A few weeks ago I was contacted by Pat from
Please Let Me Read To You. They wanted to know if they could read one of my short stories on their podcast. I hunted around and found that their Facebook page says: "We read books and short stories by independent authors in genres we're not used to - resulting in poorly read audiobooks. So, let us read to you.."
That didn't sound to promising, but the email was polite and sounded sincere, so I listened to a couple of their shows to find out more.
Each podcast opens with small group of people chatting about their lives for a while before arriving at "the reading". The story is read in silly and exaggerated voices, along with interruptions, mistakes and deliberately skewed emphasis on parts of the dialogue. It could, I might even say should, have been a mess. But I enjoyed it. I laughed a lot and got a general impression of the story.
So I gave them the go ahead to use mine. To be honest, I don't think I laughed at their performance of my story as much as I laughed at the others I'd listened to, but I suspect (hope) that's because I spent too much time listening for what I knew was coming rather than just listening to the show.
It's not that they make fun of the story they're reading, they just have fun with it. It's a distorted adaptation rather than a recital. The result isn't anything you're likely to use to sell your work (it's not exactly painting it in its best possible light), but it's something different and I found it fun.
Apparently they have had trouble finding authors willing to participate, which I suppose is not all that surprising, we writers can be a sensitive bunch
. They will consider submissions if anyone here is interested.
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated in any way, except that they've done one of my stories, I just thought others here might be interested.