Campfire Stories

Inspiration

As a fan of writing and reading scary stories, I always found it a bit of a challenge when searching for new reading material online. Horror itself is so all-over-the-place and I found it frustrating not knowing what I was going to get into when I began a story. I wanted to make it effortless for readers and listeners to find and interact with scary stories suitable for all ages—just like the ones told over campfires in summer.

What it does

It’s simple! Judi (the voice who reads the story) begins to tale and sometimes asks you questions in between. Your answers to these questions shape how she tells the rest of the story. Once you’re all done, you can either listen to the story again, or you can wait a little while until the next story debuts.

How I built it

Built with lots of soda, bubblegum, and headaches. In truth, it’s pretty rudimentary—by the numbers. Most of the work is been tweaking the voice using SSML to sound like a performance rather than a monotoned description.

Challenges I ran into

One of the hardest challenges I had to come across was updating. After the skill is submitted, and it is in the hands of Amazon to look over it, it can feel like an eternity. Having to abide by a strict two-week schedule, it was important to know what Amazon defines as kid-friendly and what it doesn’t. Those makes such a difference when a skill is in-review. I have since learned the guidelines pretty well, but regularly updating is a hurdle that is hard to jump at times.

Of course, the most important challenge regarding this skill is trust. Our listeners need to trust that the stories will maintain their degree of quality and the parents of younger listeners need to trust that we will not cross any hazy lines when it comes to our scary content. We want to give parents the luxury of allowing their kids to listen to our skills, knowing that it’s not harmful or inappropriate.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Judi, the girl that reads the stories, is the biggest accomplishment of mine. It has nothing to do with the programming or the number-crunching, because at the end of the day, Judi and her performance is at the front end. It had to sound natural. It just had to. It had to be a voice that could easily be identified by listeners. But beyond that—the tone, the sense of humor, the performance— It is the most important thing to set up. From the positive responses I have gotten, Judi is on her way to becoming an icon in the world of Alexa skills.

​​## What I learned

I’ve learned that in a sea of content, the quality will rise to the top. Before the scale can be popular, before it can be liked, the skill has to be good. The stories are the heart and soul of the skill. I hope that the stories on the skill will continue to turn heads, drawing listeners worldwide.

What's next for Campfire Stories

A lot, a lot. After establishing a strong audience with lots of interaction, I plan on toying with a subscription feature. As much as I want to keep it free for everyone, with a little bit of pocket change coming in every month, I can dedicate more time and resources to creating phenomenal scary stories for everyone to enjoy.

It seems like a lot of our readers enjoy branching stories, so I definitely want to make more of those, filling them with twists and turns that are unlike a lot of the other skills on the marketplace.

And of course, at the long end of this tunnel, I like to see physical books being out on shelves. High-quality books to read and share.