Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 19

The Bookish Ball Historical Romance Giveaway

I did include one of my Regencies in here, but I’m not offering a giveaway for my book since it’s already free. I thought there might be some books on here that would appeal to some of you, so I’m passing this along.

Here’s the link if you’re interested: https://www.litring.com/the-bookish-ball-giveaway/

A Note To Anyone Who Reads on Kobo

I’m putting all of my romances into Kobo Plus, but it’s taking some time.

I’m not sure who reads my books on Kobo, but I’ve decided to upload all of my romances directly to Kobo. The books will still be available for sale if you want to buy them, but now they’ll also be available for anyone who happens to be a Kobo Plus subscriber. As a side note, I decided to give Kobo Plus a try a few months ago, and I like it. So now I’m going to put the rest of my romances in there.

For anyone wondering why I’m not in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (KU), the reason is that Amazon requires me to be ONLY on Amazon to be in KU. I know there are a few authors who are allowed to be wide and in KU, but I’m not one of them.

Kobo Plus allows me to be in their subscription plan while also being on other retailers. I also have my books available for anyone who is on Scribd’s subscription plan.

Since I have a lot of romances published, it’s taking me some time to move everything directly to Kobo so I can get them all into Kobo Plus. I believe I can be done with this process by the end of this month.

If you already bought my books at Kobo, they should still be available on your device. I can still access ebooks on my Kindle even after authors unpublish them. So there’s no need to buy anything again.

About the pre-orders on Kobo:

I just removed the pre-orders from Kobo. There should be no charge if you pre-ordered The Cursed Earl, The Loner’s Bride, Suitable for Marriage, or Secret Admirer. Smashwords doesn’t charge for anyone who pre-orders until the book actually releases. I did consider letting Smashwords still put the pre-orders there, but I really want these pre-orders to be available in Kobo Plus as soon as those books go live.

Smashwords won’t let me get into the Kobo Plus program. I have to upload directly to Kobo to get in there. I apologize to anyone who already got those pre-orders. In the future, I will upload the pre-order directly through Kobo so this won’t happen again.

I checked on Kobo’s terms for pre-orders, and it’s recommended that I wait until I have the final version of the book ready to go before putting it up on Kobo. So from now on, links to pre-orders at Kobo will go up at the same time the links go up on Amazon and Google Play. Links go up for Amazon and Google Play about a month before the book comes out. I’ll try to remember to announce when the links are available in a blog post.

***

I think that covers everything. If I didn’t think of something about Kobo, feel free to ask.

Sometimes You Have to Make Choices for Yourself

I’m going to discuss audiobooks again. If this topic bores you, feel free to skip. I know I’ve been rambling on a lot about this topic recently.

I fell into something of a funk after making my last blog post where I said I was putting a pause on making audiobooks. It took me a day, but then I realized this is something I really want to do. Maybe it’s stupid. I admit I do not have the professional quality a lot of narrators do. My house is a small trailer, and with six people living here, closets aren’t a possible place for me to narrate in. There is a chamber-like quality to the audio. It’s not an echo, exactly, but the ear can pick up the “space” around me. This space is my bedroom, and I don’t want to put foam all over the walls to buffer the sound because then I’ll have to remove all the pictures that make the place feel cozy. Also, I don’t know what it is, but there are little clicks that pop up here and there in the audio recordings. I don’t know if it’s mouth noises or something in the microphone. Maybe it’s a mixture of both. Who knows?

What I do know is that my eyes are not as good as they used to be. I can no longer read a paperback or ebook without my eyes bugging out after thirty minutes, and that’s even with the new glasses I got this summer. I have Reticare on my computer to help my eyes out, and it works great. I also take lots of breaks so I’m not staring at the computer screen all day, and unless I have something I need to do, I get off the computer before dinner and don’t return to it until the next morning. I have learned ways to limit eye strain because I want to be able to type on the computer. I have dictated a few books, and while it’s been okay, the editing takes three times longer to go through, and I hate editing. I don’t want to spend 2-3 more time of my life doing something I hate. I’m in this to write because that’s the fun part.

Alright, so I rambled on about all of the above because I want to be able to listen to my own books. No one in this house wants to read them to me. They think romance is boring. (I know. It’s ridiculous, but no one in this house wants to go anywhere near a romance.) The Kindle I have has been sufficient, but the text-to-speech feature has gotten to be uncomfortable for me to listen to. I need a human voice. I can’t afford to have all of my books made into audio. I ran the numbers, and I’d have to pay out over $100K to hire a professional narrator to do all of my backlist. I don’t have that kind of money.

So the option that is easiest for me (as someone who wants to listen to my own books) is to narrate most of them myself and have my oldest son (who is good) help me out with the rest. I know writers are told to avoid putting anything out there that isn’t “excellent” in quality, but this is something I’m doing for me. I am doing my best with the narration, and while I know that makes some people laugh, I’m tired of putting things off just because someone doesn’t like it. I already received feedback that I’m not any good from someone close to me. The person did it gently, so it’s not like she was rude or anything. I took her input into serious consideration, and it’s why I almost quit the whole audiobook thing. But then I thought, “These are my books. I wrote them so I could read them.” Now that my eyes are not able to do the job, my ears will have to. This is why it’s a labor of love. Sometimes you have to make choices for yourself, and this is one I’ve decided to do for me.

I am publishing them through Findaway Voices so they’ll be on multiple retailers. I want to buy them so I can download them on to my phone. I like the cute cover and how easy I can access the audiobooks on my Apple library. I have to publish them so I can access them.

The reason I’m announcing this on this blog is so that people don’t think someone is stealing my books and making them into audiobooks again. I will add them to my audiobook page on this blog, but I’m not going to make any special blog announcements. That way if anyone worries, they can check out the page on this blog and know that I authorized the production of the audiobook in case they wonder if it’s a legit copy or not. I get a panic attack every time someone tells me they saw a stolen version of my book, and I’d rather skip the panic attack if possible. I appreciate how kind you guys are when theft happens. It means a lot to me to know you care about things that happen to me.

My advice is to skip the audiobooks. I’m not even comfortable putting them on You Tube, Rumble, or Bitchute. My son wants to read Return of the Aliens, so we’ll work on that project for those channels. He loves my thrillers. When we do a romance together, I think that might work for those channels, but I don’t want to put up any book on social media unless he helps me with it. He’s got skill at this. I don’t. I can write books, but that’s about it.

I Decided to Put off the Audiobook Idea

Yeah, I know. I was excited about this. Really excited. Until I listened back over the audio files and noticed the clicks and the “sounds like I’m in a large chamber somewhere” background effect.

I don’t know how to better explain those things than that, but suffice it to say, my ability is not “professional” quality, and I know some people will expect “professional”. I’ve read enough comments under You Tube videos on how to narrate a book to realize that some people want “perfect” when it comes to audio.

This all made me feel a lot of stress, and the closer I got to today, the worse the feeling in the pit of my stomach got. Something just kept telling me it was a bad idea. So I went into You Tube and Rumble and deleted the Meant To Be chapters I had uploaded there. This was only five chapters, so it wasn’t like I got far. (Bitchute just has a draft option. It won’t let me schedule a post. I was unable to unschedule the videos on You Tube and Rumble. All I could do was delete them to stop them from going live in the upcoming days/weeks.)

To be honest, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. While this was something I did enjoy, I don’t think it’s something meant for the public. I don’t know if I can figure out a way to make audiobooks private that I can just put on my iPhone or not, but that is what I would like to do. Due to the time I spend on my computer writing, I can’t read ebooks or paperbacks without my eyes giving me a lot of grief. All I can do at this point is listen to books. I get why people like audiobooks. They’re just so expensive to create (or restrictive if an author has to go the split-royalty with the narrator route). I have a Kindle for the text-to-speech feature. I believe Google tablets have the same option. From what I know, Kobo, Nook, and Apple devices don’t have this. If I’m wrong, please let me know. Some people are speculating that AI will make audiobook creation much more cost effective for authors. I guess we’ll see how the technology develops. At this point, all I can afford is me as a narrator, and that won’t measure up to some people’s standards for audiobook.

The fun shorts I did for October are fine. I don’t do those to go with my author brand. I don’t know what I want to do with those channels I have on those sites. For the time being, I’m keeping them up. I used to think I wanted to do videos for writers, which is why You Tube has those old videos. The problem was that I ran out of topics I was interested in talking about, and doing video where I’m talking to a screen doesn’t come naturally to me. I prefer to write things out than speak them. I think better when I type. I used to also think I would make a trailer for every book I wrote, until I realized they don’t do much good for promoting the book.

I’m going to go back to my older posts and edit out the stuff with Meant To Be. I will not be publishing those chapters on You Tube, Rumble, and Bitchute. I’m going to put the audiobook thing on hold for now.

Cold Blooded Killer (October Spooky Story #5)

Illustration 197598741 © Jumpoth Satiranunt | Dreamstime.com (Text added by me)

This short story wraps up the final story for the Halloween season.

Here’s the description: Upon finding his best friend holding a bloody knife over a dead body, Ryan has to decide whether his friend is a killer or not.

We’ll be going to my romances starting in November!

On November 1, I will start posting Meant To Be. I have to post that one chapter by chapter because it takes me about 2 hours to upload one chapter to each site. I am uploading the book on Rumble, Bitchute, and You Tube, so that is a total of about 6 hours per chapter. My hope is to get a new chapter up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I’m having some issues with Bitchute that is slowing me down. I might have to go to two days a week instead of three. We’ll see how things go. I’d like to go as wide as possible with these videos, so I’m hoping Bitchute will work out.

Updates on What I’m Doing

The Cursed Earl’s second draft is finally done!

Books in the Marriage by Necessity Series:

This finishes the series.

So now it’s time to edit. There were times over the past year when I thought I’d never finish it. Now I can safely say it’ll be ready for January.

Now I’ve started Heiress of Misfortune (Book 3 in this series).

I’m hoping will be a cute romantic comedy involving a wallflower heroine whom our hero will turn into a beautiful swan. I enjoy those movies where you have the “plain Jane” heroine who has a makeover and turns out to be really pretty, but I haven’t done a romance like that before. I didn’t realize the plot would go in this direction until I was working on Chapter 1 today. This will be a fun story to write.

Jeremiah and Katie are finally going to get married

Books in the Wyoming Series:

This finishes the series.

It didn’t happen the way I expected, but they’re due to marry. I don’t want to spoil it. Let’s suffice it to say they pretty much have to because of a rumor that erupted through town, and, yes, Katie is responsible for it, though, to be fair, she didn’t expect things to blow up the way they did. So Jeremiah is pretty much still a reluctant hero at this point in the story. I’m not sure when he’ll come to accept his attraction to Katie. He’s been surprisingly resistant this whole time.

Alex and Erin are now married, but neither one knows what to do about it

Books in the Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series:

Book 4 to come

Just as Jeremiah is stubborn in The Loner’s Bride, Erin is stubborn in Suitable for Marriage. She’s fallen in love with Alex but isn’t consciously aware of it. Jeremiah, at least, knows he wants to be with Katie, even though he’s fighting it. I’m thinking Erin needs to be hit on the head to figure out what she wants. Daisy has done as much as she can. The parents have done all they can, too. So now it’s a matter of writing the story until I can figure out how to get the light bulb to pop up in Erin’s head.

A Look Ahead

My hope is to finish both The Loner’s Bride and Suitable for Marriage by the end of next month.

My mind is a complete blank on Daisy’s book, which comes after Suitable for Marriage. Unless an idea comes to me while I’m wrapping up that book, I’m going to put Daisy’s romance on hold until the right plot comes to mind. So that leaves me with a possible opening on the writing schedule.

Once I finish The Loner’s Bride, I’m going to work on a new Regency series, so I already have one book marked down. That one is Secret Admirer. This will be Book 1 in the Marriage by Obligation Series.

I have no ideas at the moment for any historical western romances. But I do have Book 2 in the Marriage by Obligation Series already set out.

So I might end up working on three Regencies at a time. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. We’ll see what happens at the end of next month.

The Cemetery Audiobook (October Spooky Story #4)

Illustration 197598741 © Jumpoth Satiranunt | Dreamstime.com (Text added by me)

It’s time for another fun story for the Halloween season!

Joel accepts a dare to spend an entire night in a cemetery, only to realize he’s been there before.

I know some people prefer Rumble and Bitchute, but I am having the hardest time getting WordPress to post the video directly on this post from Rumble or Bitchute. I managed to do it before, but I can’t figure it out this morning. The only one that is working for me is You Tube. If anyone has any idea on how to get Rumble or Bitchute to “take” over here, let me know.

The video is on Rumble at this link.

The video is on Bitchute at this link.

Is Creating Audiobooks a Good Idea?

I got this question from a couple of authors over the past year, so I thought I’d address it in this post.

Audiobooks are only worth creating if any of the three conditions are met: you are making serious money (like A LOT of money) in ebooks already, you have a narrator who is willing to do the work for free (and get compensated via the split-royalty program), OR if you love making them and will do the narrating yourself.

I don’t know why there are people out there telling authors that audiobooks are “huge” and they are a “must”, but audioboks are in a whole different category from ebooks. Ebooks are the indie author’s best friend because this is where the main source of income comes from. In my experience, more people are still reading ebooks than listening to audiobooks. I assume the cost of ebooks and widespread availability of them are to credit for this.

An audiobook takes a lot more work to create than ebooks. When you write an ebook, you can have many disruptions and pick up where you left off. If someone interrupts you while you’re narrating an audiobook, you have to edit these interruptions out. With a house of five other people, I am greatly limited in narration time. This limits how much I can get done in a week. In my experience, it can take anywhere from 2-4 hours to edit one chapter in an audiobook. (My chapters run anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 words.) Then when the narration (and editing) are done, you have to upload the audio files. Uploading each individual chapter can be time consuming. I believe it’s at least an hour on Findaway Voices for me to upload an entire book. ACX was longer. If you end up with a quality issue, you’ll have to go back and figure out how to fix it. Also, changes made to an audiobook are not automatic. When I recently made a change in the audiobook I narrated, Findaway Voices told me the changes could take up to a month to go through to all of their retailers. When you make changes to an ebook, those changes go through fast. Usually, within a day or two, you’re good to go. But with audio, it’ll be longer. So be prepared for that and try to get your audio files correct the first time.

Even if someone else does the narrating for you, you have to listen through every single chapter to weed out any errors. If the narrator is splitting royalties, you don’t upload the files. They have to worry about that. But if you own the audiobook version outright, you still got to upload them. I guess if you have an assistant who knows what they’re doing, all of the listening and uploading can be done by them, but not many authors can afford an assistant, especially one who has experience under their belt. I hired someone to listen to the audiobook I narrated, and I caught some things they missed. This person was not qualified to do the job. I hired my oldest to be an assistant to help me this time around, but he’s starting out, and there is a lot of hand-holding and training I have to do before he’s ready to be on his own.

Another factor to consider is your return on investment. ACX’s policy of deducting future royalties from authors if someone returns an audiobook totally sucks. For example, let’s say I sell an audiobook in March but the person returns it in April. ACX will take that “return” out of my future royalties. In other words, I pay ACX back. This happens even IF the person listened to the entire audiobook. As you can imagine, this puts a damper on your return on investment. Findaway Voices, on the other hand, is author friendly. They send audiobooks to all retailers (including Audible and Amazon if you don’t claim your book on ACX), libraries, and subscription services. I paid about $10,000 in 2020 to have five audiobooks made. Through ACX, I’ve made $228 so far this year. Through Findaway Voices, I’ve made $395 so far this year. If you are exclusive to ACX, you’re shooting yourself in the foot UNLESS you’re doing a 50-50 split royalty with a narrator. At least then, you didn’t put any money into the venture.

I also want to point out that most of the royalties I make off of Findaway Voices comes from libraries and subscription sites (like Scribd). They do NOT come from sales where a person keeps the audiobook forever. Considering the fact that people on Audible have a library mentality (where they “buy” a book and later return it), ACX is pretty much another library. That’s just my personal experience. That’s why I say you should be a super-selling author if you’re looking to pay a narrator to make audiobooks. If you are a big name, you will be more likely to pick up those people who will keep an audiobook forever. I am not that kind of author. I can get people to keep my ebooks, but I can’t get them to keep my audiobooks. Before taxes, I bring in $80K in ebook sales. This is why, in my opinion, you need to have substantial money coming in from ebook sales if you expect to make a return on investment when you pay for a narrator. I have no regrets in paying that narrator. She did a terrific job. I just can’t afford to keep paying her when you factor in living expenses for a six-family household, repairs that pop up, and taxes. That’s why I’m narrating the books myself.

Suffice it to say, if you’re going to do audiobooks, do it because it’s something that truly interests you. Regardless of whether you go with a narrator or do the book yourself, this should be a passion project. Do it because it’s fun. Do it because you want to hear your own book in audio format. If you do that, you will never regret making the audiobook.

The Ultimate Scare Audiobook (October Spooky Story #3)

Illustration 197598741 © Jumpoth Satiranunt | Dreamstime.com (Text added by me)

Here’s the description of this short story: Bill scoffs that nothing can scare him, until he comes face to face with his most deadly enemy.

You can also find it at Rumble and You Tube.

There are two more spooky shorts that will be posted in October. Starting November 1, I will start posting romances, and I’ve decided to start with Meant To Be. More information will come on that later.

Body Swap Audiobook (October Spooky Story #2)

Illustration 197598741 © Jumpoth Satiranunt | Dreamstime.com (Text added by me)

This story was originally published under Ruth Ann Nordin in the The Very True Legends of Ol’ Man Wickleberry and his Demise – Ink Slingers’ Anthology. (Thanks to Joleene Naylor for organizing this! It was a lot of fun to be a part of it.)

If you prefer, I also have it on You Tube and Bitchute.