Kelake

At the beginning of our journey, we received a rash of negative reviews of our work. Though it sometimes stung, we made changes over time to address these concerns and haven’t often received this kind of critical feedback since, which is a problem.

We aren’t so big that we get much in the way of online discussion or mentions in the press, so I went looking. With the interest in screen-free ways to access audio, like Yoto player, Tonie, and our sponsor Storybutton, I decided to dive into forums that discuss the experience of listening to audio on these platforms.

It’s important to note that these listeners have far different expectations than those sharing an iPhone or iPad with their kids. They also are not necessarily aware of what a podcast is or the community built around podcasts such as ours.

There were two criticisms I have found stated time and time again.

The first was advertising. It’s an understandable complaint. We have gone a few weeks without an ad, and then boom, there is an advertisement for bed sheets or meal delivery before every story. I don’t like ads much either, but without ads, there wouldn’t be stories like Bernice the Bear, which their kids seem to love. People don’t often realize that others have a mortgage to pay.

The other complaint concerned our birthday shoutouts. “Why the hell are there 100 birthday shoutouts before a story?” was one complaint. Kids love hearing their names on a podcast, and we are often surprised by how popular this part of the show has become. But it hasn’t scaled well. Even after charging $35US per shoutout, we still get inundated with requests.

We haven’t considered creating with these closed platforms in mind, but as I find more of these criticisms and the platforms increase in popularity, we’ll likely make more changes to how we produce our audio.

Whenever I mention to those with more talent and experience in writing that everything I release is essentially a very rough draft, I can see a slight grimace forming at the corner of their mouth. To release a story that is not perfectly formed is not best practice.

Our listeners don’t seem to mind too much, as children tend to possess an interesting combination of open appreciation, criticality, and forgiveness of the less-than-perfect.

This allows us to produce more stories on a tight time schedule. You can’t expect perfection if you only have 3 hours or so to write something new.

Eventually, some investment in time and money must be made in editing so that the stories can be released in different mediums for reading. Without the benefit of Sheryl’s voice and my music, the accuracy of the word becomes more important. With hundreds of stories, it is difficult to know where to start, but that’s where the uniqueness of our model comes into play.

I have access to the listening data, regular communication from listeners, and comments and reviews of all our stories, which tells me which resonates most with kids. So, while I may like the story about a Mermaid visiting Souris, it turns out that the most listened-to story was about a mouse in a barn. In fact, over the course of a year, Nibbles the Mouse has been listened to hundreds of thousands of times. I have no idea why.

In the Montague Community School writing class, we were asked to submit a story to share during the final banquet. The teacher graciously offered to edit each of our stories and then print off copies that others could take home. So I took the opportunity to send her a copy of Nibbles the Mouse, and now I have a far more complete version. I think she was slightly taken aback by my copyright message on the first page. It was a bit heavy-handed (it had a reprinted with permission message), and I hummed and hawed, but in the end, I acquiesced to the instruction I received from lawyers.

With a more polished version, I can find an editor and an illustrator and start creating prototypes to see what format best fits these stories.

I’ve been collating the remote digital bits to my life of late. Online health checks, Montreal clinics for a doctor, mentors for design and business, online co-working, and Zoom-based social gatherings. These fill holes that I find can’t be filled in our remote summer paradise.

I signed up with the Start-up Zone again last summer in the hopes that I might use the space to fill that need to be around people during the workday. In the dead of winter, I find my Montague office very isolating, and the old men at Home Hardware can only be so accommodating. I never got to the Start-up Zone but made some great connections.

It’s not official, but that resource will cease operations at the end of May. It was always an odd place, but I found my year as a resident company incredibly useful. It was very active and busy, with plenty of opportunities to connect with people and learn new perspectives. It has never recovered from the COVID shutdowns and has received little direction from the board until now. Other organizations have been trying to fill the gap, like PEIBWA, a strangely female-only resource, and Innovation PEI, which has recently published some material to help would-be entrepreneurs. Neither have an environment conducive to the magic of a happenstance connection with a peer.

However, I have found a couple of other local organizations with programs I am starting to enjoy. Creative PEI is running a course I joined, which will follow Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way. I particularly enjoy trying to write my Morning Pages every day. They also have an Artist’s Support group, which I attended. It’s comforting to be around people who live through the same challenges as you, who are not obsessed with leveraging real estate assets as their primary output, and who make things because they feel they need to be made.

I have been a member of the PEI Writers Guild for a couple of years(?), but I have never participated in any of their events. However, they have a monthly writers’ meet-up that I will attend. If I can summon the courage, I plan on reading at their monthly readings at The Gallery.

While so much of what I do seems to be increasingly done off-Island (relying on off-Island health services is an odd one), it’s wonderful that there are still some opportunities to connect here locally.