Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 9

Once Upon a Tryst BookFunnel Promo

This is the last promo I’m participating in for this month. It looks like most of these are Regencies, but a few seem to feature other historical romantic genres. Some of these look like awesome reads.

I put in one of my Regencies (The Marriage Contract) and one historical western (Nelly’s Mail Order Husband). In addition to having my two books in BookFunnel for free for you to check out, I also have them on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, and other smaller retailers for free if you are not on BookFunnel.

Click here to see the promo!

If that link doesn’t work, here is the direct link you can copy and paste: https://books.bookfunnel.com/hisromnldecjan/lyy803dx8k

Stages in the Author Journey

Introduction

Today I am going to discuss the stages of being an author. These stages are my opinion. These stages may not be true for every single author out there. I realize every author is going to have their own journey. But when I think over my own author journey, these are the stages I noticed. It may be that you will notice yourself somewhere on this journey as well.

While it may take one author a year or two to get through one stage, it could take another author 5 to 10 years to get through the same stage. Each author’s journey will be unique to their own situation. Some of us will need more time in one stage than another. It’s even possible that an author might bounce back-and-forth between stages. For example, an author may be in stage three but then reverts back to stage two or an author in stage four may find they have gone back to stage three. I have noticed the progression was not linear for me, so it may not be linear for everyone.

With that said, let’s get into the meat and potatoes of this post.

Stage one: Novice at Play

During this stage, all of the story ideas are fresh and brand new. Writing is complete play at this level. The author has not thought of things like word choice, passive versus active voice, repetition, and other elements that come into the nuts and bolts of writing a story. The author at this stage may understand concepts like plot, character development, foreshadowing, and other storytelling elements, but these will be raw in form.

Some authors will give little thought to an audience. Back in 2007 to 2010, the thought of making anything with your writing as a self published author was foreign. I think that was to the benefit of many authors, especially me. This is my opinion, of course. Some may argue, and rightfully so, the thought of having an audience as a new writer is better because it forces you  to pay careful attention to polishing up your story early on in your author journey. I, however, believe that the joy of simply writing out a story that stems from the heart is far more important. The passion is what will drive the author to naturally develop compelling stories. The author will want to fine-tune the craft elements to make stories even better. When you are doing what you love, you will improve without being told to.

Stage two: The Mechanics of Writing

This is when the author realizes they have an audience. Suddenly, the author realizes that someone out there is reading their books. For me, this was the most frightening stage of all. I found it much easier to write when I believed I was the only person who is ever going to read the story I wrote. Some people wonder why I bothered publishing books when I didn’t believe they would ever find an audience. I published my books because I wanted an easy format to read them in. I wanted them in paperback and e-book so I wouldn’t have to lug around a computer or notebook whenever I wanted to read my book. Today, most authors are looking to make money, so they will go in to this with the expectation of finding an audience. Because of that, finding an audience will not scare them away. Knowing you have an audience puts pressure on you to pay attention to the way you are writing your stories.

This is where the critique groups come in. I realize not every writer is going to join a critique group, but authors will want to polish up their stories the best that they can. After all, if the goal is money, you want to present a professional product. Books that are haphazardly written and thrown up onto a retailer do not make the most money. There has to be some compelling element to the story to get a reader to invest their money into the book. And let’s say your goal is not money. You still want the reader to enjoy the story. Loving the process of writing will make you want to sharpen your skills as a writer and that will make you grow exponentially in your storytelling.

Writing at this stage is still fun, but it is more challenging.

Stage three: The Heights of Success

This is where you make more money or you develop a larger reader base than you dreamed possible. There is a lot of enthusiasm and excitement at this level. There is also quite a few low points because while you are receiving praise from people who love your work, you are also receiving criticism from people who hate your work. Most likely, you will be tempted to change your book to appease the critic.

I have done this, and all I can say, is that it’s a pointless endeavor. I do not believe there is any point in trying to please the critic.  I spent a couple of years changing a few of my books, and I never once heard a critic say they reread those books and were happy with the changes that I made. The critic is not likely to stick around or care. Or if the critic does stick around, all they do is read your new stuff and find more reasons to criticize your work. That has been my experience. Maybe there’s an author out there with a different experience. All I know is that I had readers who genuinely loved my work, and they were disappointed in the changes I made to the books. So in the end, I change those books back to their original form.  I learned that it is far more important to focus on the people that love your work than to chase after pleasing the critic.

With that said, this stage is a lot of fun because you are reaping the rewards for your effort. The praise will outweigh the criticisms. If you’re in this stage, enjoy every moment of it. It’s a natural high in the author journey.

Stage four: What Goes Up Must Come Down

No author will ever stay at the top forever. This is some thing I believe with all my heart. Sooner or later income drops. Sooner or Later, you’re not growing readership as quickly as you were before. Sooner or later, it gets a little harder to keep up the momentum for writing. Sooner or later, the highs wain. I think it’s a fact of life. There is not a single creative person who has stayed at the top forever. Someone else will come in and take your place.  This stage is probably the second scariest one because you start to believe you have lost your edge. You start to wonder if you’re doing something wrong. You think that it used to be easy, or at least easier than it is now. You didn’t change anything, so why is the stuff you used to do no longer working?

This is a stage where I tried everything I could to get things going again. I started chasing different marketing fads. I tried to write faster than I did before. I even wrote to market. I pushed aside passion projects, believing that if I wrote to market, I would get back to stage three. I was afraid if I didn’t keep the momentum up, I was going to lose my readers. I was also afraid that I was going to lose my clout as an author in the writing community because I no longer had the sales to back up the stuff that I was saying.

This stage, to me, is the hamster in the wheel stage. Basically, you throw everything and the kitchen sink at the wall and hope something sticks. Sometimes the effort will work, and you’ll see a boost, but sometimes you will see no reward for your efforts at all. It’s unpredictable. And that is what makes it so stressful.

This is when you truly understand how much writing has become a business, whether you went into this intending for the writing to be a business or not. The business side ends up taking a toll on your emotional health.

Stage five: The Great Depression

For authors who sincerely cares about what they’re doing on an emotional level, watching your income drop means that you are not succeeding in pleasing your audience. Now, I realize that you are pleasing the readers who have loved your work the entire time. I hate to say it, but it is easy to lose sight of those people when you start to think of reaching more and more people. You see, making money is more than a financial goal. The goal is to get more more readers for your books. When an author makes more money,  they are assured they are finding a wider audience. So, when income goes down, what it really means is that less people care about our work. That’s what makes this stage so depressing.

After stage four, the author comes to realize there is nothing that they can do. A lot of this stuff is out of our control. We can’t control who sees the book. We can’t control who takes an interest in the book. We can’t control who decides to buy the book. We can’t control who decides to review the book. We can’t decide who tells other people about the book. so much of being a published author is outside our control.

At this stage, the author has to decide whether to keep writing or to quit. If they keep writing, do they keep writing the same genre, or do they move on to something else? There’s a lot of back-and-forth between continuing versus quitting. There would be days during this stage that I would cry for hours at a time because the whole thing seems pointless. I would just dream of quitting. I imagined how much less stress I would feel in my life if I could simply not be a writer anymore. When I was just a stay-at-home mom, I didn’t have the kind of stress I did as a published author. I didn’t have to meet deadlines, I didn’t have to keep up word counts, I didn’t have to keep coming up with new story ideas, and I didn’t have to worry about managing a business that I had to report every year to my accountant.

There are valid reasons an author may just want to throw in the towel and walk away. Writing is a creative process. That creativity takes a lot of work out of an author, and there are times when it can be draining. This is an aspect that is rarely ever brought up in the writing community. Most writers just want to act like writing is always easy and fun. I know there’s the saying that goes something like, “you bleed words onto the page.” But it is very hard to keep coming back to the page when almost every single day it feels like you are pulling teeth to get every word down. You go through this struggle for a good year or two and it leads to burnout. You can only fight burnout for so long before it finally catches up to you. And then you hit rock bottom. That is where this stage leads if the author chooses to keep writing in spite of it being so hard and painful.

Looking back, if I had given myself permission to slow down, or at least take an extended vacation from writing, I could have saved myself a lot of grief. There were a couple of author friends who advised me to take a break, but the reason I told myself I couldn’t was because I was the primary breadwinner in my household. My husband and my children depended on me to keep bringing money in. I felt trapped, so I kept on writing.

Stage six: It All Comes Full Circle but with Some Benefits

I feel like this is the stage where things take a turn for the better. I believe I am just now entering this particular stage. I knew I’d been carrying the weight of stage five years, but I didn’t realize just how heavy that weight was until I made the decision to walk away from writing. Suddenly, I felt like I could relax. And in relaxing, my mind was finally able to rest. Then a spark came to me. The spark was brief, but it was there. I didn’t do anything about it. Then I felt another spark, and this one lasted longer. This happened for quite some time. I didn’t do anything with these sparks at first because I really wanted to give my mind time to decompress from everything. I just let the sparks come and go, but then I felt that longing to get back to the page. And I hadn’t felt that longing since stage three.

I am still figuring the stage out, but I suspect that this is the stage where the enthusiasm for writing returns, and when it returns, it will bring wisdom. When I say, wisdom, I mean that I am aware there’s an audience out there, I am aware the critic is out there, I am aware that income goes up and down, and  I am aware that there are times I need to slow down and take a break. I am no longer under the illusion that money is easy to make and that income will always go up. While that might seem depressing, I find it freeing. Now, when I publish a book, I am not under the weight of having to sell a certain number of copies in order to validate myself as a published author. I don’t feel that I have anything to prove to myself or to anyone else anymore. I have come to the point where I don’t care what the critics say about my work.  I am still concerned about what the people who love my work think of my future books, but since they have been so supportive and encouraging in the past, I am confident that they will be pleased.

I believe this is the stage where authors get to play again. I am looking forward to entering this stage. This time, validation of the work does not come from income, nor does it come from the number of readers I have. Validation comes from the story itself. As long as I am living out the adventure in the story, that will be the reward.

BookFunnel Historical Romance Giveaway

For the month of December, 53 BookFunnel authors are running a promotion called Historical Romance Giveaway. I have added my book, The Earls Inconvenienced Wife, to this giveaway. If you haven’t read it yet, now is a great time to do so.

In addition to my book, there are other romances that look like they’ll make good reads. I encourage you to check it out you might find your next favorite author.

Click here for the link

If you’re having trouble with the link above, here is the full link: https://books.bookfunnel.com/awesomehistoricalromancefreebies/ts7ygd5ux4

Setting Up for a Book Signing at a Craft Show

I finally remembered to take pictures of Janet Syas Nitsick and I setting up a table at a craft show. I thought it might be fun to show you the process.

Before anything is done:

In the background, we had the poster for Janet’s book, the stand, the suitcase full of her paperbacks, the bag containing materials to set up books and her purse for giving people change when they bought her books.

Setting the skirt around the table:

This is my least favorite task because you need to tape it down, and you have to do this every couple of inches for the skirt to stay in place.

Laying the rest of the cloths on top of the table:

There is tape under the coverings, but since you’re not trying to hold the skirt up in place while setting them down, it’s not so bad to deal with.

Setting the poster up:

Janet has always done this in the past, so I didn’t really pay attention to what she did. This last time, however, she had to run back to her home to pick up some of the items we forgot. It took me about a half hour of browsing through You Tube videos to figure out how to set up the easel.

During the time I was trying to figure out how to set up the easel for the poster, I set all of the books on the side of the table. Janet was getting the items we needed to place the books on display.

Table ready to go for the next day:

At this point, all of the books are set up. I love setting the books up because it’s always fun to see beautiful covers on display.

The day of the craft show, Janet is wearing her historical outfit to go with her books:

I enjoy being at these craft shows. I get to sit and talk with Janet. I get to talk to people who are passing by. Sometimes I’ll come across something to get from another vendor that I can use. I have lost count of how many people come by seeing if Janet has a new book out. (She will when we go the craft show in April.) These are people who have bought her other books in the past at the craft shows and have come to love her books. So I would say these craft shows end up being a good thing if a local author can keep going to them.

In my opinion, it’s more satisfying to talk to people who enjoy the books than walk away with the money. (Janet is a good saleswoman, so she makes back more than the cost of being the vendor, but really, these craft shows are not going to earn a lot of money.) It seems that the main payoff to doing these shows has to do with the interaction an author gets from meeting readers face-to-face. In a world full of screens, it’s nice to make human connections. One time I was fortunate enough to have the pleasure of meeting someone who recognized my name. (This was someone who reads both my books and Janet’s books.) I can’t tell you just how thrilling that was for me.

Authors Should Write Their Own Books Instead of Relying on AI to Do It For Them

I have been giving this matter some serious thought over the past few weeks. Though I have put writing books on the back burner for now, I still like to keep up-to-date on what’s happening in the world of writing. With AI becoming more and more popular, this is going to lead to the debate over whether or not authors should use AI to do the job of writing books for them. When I say “write books”, I mean typing in a sentence or two and then letting AI write an entire scene around it. (An author does enough of these, AI will essentially write the book.) Even if the author tweaks things, it’s still not a story the author is writing.

My primary concern over using AI to write the story (and even in creating the story) stems from how AI is getting the material. AI is not a creative entity. It needs to take material from already published books. I realize AI is not going to take these books word-for-word when it throws out a few paragraphs, but the raw material from other books is still there. This has the potential of leading to copyright lawsuits. What happens when an author with enough money finds out that someone has been using AI to write a book that is “way too similar” to theirs? Sure, I haven’t heard of this being a problem yet, but authors using AI to help them write their books is still new. We don’t know what ramifications could pop up down the road, and I see no reason to take the chance.

In my opinion, authors are much better off writing everything in their story. I can see using AI for help with the minor stuff, but this is stuff we could do during a brainstorming session with other people. For example, AI would be okay if you’re looking for a synonym or antonym for a word. Or AI could work to help with a plot point you’re struggling with. Say, you get stuck, and you’re trying to decide what would happen if a character did X or Y. You could run the scenario through the AI program to help guide you on the best course. (Just as you could talk the scenario over with another person who could give you ideas.) Simple tasks like this should be okay because it doesn’t involve actually writing the story out.

(This is where I ramble…) The main barrier I can see to authors writing their own stuff is the possibility of burnout. If you’re making your living primarily from publishing books, then you need to keep getting books out to stay solvent. This puts a lot of stress on the author. My books have always been my source of income. I never cared to get into making covers or editing because I’ve heard way too many horror stories of the way cover artists and editors got treated by authors who should have known better than to treat these people like crap. (Please treat cover artists and editors well.) There are other ways authors make additional income (kickstarter, workshops, podcasting to name a few), but all I ever wanted to do was write. I am awful at marketing. I guess there is the possibility of hiring an assistant, but would you believe I was quoted, “$30 an hour” with NO possibility of seeing their references? If I’m going to spend $30/hr, I want to know what other authors these assistants worked for. How do I know if these authors benefited from their assistance or not if I don’t know who these authors are? For all I know, these assistants are doing a lousy job and getting paid handsomely for it. (…end rambling.)

I doubt I’m the only author who relies mainly on their writing income to keep money coming in. I have always written my own stuff. I did not hire out ghostwriters, but that was a personal preference. I went into writing because I loved my characters and their stories. If I were to put my name on something I didn’t write, I wouldn’t feel a connection to the book, and it’s the connection to the book that makes it so much fun to go back and reread it. I primarily wrote books I wanted to read. Back in 2006-2007, I searched high and low for a romance author who wrote stories I specially wanted to read but couldn’t find any except for Carolyn Davidson, and she was only one author. I wanted more books. So I wrote them myself. I am a horrible business person because this writing thing is not “business” to me.

I understand for a lot of authors, this is a business. Even if this is a business, I would advise you to not use AI to write the stories. Be careful with using ghostwriters, too. You don’t want to use a ghostwriter who uses AI, nor do you want a ghostwriter who plagiarizes other authors. Vet these ghostwriters. I don’t know how to vet them, but research on how to do it and then do it. We are in the wild west of AI. I can see authors struggling with burnout (like me) and choosing to rely on AI in order to put books out there. I have been in groups where authors celebrate all of the “words” AI helped them “write” that day. While this is exciting on the surface, it has its share of risks.

I think the best thing an author can do is write the book yourself. If you want to hand over the marketing to an assistant to help clear out time for you to write, that $30/hr is way better spent than using AI to get “words” in the story for you. If you can manage it, look for additional sources of income to help supplement your writing income. I have decided to take time off from writing while I recoup from burnout, but not everyone has the ability to choose the path I did. Whatever you do, it’s best to buffer yourself from any problems AI could generate for you down the road.

Also…let’s not forget the emotional (non-business) angle of this equation. I would think that your readers are reading your books because of “you”. There is only one you on the entire planet. You have your own creative spark that brings that special something to your books that your readers love. AI can never replace that spark. No ghostwriter can replace it. I have read ghostwritten books, and they are not as good as the authors’ work. Maybe they sell better, but the quality just isn’t the same. It’s better to write less books with the “need to read it again” factor than to write something that’s only read once.

Yes, the money is nice, but it’s not a guarantee. My writing income has dropped so much over the years that it won’t be long before my family will actually start getting tax refunds again. At first, I panicked over the continual dropping of my writing income, but now I’ve come to accept it. And guess what? I still have those books I spent those years writing, and I love these books. I enjoy them as much as I did when I wrote them. I don’t regret writing them. I chose to write for passion, and it paid off. It didn’t just pay off for me. There are some readers who let me know how much they enjoy them, too, and that’s the icing on the cake that very few authors think about. When you are writing the story, you are crafting something you love. That love shows up in the work. That love can’t be replaced. So write your own books. In the end, it’s worth it.

If anyone reading this blog post is in the Omaha area, I will be at the Saint Matthew’s craft show this Saturday

I’ll be in Bellevue, Nebraska this Saturday to help my good friend, Janet Syas Nitsick, to sell her books. This is a picture of Janet and the table we were sitting at during the last craft show we went to in Gretna, Nebraska. It was taken last month.

We have a lot of fun at this craft shows, and it’s some thing I look forward to going to. Though I personally do not sell my books at these shows, it’s so fun to meet people. Quite a few people come looking for Janet, and they ask her if she has any new books out. The good news is she will have a new book by the time we have the next craft show we’re going to in April. But for the time being, if anybody wants to come to just say hi, we would both be thrilled to see you.

If you happen to be in the Bellevue area and would like to try out another local author, we will have a fantasy series available. This series is written by Krystine Kercher, and we met her shortly after I moved back to Nebraska. She dropped off the books with us last weekend, and she signed them. So, if you love fantasy, I recommend you check these out. If you are unable to come by to check out the paperbacks, she does have these books available as ebooks. You can check out the link here. She described the series to me, it sounds interesting, but I have to wait until they are in audiobook form before I can read them.

I just finished listening to Janet’s latest book, The Librarian’s Secret, and it was really good. The hero and heroine are so sweet together. The secret that the hero’s father was hiding surprised me because I didn’t think it was going to be as bad as it was, but I’m glad that Janet took it in the direction she did because the story came together so beautifully with it. In addition to the secret, Janet used other characters in the story to demonstrate that though we are imperfect, we can find grace and forgiveness with the Lord Jesus Christ. I wasn’t sure how Janet was going to make the secret work with a plot, but she did an outstanding job. I highly recommend this book if you haven’t read it yet. It is a sweet Christian romance. I was sorry when it ended. She now has all of her romances available on the Apple Store and audiobook form. I am trying to get her set up on Google Play so she can have e-book and audiobooks over there, too. I think both Apple and Google Play do a really good job of creating digitally narrated books. They both have their different styles, but once you’re in the story, you don’t even think about how the book is being read to you; you only think about the story itself. I know people keep saying digital narration isn’t worth it, but for people who struggle with reading things, digital narration, has opened up a new world to them, which is why I’m a big supporter of this technology. For someone used to listening to human narrators, the digital narration is a bit jarring, but if you continue to listen to it, you really do get used to it.

Anyway, if you’re inclined and able to come to the Saint Matthews craft show on Saturday, please stop by our booth and say hi. Though I don’t have any books on hand, I would be thrilled to sign a piece of paper so that you can have my autograph, I will be the one in T-shirt and jeans sitting next to Janet who will be in a beautiful dress with a nice hat. Just ask if I’m Ruth, and I’ll know that you read this blood post, and we can chat for a while.

Here is the address and times for the craft show:

Saint Matthew Church, 12210 S. 36th Street, Bellevue, NE 68123

Saturday (Nov 11, 2023) 9am-3pm

There is a $1 admission fee, which I can refund for you since you’re coming to see me and Janet and to possibly check out Janet’s and Krystine’s books.

Publishing Schedule for Next Year, Walking Away from Writing (at least for now), and Decided to Quit Bookfunnel

The Earl’s Jilted Bride and Worth the Risk will be out next year

Things have gone to a crawl with the edits. I am relying more on other people to do the edits for me at this point, thanks to my eyes. Both of these books are still in edits:

I am going around the other people’s schedules. They have lives of their own, and the fact that they’re willing to help me out is greatly appreciated. In the past, I did have an editor or two look over my books, along with a couple of beta readers. But the issue with my eyes have just forced my hand. I used to give the book a thorough read through. I can’t physically do that anymore. I have to hand over the reins to others on the entire editing side of things.

So I don’t know when these two books will be out, but I’m planning on them coming out next year.

My eyes are just not able to do the work anymore & it’s been nice to walk away from writing

I was able to go in and modify a scene this morning in Worth the Risk to eliminate a cliffhanger I had put in. Just in case I can’t do another book in this series, I am going to close up any cliffhangers remaining.

After one hour on the computer, I started getting the gritty feeling in my left eye. That’s a sign that my eyes are not liking the strain I’m putting them under. For almost a month, I have been off the computer except for checking my online bank account and doing my bookkeeping for the accountant, and my eyes felt wonderful. I didn’t need drops. They weren’t watering up anymore. I felt normal again.

Maybe it’s the burnout talking at this point, but I have enjoyed not writing anything for the past couple of months. I didn’t realize how bad the burnout was until I stopped making myself go to the computer. The eyes forced my hand on stopping with the writing, but the break has felt like a lot of pressure has been lifted from my shoulders. I still have story ideas. I just don’t want to write them. At least not now. I don’t know if I will ever want to write them. I would rather just let the stories play out in my head at this point.

I’m not sure what to make of all of this. In writing circles, it’s all about writing and publishing and promotion. If you aren’t writing all the time, you’re not a “real” writer. If you’re not producing books to sell, then you aren’t a “smart business-minded” writer. If you’re not making money, you’re not worth listening to because you don’t know what you’re talking about. And it’s like once you do establish your “brand”, you’re expected to do this for the rest of your life. It feels like you can’t quit because if you do, you are either a failure or you’re letting people down. I’ve been struggling with a lot of guilt over the fact that I don’t want to write anymore. At least, I don’t want to write right now. I don’t know if that will change or not. A part of it’s scary. And I don’t know what to do.

So I guess I’m taking a pause. I will let those books go through edits because they’re done, and I want them out there to complete the Marriage by Obligation Series. But I have decided to stop working on any other books, at least for the time being as I allow myself to decompress from the past decade where I did little else but write all the time. I started writing these romances back in 2008. It’s 2023. I realize that “real” and “serious” writers never quit, but if I am not considered a “real” or “serious” writer after getting over 100 written and published across the total amount of books I’ve done, then I will never be a “real” or “serious” writer. I’m exhausted, so I’m going to walk away from writing indefinitely.

I’m not going to worry about Bookfunnel

The main perk of Bookfunnel seems to be the ARCs, the newsletter swaps, and the part where you give away a book to have someone sign up for your email list. Since I have no plans to publish books beyond The Earl’s Jilted Bride and Worth the Risk, I see no value in being on Bookfunnel. I am going to close my account with them. I can’t do social media and do the newsletter swaps with other writers. My eyes won’t let me on the computer to do that. I have no intention (at least right now) of continuing my “writer business”, so there will be no more emails to send out to readers and no need to worry about ARCs. I was under the impression that Bookfunnel let you sell your books over there, but all Bookfunnel really does is let you do a link to a store you already have elsewhere (like Payhip). I’m done wasting my time on places that don’t do me any good.

Question for those of you who use BookFunnel

I recently signed up to be on BookFunnel, but I am not sure what to do with it. There’s so much, and I’m feeling overwhelmed. For those who like my books and use BookFunnel, what do you go there for?

When I look at this poll on my computer, I can’t see the options. When I look at it on my iPhone, I can see it. In case you can’t see the options, where they are:

ARCs (Advanced Review Copies)To view the books offered in the group promos with a variety of authorsTo find new books to BUY at other retailers (this would be paid books, not free ones)To see samples or chapters of an author’s bookTo sign up on an author’s email list (so you get a free book in exchange for signing up on their list)

The button in the lower right side says “submit”.

I assume this is an issue only I am dealing with, but just in case, I typed all of those out. Just click the one button that best describes you. Then click the submit button.

You can leave a comment instead if you wish.

Should you create audiobooks?

Today’s post has been dictated with a microphone I have on my computer. So please be understanding if there are errors that pop up in this post.

For the past month, I have been having a conversation with another author keeps asking me about whether or not audiobooks are worth it.I thought I would address this question in this blog post today for any authors who may be reading this. When deciding, whether or not to create audiobooks, it all boils down to one simple question: how important is it for you to get your books out in a format that is easy for people to listen to? (Note: I mean “listen” to. There are people who can only listen to books. They can’t physically read them.)

Not everybody is able to physically read a book. I am one such person. If I spend more than 20 minutes, reading anything, my eyes will give me a lot of grief. I get a headache. My eyes water up. My vision gets fuzzy for a minute. It’s not a comfortable experience, which is why I stopped reading unless I had to. There are other people like me out there in this world who exist, but they aren’t the majority of people out there. If you think to yourself, “There’s no point in making audiobooks, if I can’t make money off of it,” then that’s a fair argument for not creating audiobooks. I won’t pretend that money doesn’t matter. It does matter.

But, to play devil’s advocate, let me ask you this: how much money do you make off of ebooks? How much money do you make off of paperbacks? If you’re not making a living doing this with ebooks and paperbacks, why do you keep making them?

Perhaps, and this is just a thought, the main objection to creating audiobooks could stem from the fact that Amazon is not allowing digitally narrated books on their site. When it comes down to it, I think a lot of authors are still obsessed with Amazon. I think authors decide that if they can’t do something on Amazon, then it’s not worth doing at all. Personally, I think it’s just a matter of time before Amazon will set up a program like Google play has where you can upload your file and get a converted into an audiobook using digital narration. At this point in time, I expect a lot of authors to jump on this. But for now, the question really is whether or not you think having your books an audio form on a platform that is not Amazon is worth it. And a lot of authors will say, “No it’s not worth it.”

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know what I think about Amazon. This is one company that has treated authors like crap. Ever since 2011, I have had problems with Amazon. I have had more problems with Amazon than I have had with any other retailer. That is why I never go into Kindle Unlimited. I have stayed wide this entire time, and I will continue to do so. Even if I end up, making no money at all on my books, I will not jump in the Kindle Unlimited. I will not be under the thumb of a company who has the power to destroy my entire author career. The safest bet is to be wide, to be in as many retailers as you can. If something does happen on Amazon, you have other places where your readers can find you. You don’t have to start from scratch and hope you can build a platform on those other retailers. It’s easier to just do it from the beginning, even if the money isn’t as great.

Google Play, and Apple are offering readers like me, who struggle with reading a book, the option to listen to them. Authors do not have to be exclusive to Amazon, to do a human narrated book where the author hast to split the royalties with a narrator. When Amazon does this, Amazon also puts the price tag on the book. And these books can be expensive compared to e-books. With Google Play, I get to set my own price. Since this is done with digital narration, I don’t have to pay an aerator to do this, and to be honest, I could not afford to pay an aerator, because I no longer make the kind of money that would allow me to do that. The only way I can get my books into audio form. These days is to have a retailer like Google, let me do it for free on their platform. Google takes a cut of the sale when I sell an audiobook and I get the rest. I use draft a digital to get my books and the audio form on apple. Draft 2 Digital takes a cut, and Apple takes a cut, I get the rest. In this case, I suggest a price, and I do suggest a price or I have the e-books for that, but Apple and Draft 2 Digital price it a bit higher. I have no control over that. It’s a small price difference from Google Play, but it’s still cheaper than what you would find on Amazon. I’m not making big bucks over there, but it’s more important to me that I am able to listen to my own books because I cannot longer physically read them. I got into this writing gig so I could read my own stuff. I wasn’t thinking of sales. I am my own customer. The decisions I make about my books, or whether or not, I get benefit from it as a reader.

But your reason for writing may be different from mine, and if it is, then you have to decide whether or not making audiobooks is worth it to you. If it’s not, don’t do it. But please do not ask people like me, who have trouble reading, to read your books, because we can’t physically do it.

What Dictation Looks Like & Reflections on Being a Writer

On my laptop is a feature that allows me to dictate what I’m saying. This is on the laptop which I bought in February of this year. On the F5 key is a microphone, and when I hit this microphone, I am able to speak the words you are reading right now in the sport post. As you can see from the previous sentence, this is not perfect. I did not say sport post. I said blog post. Obviously, clarity and how I speak plays a role in this.

Well, I don’t expect this feature to be perfect, I am left wondering how much of this is a viable option when I am dictating a story using my word program. For example, I did not start the last sentence with the last word “well”. I started it with the word “while”. “Well” and “while” sound similar. Words like this will make it harder to know what I was really saying. Sure, the fact that these words came at the beginning of a sentence, makes it easier to decipher what I was trying to say, but there will be times where these inconsistencies occur in the middle of a sentence. That can change the whole meaning of a sentence. I am not sure I can even go back and reread what I spoke in order to clean up these messages. Messes such as the one that just occurred at the beginning of the sentence and at the end of the last sentence. I did not say “messages”. I said “messes”, and I had to physically type “messes” in because no matter how many times I said, the correct word, the program did not understand it. These are the kind of errors that makes dictation a huge pain in the butt.

Other errors likely to occur will be incorrect spelling of a word. The English language has some words that have the same sound, but based on their meaning, they will have different ways of spelling them. While this program does a good job of picking out most of these, nothing is perfect, and this could end up being a nightmare for someone who reads through this and tries to clean it up to edit it in order to get it ready for publication. Let’s say, I mean the word “discrete”. But I meant DISCREET, not the word that just came up in the last sentence. Granted, I have been known to make this mistake while typing, but those mistakes would be few, and far between because most the time I will get the right spelling for the word.

While the technology is impressive, it cannot compensate for every mistake. Someone has to go over the words to read them. I cannot just speak the book and have it ready for an editor. I would have to have someone come in and clean it up. That would take considerable time. The way I figure it, it will take anywhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour to do one chapter. I cannot expect anyone to do this amount of work for free. I don’t think my eyes can tolerate doing this work without substantial breaks and time. I just got through editing, the Earls jilted bride, and my eyes needed a break for well over a week after that. The longer the book, the more intense edits are. It gets even more complicated when you have to look at punctuation, because even though I speak the punctuation as I’m saying it, it doesn’t always come out correctly.

The average cost of an assistant is $15 an hour. Sometimes it’s more if the assistant has more experience. I figured that it would cost me anywhere between $350-$500 to pay someone to go through and clean up the Dictation on my book. That is in addition to the other expenses that go into publishing a book. One of the most frustrating things writers have to deal with is this idea that it’s so easy to write a book, and because it’s so easy, the book should be free. I don’t mind offering a free book from time to time. I have quite a few books that are permanently free. But I, like other writers out there, cannot offer every single book free. In order to keep writing and publishing books, writers have to make more on the book then it cost to produce the book. And right there in the last sentence, the “then” should have been “than”. Yet another error that has to be compensated for when someone is reading over what I dictate.

To get back to my point, however, this idea that authors are greedy for asking for money for their work is tiresome. We do a lot of work when we write our books and get them ready for publication. It takes time and effort to produce a story that people will enjoy. Books don’t magically pop up out of nowhere. There is a lot of work people never see that goes into making a book. The love of storytelling is what propels us to do this, but we can get burned out because this is not an easy job to be in. For one, it doesn’t pay very much for most writers. I know there is a lot of bragging from the six-figure authors, but keep in mind that most authors are not making that. Most authors aren’t even making enough to pay their bills. The worst part is that it seems that no matter how much we do to create a professional product, we can’t please everybody. There’s always someone out there, who will have a complaint, and no matter what the complaint is, the customers always say this right, so the writer is left to just suck it up. And on top of that, you have to worry about people, stealing your work, and publishing it as if it’s their own. So no, it is not wrong for us to ask to be paid for book. In order to be able to afford producing a book, we have to make the money. In order to have a viable business, we have to make a profit. In short, I don’t think I can afford an assistant to go over all of my chapters in the book that I dictate. The cost is too great. I am not making the kind of money I used to make.

And this brings me, in a roundabout way, to my point of this entire post. My eyes just may not be able to handle this. I have been off the computer for three days now. My eyes have felt like normal. I had a headache around my eye, but I think that stem more from stress than eyestrain. I have a lot going on in my personal life. It’s not necessarily bad, but I do pretty much run around from sun up to sundown every day, and that’s not even time on the computer. During the course of dictating this post, I have made an effort to clean up some of the errors the dictation is making. I guess at the moment, when I feel fine, but I have had some interruptions along the way, so I have been on the computer for a total of two hours on and off. If writing is like this with a Dictation software I just don’t know if I’m up for this. It’s more than dry eye. It’s eye strain. I have seen the ophthalmologist and optometrist. There is nothing structurally wrong with my eyes. I have the narrow tear ducks, and my eyes don’t produce enough oil, which is why I’m having dry; however, I really do believe all of the years I sat in front of a computer screen hour after hour, day, after day, month, after month, without any sufficient breaks, has contributed to the condition I am currently in. This is something that I don’t think most people will see in writing groups.

In writing groups, authors are encouraged to do whatever it takes to get those words on the page. There are books about writing 5000 words in a day. Sometimes are books about writing your first draft in a week. I think that is horrible advice. By advice to writers, is it take care of your eyes. Maybe you’ll be fine. Maybe you can’t go for a long period of time and not be affected the way I have been, but if I could go back in time, I would have told myself to slow down and to take those breaks. Have a feeling that my future self would tell my current self to take those walks, to spend the time cooking meals that are high in nutrients instead of taking a shortcut and getting prepackaged, pre-processed foods. I do not want to end up on medication, and I don’t want to end up going to a doctors office all the time. I am currently in good shape except for my eyes. My priority is going to be my health. My second priority is going to be my family and my friends. My kids are on the cusp of adulthood where they will start moving out. I want to spend as much time with them as I can while they are still here. I am lucky that I have friends in that I can spend time with. And, so let’s not leave him out, my husband needs some time and attention too. He and I have been married for 23 years, and we still date. I think that’s important. I don’t only love reading and writing about romance, but I have been very lucky to have the kind of marriage that I like to portray in my books. Relationships need to be nurtured, just like our health.

I am going to end a post here. I did my best to edit the errors I found, except for the ones that I wanted to point out. I will say that I was going back quite a few times to correct things so that people could understand what I was saying. However, I am sure there are errors that I missed along the way.