the for-free work while we can work on bringing you even more high-quality content.

…

Oh, and what is it we will be selling? Well you’ll just have to wait a little bit for the official announcement  Although there are some clues around the site and the wider internet already.

Image by SalFalko and released under Creative Commons CC BY-NC 2.0 licence.

Those of you who have listened to Sonnet 41 in our Shakespeare’s Sonnets series will have heard Mark talking about a British comedy called Five Go Mad in Dorset.

This was part of the very funny and fun series called The Comic Book Presents…

For those of you in the UK, here is a link to Five Go Mad in Dorset as made available by Channel 4OD. No embedding allowed, sorry.

Sound Engineer Alecx White takes Actor JD Kelly though the ropes of the sound setup

Some of you may know Thierry Heles, he is the lovely person who does the Shakespeare’s Sonnets podcast with Mark Chatterley. Thierry is the one who actually knows things!

Thierry was kind enough to help out with the auditions for 0D Cinema back in early January. He’s a big fan of radio drama and was a perfect choice to help us whittle down our pool of actors for this project.

Yesterday, Thierry came along to our latest rehearsal for 0D Cinema to do some filming for a short ‘behind the scenes’ movie he has kindly offered to make for us. But what did he think about how 0D Cinema was coming along?

Well, why not take a look at his blog where he has done a write up – and also posted a cheeky little preview for you to listen to!

You can look this cool with your 0D Glasses!

Movie lovers can join theatre and radio lovers at Cheltenham’s Parabola Arts Centre to attend the first ever 0D Cinema event.

In Ear Entertainment has created an evening of entertainment that will leave the audience breathless at the sheer realism of the 0D experience.

“Cinemas are going full out to create the most realistic experience,” said Mark Chatterley, writer and director of the show.

“3D, 48 frames per second, ultra-high def, Imax and digital multi-point surround sound are all phrases we are used to hearing. But none of this can come close to the realism created by our imaginations.”

As the audience enters the theatre they will be given 0D glasses, specially constructed to allow them to maximise their imaginations.

Two short movies will then be acted out live on stage while the audience uses their imaginations to fill in the scenery, costumes and special effects.

Verity Smith, Producer for 0D Cinema, said: ‘Think of it like seeing a live radio play being recorded it’s just, you can’t see anything so your imagination can run riot.”

The evenings movies are both loosely science fiction based, meaning this will be a good ol’ fashioned ‘Science Fiction Double Feature’.

Tickets cost £10 (£8 concessions) and can be booked online by going to www.parabolaartscentre.co.uk or by phoning 01242 707338.

The event kicks off at 7:30pm.