Amanda Fleet's Blog, page 3
October 3, 2022
The audiobook of Aeron Returns is LIVE
I know, I know... I've been AWOL for a month. But the audiobook for Aeron Returns is finally available! I actually got the recordings finished a while back, but processing got interrupted by various family visits and a very unexpected funeral. It all got loaded up to ACX (Audible) and Findaway (distributor to a whole heap of places) and they've now passed all the files and it's available to buy.
If you're not in Audible, it still seems like the best way to get it is to buy the ebook and get the audiobook for a huge discount (I'm not sure it's brilliant for me as I only get about tuppence when people pay the full price for the audiobook, but hey...).
If you're not in Audible, but would like a free 30d trial... read on.
Now, this is me being a little bit cheeky, but if you are deciding to join Audible, and you use the links below to get a 30 day free trial, and you choose Aegyir Rises or Aeron Returns as your first book, then I do get a small reward. And you still get 30 days free, with no commitment. And it hasn't cost you anything extra, but I maybe get just enough encouragement to keep on writing and not give it all up. 😊
Links:
Aegyir Rises as your first book - US customers
Aegyir Rises as your first book - UK customers
Aeron Returns as your first book - US customers
Aeron Returns as your first book - UK customers
I will also be offering some codes to my newsletter readers to get a free copy at Authors Direct. Not on my mailing list? Fill in the form below. I only send out something once a month and it's usually a combination of my news, any offers on my books, plus information on bundles of other books and audiobooks you might be interested in. And you'll get a free novella telling you what really happened with Aeron and Aegyir the first time around.
It comes out once a month and subscribers get a free copy of “Aeron’s Fall” and all my special offers.
No spam, I promise.
August 1, 2022
Tiny whispers...
Out running on Sunday morning, the little people in my head finally started to whisper to me. Not much, and not very loudly, but I may have an opening scene forming.
I've no idea what comes after the opening scene, or what the heck the book is about... but I do appear to have most of an opening scene.
However... I still have to finish processing the audiobook files for Aeron Returns, and for Chaos, plus record and process War and Invasion, so if they stay whispering, rather than bellowing in my ear, I'll be happy enough! Oh, and I have a whole book to edit too, so it's not as if I'm stuck for things to do! But I am happy that some characters are at least talking a little bit to me.
July 25, 2022
Out of the tent...
...and on to processing. Which is dull. But necessary. Especially as after a short while of recording, I seem to lose the ability to read, or to speak properly!
I'm following the system outlined by Derek Doepker, which recommends a "clap-back" method. When I make a mistake (or need to cough, or clear my throat etc.) I clap my hands and keep on recording. When I come to edit the file, the claps show up really clearly, to indicate where the errors are and it's pretty straightforward to edit the mistakes etc. out.
Read more »July 18, 2022
Back to the tent...
The tent, lurking behind the sofaYes, as the UK heads for a heatwave, I'll be back in my recording tent. Thankfully, there's no heatwave predicted for where I am in bonny Scotland.
Are the little people in my head talking to me again, yet? Nope.
Do I want to be recording the audiobooks? Also nope.
Do I want to start editing "A Promise Through Time"? Another nope.
Marketing? Yeah, right. That's never a yes!
But...
Can I actually spend all day reading/gardening/knitting/crocheting without going (even more) mad?
Er... nope.
I've decided to crack on with the recordings so that at least they're done, while waiting for the little people to start talking to me again. I have several months of work to do... let's hope that once it's all done, the voices are back. And if not, at least the audiobooks are done and I can take the tent down!
July 11, 2022
"Can you tell what it is yet?"
This is essentially how all my characters and all my books start off... I have some vague ideas and make notes on them - character traits, individual scenes I can see, snippets of dialogue - but the character isn't fully formed, and neither is the plot!
I keep working on them. I keep seeing more and more of the character; keep seeing more scenes; keep hearing more snippets of dialogue. I write it all down. I let it brew. And slowly, slowly, the jumble of parts make sense. The character starts to invade my head and chirrup at me. I sit down with index cards and start wrestling the plot into some semblance of order.
Recently, it's all been far too quiet in my head. Unnervingly so. There's usually a cacophony of competing voices - different characters from different books, trying to be so loud that I write about them next. Not so much right now.
The jumble of crocheted parts in the picture above will become a gift for a dear friend, though at the moment, it looks like nothing. Likewise, there are two characters just starting to form in my head, though I'm not sure who they are or where they belong. I'm just writing it all down, waiting for it to brew. Hoping the cacophony will return in time. Trying to accept that maybe, just maybe, my brain has too much to deal with right now and that I am far from over the death of my father.
In the meantime, Wimbledon is over and I have some audiobooks to record, so it's back to the tent!
July 4, 2022
Royalties for Kindle pages read vs sales
A question often posed on Facebook groups is "Do authors get paid more for a book if it's read via Kindle Unlimited or bought as a Kindle ebook?"
The answer is surprisingly complicated!
It depends on:
the cost of the book as an ebookthe number of pages in itthe country it's read/sold inthe currency exchange ratethe KENP rate (amount paid in each country per page read) - which is different in each country and changes month to month, depending on how many people are in KU and how many books they read!I said it was complicated!
Since an author is paid per pages read, clearly a shorter book will generate less money via Kindle Unlimited than a longer book. But if the book is priced at 99c/99p then it will probably net the author more if the book is read in KU rather than bought.
What has often interested me is how different my royalties are across different countries, for the same book.
Let me use "Aegyir Rises" and the box-set as examples, and look at UK v US v Canada v Australia.
Amazon tells me "Aegyir Rises" is 454 KENP (Kindle pages) and the box-set is 1606 KENP. If I look at a month where I have good data for those four countries, I can calculate how many pages need to be read to earn me a pound in each country. From that, I can calculate how much I would earn for 454 pages, and 1606 pages. I can also compare the royalties generated by reading the book in comparison with buying the book.
Okay, so in the table, you can see in the pages/£ column that an Australian has to read a lot more pages (512) to earn me the same amount as money as a Brit reading the books (332 pages)! I think this must be a reflection of how many people are signed up for KU in Australia, how much they pay for it and how many books they read each month.
If you then look at how much each book sale gets me (in £) the data are all pretty similar. The killer column is the final one: how much I get if they read the book in comparison with if they bought the book. 41%... OUCH! Even 66% isn't great!
Is the box-set any better? Well... yes, and no
The final column looks better, right? But compare how much I get paid if someone in Australia reads the whole of the box-set in comparison with someone buying "Aegyir Rises"... £3.14 for 1606 pages read (three decent-sized books) compared to £2.14 for just the first book. The only reason the percentages in the final column look better is because there is a price-cap on the box-set in Canada and Australia. You can't charge more than $9.99 for an ebook in Canada or $11.99 in Australia. Since individual books are priced $4.99 and $5.99, you essentially get a book for free by buying the box-set there.
Are you surprised by how little an author gets? Minimum wage in the UK is £8.91/hour for my age. £8.91 x 40 hours/week x 50 weeks per year = £17,820. The average payment for the ebook if it's read is £1.17. If it's bought it's £2.09. To earn just the minimum wage, I need to sell ~4 books every hour. Or 7.5 people have to read the entire book every hour.
I can tell you for free, I get nowhere near that! It's a really good job I didn't hope to make any money by writing books!
June 27, 2022
Still crickets...
The little people in my head are still scarily silent and my giant case of "why bother-itis" hasn't gone away.
But... I've learned to crochet! Well, I'm in the process of learning to crochet. The fabulous woman who runs the "Knit and Natter" group I go to with my Mum every week is teaching me (she has the patience of a saint!) and I'm now practising a lot of double crochet (single crochet in US terms) and half-treble (half-double in US), making a giant yarn basket and using up some random wool in my stash.
A bit like walking, or gardening, or knitting, I'm finding crochet allows part of my brain to be focused on the crochet part (now I know what I'm doing and especially as I'm not really needing to follow a pattern, but just going around and around on the basket!), but other parts of my brain get to freewheel. In the past, this led to books getting plotted, and characters becoming fully rounded rather than chirruping little voices that nagged at me.
A few voices are trying to break through the thick mist in my head while I'm crocheting. They're not loud and they're not saying much, but maybe, just maybe, they will come back.
Here's hoping.
June 14, 2022
Missing In Action
Or, more accurately, just "inaction".
I haven't posted on here in almost a month. My "Get up and go" has got up and gone. The little people in my head, who normally besiege me with their incessant chatter and demands to be the next ones I write about are totally, utterly silent.
I want to process the audiobook I've recorded slightly less than I'd like to drill a hole in my head. I want to record another audiobook even less than that.
I have a fully written book, waiting to be edited and I can't summon the effort to even open the files.
I have vague outline ideas for two other books, and I can't bear to think about them, because I don't think the characters will talk to me.
The last time I felt like this (8 years ago, roughly), it was because I came seriously close to having a breakdown. Between work at the university and writing, I'd burned out, and my brain said, "Enough!" I was off work for more than six months as a consequence.
I don't think I'm burning out. I don't think I'm heading for a breakdown. But then, I was the last person to think I was 8 years ago, when everyone around me knew damn fine that's exactly where I was headed.
I think I'm just tired. I hope I'm just tired. The little people being so silent scares me. They normally provide an near-incessant background chatter that can make it hard to do anything else except give in to their demands and write.
I hoped that being away in the Highlands and Islands on holiday would spark stuff. It always has in the past. But no... just silence still.
I'm not going to push it. If they don't want to talk, they don't want to talk. It's tennis season, and productivity always plummeted when Queen's and Wimbledon was on, so this year I'm just going to abandon any pretence of working while that's on. I have some craft projects I could finish. I have plenty of gardening I could be doing if there's no tennis to watch. I'm still writing for Nero's Notes.
I'm hoping this will pass. If it never does, at least I have seven books out there, so I guess I can still call myself a writer.
May 16, 2022
Audiobook of Aegyir Rises is now available
Good news!! The audiobook for Aegyir Rises is now available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.You can get a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aegyir-Rises-Guardians-Realm-Book/dp/B0B118BLY7
Don't have Audible? Get a 30d free trial... US customers * UK customers *
Medium news: trying to distribute through other channels is currently not going well, but I've emailed the distributor about it and I'm hoping to get that resolved soon.
Rubbish news: the builders have still been banging about on the roof over the past week, so recording the audiobook for Aeron Returns hasn't started (and won't get started now until mid to late June).
Don't forget, if you want to try Audible for free for 30 days, check out the links.
*Disclaimer - these links are part of a bounty programme which means they cost you nothing extra, but I get a reward if you sign up via them.
May 2, 2022
Last chance to be in the draw...
I have one signed copy of Chaos to give away to one of my newsletter subscribers.
If you're already a subscriber, rest assured. You're already in the draw.
If you're NOT a subscriber, what are you waiting for?
#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:600px;} /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Subscribe* indicates required Email Address * First Name Last Name (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true);All subscribers will get a free copy of the novella "Aeron's Fall"
Competition is open worldwide
Draw will be made on 7th May and winner contacted by 9th May. My decision is final.
