The Return of Dr. Necropolis: Audio Book Options

My wife and I were talking on Sunday when she suggested I consider changing my pen name to Dan E. Cabeza. I've used Danno E. Cabeza for years online and on the various As For Football podcasts, but I can admit that it's not the most serious pen name, and I'm worried that people won't take The Return of Dr. Necropolis seriously because of it. Not that Dr. Necropolis is necessarily some think-piece, but it's unserious in an entirely different direction. 

Necropolis is a comic-style adventure story with some adult themes. Danno E. Cabeza is just a ridiculous name that I happen to like. I worry that the pen name will make people think the book is some kind of comedy. That's definitely not what it is.

This is a working cover. I'll be looking
for an actual, local artist starting early
next month.

A lot of people call me Danno in my personal life, and my friend Mike Marcel used to add onto that with "Danno E. Danno!" back when we were lieutenants. Then, back when Internet forums were a thing, I shortened it to DannoE, and that's kind of how this thing got started. Add in that my wife served in the Peace Corps in Paraguay for almost four years, and that we call our household Casa Cabeza -- behold this very blog! -- and that's how I got the name. 

Not that my identity needs to be some huge secret, but I've long needed to put some distance between my professional life as an engineer and my writing/hobbyist life, especially now that As For Football has become a full-on LLC.

I posted about this on social media and was actually shocked by the number of my friends who seemed not to know that I write -- at all! -- or that I use a pen name. That's fine in the sense that my friends certainly don't need to follow AFF or my writing career as a requirement of our friendship. However, it also shows what an incredible uphill climb I'm about to have in trying to get my book out there. People just don't know or care, and that's a really tough obstacle to overcome.

I have therefore spent some time recently experimenting with Necropolis delivery platforms.

One real problem here is the way that social media has changed in recent years. It's not really social anymore. This has affected AFF a decent amount, but thankfully, we amassed enough followers early on that it hasn't hurt us overall. In fact, sometimes the algorithms even help. They always skew right-leaning politically, and plenty of folks assume that all Army Sports fans lean conservative. In reality, we don't lean at all, but we'll still take all the help we can get. 

But. Even if I use the LLC to publish my book for business reasons, I still can't turn the various AFF shows into de facto Necropolis commercials. No one's coming to AFF to hear about my book. I therefore need to come up with some new stuff -- and pretty soon, too.

I get that the book will never be a best seller. Really, I just want to put it out there. With that in mind, I've been mulling over putting the book out as an audio book and podcast. I want to figure out how to make it as easy and as accessible as it can be. The video below is there an experiment in developing thais new would-be delivery system. 

Let me know what you think.

You can also find this as a Short on YouTube. We'll see how/if this all comes together.

I realized yesterday what an incredible uphill climb it's gonna be to get people to pay attention to my book when I finally put it out in September. So now we're experimenting with delivery methods. None of this is final. Hell, the book itself still needs a re-write. But here. This is Take 2.

[image or embed]

— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) April 28, 2026 at 8:09 AM

Thanks in advance.