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Date Posted: 03:35:51 12/29/25 Mon
Author: AusNick
Author Host/IP: 1.43.83.105
Subject: So I suppose this is the right time to ask

It's obvious that the December volume is a bust.

Pity, but it is what it is.

So if anyone wants me to make any changes going into the new year, I'd like to hear 'em. Different font, larger text, return my rambling Forewords? Anything that improves readability for everyone. I've always wanted people to have a good reading experience.

I've wanted to tackle audiobooks for ages, but it's not like the built-in text-to-speech is up to much. It does the job, just not well, it lacks Humanity. I've watched heaps of videos on youtube with TTS voiceover, it sounds better than what I can produce, just the content creators really need to lift their game when it comes to output, mispronounced words, odd pauses, no pauses, stuff that should be paid attention to, but obviously isn't. The Apps I've used are so basic, that I've had to re-listen to a story over and over, making a change every time, to make things sound right, make sure pauses in speech are correct, that every word is pronounced correctly. Even a short story could take dozens of passes, it's frustrating, but when I'm happy with how it sounds, it gets released, even if it's not perfect, it's not nothing, even if it took hours. It'd be ideal if I could have the parts read by actual Humans, but I have no ability to pay people for their time, and nobody has put up their hand to make an attempt, but that's fine. I've tried doing a couple of test reads myself, but I don't have a speaking voice, well a voice that sounds fit for the task.

This flat spot in December has been really weird too, it's at this time of year when I get plenty of new content, and it's mid-year when things go quiet. We did have that uptick a few months ago, but that didn't last. It's just odd, doesn't fit the pattern that has established itself over the last couple of decades. But having said that, this has happened before, when Loring Holden was maintaining SSN, things got off to a slow start, and picked up, some years being better than others, before gradually dropping off. Same thing has happened here. If you go to SSN and look at the dates, you'd see it, up and down like a yo-yo, and 2012 just fell flat. Same thing has happened here, some years have been better than others, but I've hit the same problem as in 2012, nobody has written. Well that's not entirely true, of course people are still putting fingers to keyboard, and I'm grateful for that, always will be, but I just don't understand why things have happened the way they have. I guess it's hard to come up with original stories, when it's all the same core subject, so I get it, it's probably why we've lost so many veteran writers, they probably got sick of re-hashing the same old thing, same subject, just different names and locations.

There has been plenty of explicit stuff, but that sort of content makes my eyeballs bleed, I want to read a good story, not watch a porno, and as I've said in the past, we're here for the smoking, not the sex, and often the sex parts get more attention than the smoking parts, and that's what ruins an otherwise good story. It's the smoking parts that we're here for, what needs the description, the explicit stuff, allude to it, don't describe it. Some authors actually get that, and good on 'em. Thank You.

I've kind of dropped to two sources for new fiction, SFK and Reddit. SFK is a pain, mainly because of people necro-ing old threads simply to increase the size of their dick hats, so any new content gets quickly buried, making it harder to find, and harder to preserve. Reddit is kind of the same, but more stable in that regard, but the content on some subs has become increasingly degenerate, and the mods appear to be allowing it. Fvck, if you want to indulge your own particular quirks, fvck off and create your own sub and go nuts. I've noticed a lot of posters that had been regulars on some subs have stopped posting because of content rule changes. Why screw it up for everyone, to satisfy a few?

Ah shit. Anyway, I hope 2026 is better, for everyone.

Nick

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