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Agony Aunt
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Today I mostly wrote ... the word count thread.
Just doing the final edits to the latest book in the Anna Davies Mystery Series - Missing in London.If you haven't read the two earlier books in the series, maybe you might like to check them out before the next one is released?
Missing in Egypt
Book 1 in the Anna Davies Mystery Series
Missing in Egypt will intrigue you with its twists and turns, romance and adventure as well as its insights into Australian and Egyptian cultures. Australian Anna Davies travels to Egypt with her lover to help him search for his brother, who disappeared whilst on holiday. The Valley of the Kings, Abu Simbel and the Temple of Karnak are amongst the settings for their search. Will they be able to track him down and find him alive - or is Ramy already dead? What tragedies await Anna and Kareem as they come closer to retracing his footsteps? This fast-paced action plot will keep you guessing until the end.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JOUIIE/
LARGE PRINT EDITION:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/149121872X/
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...
Missing at Sea
Book 2 in the Anna Davies Mystery Series
Three years on from Egypt, Anna Davies embarks on her first cruise with best friend Sandra. A few days into the holiday they are woken by three blasts from the ship’s foghorn, indicating that someone has fallen overboard. A woman is lost at sea; the ship turns around to search for her, but she has disappeared into the night.
Was it suicide? Did she lose her balance and fall - or was there foul play involved? Did her husband push her? Would anyone be able to prove whether this was murder or an unfortunate accident?
What a perfect place to stage a murder!
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XFKJTV4/
Large Print: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1544735111/
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
M.T. wrote: "Well done Jim and at least you spotted it. No harm done.Pam, hang in there and keep going...."
Thanks M.T. Last couple of days I wrote a new scene in a notebook then typed it up and revised it as I went. Before that, I wrote another new scene to avoid a couple of exposition bits later.
The latest new scene is because the protagonist has three friends who are very important in the book and one of them wasn't introduced until chapter 5 .... I suddenly felt I really ought to bring him in earlier. Now need to get back to the main edit!
Just over 400 in the new book and about the same in the old one I'm editing.
I admire your ability to multitask, Kath.Good job.
It's my inability to concentrate on one thing that's the problem.
Thanks Rita, go ... Everyone and Jim, more Benor? Excellent. Wrote up some blog stuff - unpublished - but realised with more than a little horror that I have a 50th birthday party to plan. Gulp.
Also have some 50th birthday parties to attend. Also still on holiday. Loved my write while they ski week though.
Cheers
MTM
Yo! 50th birthdays have receded into the mists. My kids will be next to experience a semi-century.880 words on the new one - now back into the edit.
345. Baby steps, as they say. Spent most of this morning emailing friends to catch up.
Got my Welsh Legends project typed up and submitted.For anyone who wants to waste 7 minutes, over the weekend a friend recorded me doing this piece which isn't included in the collection. It's an abridged version, as the full thing is nearly 10 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbxDW...
Kath wrote: "It's my inability to concentrate on one thing that's the problem."Same here Kath!
Finally got back to the main edit today and did a lot of work so pleased to be making progress.
373. I usually manage over a thousand a day when I'm in full on writing mode, but I'm off to do some editing now, and I have three beta reads awaiting my attention. I feel it's important to keep it ticking over, though. It's only going to be a short story but I don't want it to drag on for months.
I've now successfully uploaded content to the Cd producers for the first of the Tinkers' Tales recordings, and am working on the artwork...
Will wrote: "I've now successfully uploaded content to the Cd producers for the first of the Tinkers' Tales recordings, and am working on the artwork..."I think part of the pleasure of being self-published is having the choice to 'work on the artwork' - and decide for yourself if you have the ability to produce what you like. The finished product is more 'you' than otherwise.
It was not too hard. The duplication company have an online template, similar to Createspace's. Kay had chosen the cover image (one of my own photographs), I just needed to add text and add inside sleeve stuff. Very basic, but quite adequate
Including the hidden cost of mastering the audio files which were already in WAV format, the CD cost comes out at £ 2 p unit.
Including the mastering cost.Do you pay yourself a wage for the work (as you would pay someone else (or did you pay a voice actor?)?
Or is your cut the eventual profit from selling the CD?
Where do you sell?
I read Audible's cut is rather significant, and they lower prices (to attract customers) when they feel like it. Is that why you're creating the CDs?
My cut will be the profit, as I didn't need a voice actor.I'm planning to sell at gigs, bookfairs and via my website - and Amazon.
When doing this stuff, you need to be aware that ACX only want an MP3 file - but if you only record in MP3 it is pointless producing a CD, as it won't play on a home hifi system, and may not play in some car systems either.
An audiobook is a different thing entirely, it's like an ebook in the way Amazon treat you...
All details to explore carefully right before plunging in to the production of audio versions.I have to figure out how to voice three different pov characters, two women and one man, and am going for the 'as READ by author' version, not an acted one. There is a difference.
When I have ANY spare energy, I'll try doing the easy, podcast version of a sample chapter - possibly as a Patreon reward - and work out some of the details. Then I'll know if I want to proceed properly recording the whole thing.
You may get a question or two sometime in the medium future.
No writing for me today! I've sent for the CreateSpace proof copy of my next book, Missing in London! I do however have to work on the Kindle and Smashwords versions.
Yay! Getting the proof copy is slower than digital, but so satisfying.
Today's task will be formatting the text of the Myths & Legends recordings so that I can release an ebook/paperback and then start work on the audiobook files. (Got all the recordings, just have to make sure they fit ACX sound levels)
That's real progress, Will.How exciting.
Blimey Will that's great! I wish I had a) the time and b) lived far enough away from a main road and a cat to make it tenable! Rita, congrats!
Alicia, also congrats.
Nothing this week but 1359 today which is almost my target three sprints of 20 mins. If I get some time tomorrow I'll have my 1.5k for this week. Woot!
Good job, MT. Words are always better than no words, and that's quite a decent accumulation.Keep writing.
M.T. wrote: "Blimey Will that's great! I wish I had a) the time and b) lived far enough away from a main road and a cat to make it tenable! Rita, congrats!
Alicia, also congrats.
Nothing this week but 1359 to..."
I do NOT recommend doing the recordings at home, Mary. It's better to rehearse a bit then book time in a proper studio.
1) If you record in MP3, as required for ACX, then you have to be able to monitor volume levels to within certain tolerances. A studio engineer finds that easy.
2) If you record ONLY in MP3, then the file will not play on a home stereo system. Some car CD players will reject the disc too.
3) If you record at home, you will almost certainly not get the dead background that is needed for a quality recording. Unless you want to claim it is a 'live' recording, in which case you need audience noises, which might be distracting if incorrectly timed, or just sound silly and manufactured. (We experimented with applause at the end of tracks. It didn't work.)
4) A studio will provide both MP3 and WAV versions of the work as part of the cost, giving you all the options you need and leaving you to focus on the delivery of the piece, rather than the technical mechanics of the recording.
5) A studio will edit out awkward or too long pauses, too noticable breathing in quiet moments, and can also remove odd sentences you didn't like or were unnecessary.
6) As a guide, I used two days of recording time and two days of engineering time to record about 2.5 hours of publishable material. With the odd second take thrown in, that was 4 sessions of sapeaking. And my voice was really tired after that.
It amazes me how voice actors manage to record 8+ hour audiobooks in 3 days. But then I guess they're using their voices all the time. Me, I'd be hoarse after a few hours!
I just finished another free public post in my new Patreon:Workspace notes for Scene 21.2
https://www.patreon.com/posts/18317676
984 words
I'm using this Patreon as
1) a place to post the finished scenes in Book 2 (Pride's Children: NETHERWORLD) as I create them - the first chapter of the book, Chapter 21 in the trilogy as I number continuously in case I ever get to put the whole thing in a single volume (tagged 'Free public posts) is now posted in its entirety, a scene a post.
2) a place to talk about me, me, me: my writing process, my ideas, my scenes - for those with a burning desire to examine how I do what I do (still producing more 'Free public posts' for now).
Why? Because I need it; but more because my writing process produces 10 to 100 times more written material, per scene, than ever ends up in a scene, and that's the kind of 'reward' Patreon recommends that writers produce for their patrons.
I'd love to see Ursula LeGuin's work notes for The Left Hand of Darkness if they were available, so I'm enjoying producing a few of this kind of posts to see if they are attractive. My #1 patron loved the first one. We'll see how her enthusiasm holds up.
And it got my brain going this morning to have something both specific, and not too hard (as it's based purely on that background material I already produced) to get writing on.
Stop by and poke around the stuff already there, and give me some feedback. Are you interested in having patrons?
https://www.patreon.com/alicia_butche...
Wow. That's a great idea. I have a half made - half baked? - Patreon page but I haven't finished it yet. Had am afternoon in the garden writing. Did 1,300 words. Woot.
Please come visit, if you haven't - I'd love your feedback.1,300 is awesome.
Tim wrote: "It amazes me how voice actors manage to record 8+ hour audiobooks in 3 days. But then I guess they're using their voices all the time. Me, I'd be hoarse after a few hours!"They do loads of exercises to strengthen their voices I believe. I'm not surprised.
Cheers
MTM
Alicia wrote: "Please come visit, if you haven't - I'd love your feedback.1,300 is awesome."
Right I will.
Tim wrote: "It amazes me how voice actors manage to record 8+ hour audiobooks in 3 days. But then I guess they're using their voices all the time. Me, I'd be hoarse after a few hours!"I can do an hour's set of storytelling, althugh an hour's set is more normal. Recording was so different though.
Will wrote: "Tim wrote: "It amazes me how voice actors manage to record 8+ hour audiobooks in 3 days. But then I guess they're using their voices all the time. Me, I'd be hoarse after a few hours!"I can do an..."
When I did stand up I used to get a very dry throat after 20 mins. Had to take a beer on stage with me.
530 words. Nothing yesterday but similar a couple of days at the end of last week.
530 more than I did, if that was fiction. Good job. Fiction is the hardest.I did write a 773 word blog post,
https://liebjabberings.wordpress.com/...
And I got the darned airline tickets, which somehow always ends up my job.
Had to sit and re-read some older stuff.It's just that I'm switching to writing a couple of Benor stories. After writing a lot of Tallis Steelyard, it's a very different voice.
With Tallis, Tallis is telling the tale, everything is through his eyes. Even when he replays a conversation he wasn't privy to he apologises, normally because others will not keep up the fine quality of repartee that he expects. He's an not entirely reliable narrator.
But with Benor, I'm the narrator. I narrate from Benor's perspective, but I will describe his feelings etc.
What is amusing is looking at Tallis as seen through Benor's eyes, and then through his own :-)
My weekend was spent researching additional material for the welsh tales book. Two hours of vocal recordings actually look very thin when turned into words on paper
Will wrote: "My weekend was spent researching additional material for the welsh tales book. Two hours of vocal recordings actually look very thin when turned into words on paper"I can imagine. I tend to budget 100 words a minute for a talk. (which is fast but I can always drop stuff)
So two hours is only 12,000 words :-)
Yep, or in film terms, the lead characters in many films have no more than 70 lines. That's not really very much.
Another 833 words. Total of 6233 - and it's a short story so I'm getting there!
Keep writing, Kath. You're on a roll.
Yay go Kath! Had to forego the pleasure of writing today to do a mailing. I actually find mailings a bit of a pain, they take ages and no-one's interested because only about 200 of them have ever read any of my books.Cheers
MTM
M.T. wrote: "Yay go Kath! Had to forego the pleasure of writing today to do a mailing. I actually find mailings a bit of a pain, they take ages and no-one's interested because only about 200 of them have ever r..."That sounds just like my description of my day job: sending papers that don't matter to people who aren't interested on behalf of customers who don't care.
Woot! McOther got home in time to do football with McMini. Wrote 1,137 words while they were out and the total count has hit 60k: 60,656
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