Progress Report 2025 Week 20

It was a big week, even setting aside the Real Life Family Event (RLFE) that involved me sharing a twelve hour drive with my son. By the way, that RLFE reminded me that no, I am no longer twenty-one years old. Last week helped me make a decision regarding the audiobook format for The Sword of Sirius Prequel Short Story: Fallback Position. I also have news both about Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Conventional Forces, the second and third books in that trilogy, and various marketing efforts. Before we talk about any of that, let’s look at the key performance indicators.

Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers

Only 7,058 words this week. But they were impactful words!

So, let’s start with the big news: the first draft of Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Conventional Forces is now complete. Actually, it’s the second draft. The day after writing a chapter, I read it out loud and make corrections, and that absolutely counts as a second draft. That’s also driven down the number of issues I find in later drafts — particularly continuity and phrasing issues.

This book was a struggle. First, I had to write realistically about Nazis, and the ease with which I could mentally emulate that mindset bothered me. Second (and probably more importantly in the long run), I had not fully envisioned Owen Payne’s struggle. Gerhard Wimmer’s, either, which surprised me, since I thought I had it figured out. Failing to do that made my subconscious try to warn me.

I wish I would have listened sooner. But now, I think I have a handle on it. Which leads me to the next two books.

Plotting versus Diving into the Dark Revisited

Leading Writers Agree —

I received alpha feedback this week on Dreams of Deucalion Book 3: Bait and Bleed. Stephanie F from Fiverr does a great job. She provides a level of detail that gets her point across, and I’ve found that her criticism has always been valid.

She commented on a couple aspects of the plot of this final installment in the Dreams of Deucalion trilogy. As I reflected on how I might fix those issues, I also started to wonder how I could prevent such things from happening in the future. Then I thought of my struggles with Conventional Forces and came to a conclusion.

I need to up my plotting game.

I often think about Dean Wesley Smith’s presentation Writing into the Dark. One of his most startling suggestions, at least to me, is to just start writing — no outline or preparations. That suggestion haunts me. Am I a poor writer because I like to sketch the plot first? Am I just too stupid to write the “right” way? Put another way: if I were a better writer, could I just sit down and dash off novels with less overhead? Am I just intellectually weak?

Around the 10:00 point in the above-linked video, Dean Wesley Smith describes, with scary clarity, what it means to write into the dark. I have a terrible feeling he’s right.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Rationally, I can say that every writer finds his or her own way. But when someone like Dean Wesley Smith, who has sold north of twenty million copies of his books, weighs in, I tend to listen. Especially when Stephen King said the same thing in On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue)) (affiliate link).

I’ve talked about how I struggled with Conventional Forces. Is my inability to write “correctly” an underlying reason?

I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I want to say something like, “Deep down, I know that I shouldn’t rely on plotting as a crutch,” or, “Plotting frees my mind to focus on the details while I write.” Both statements are true. I’ve come to contradictory conclusions. Human brains are weird.

For now, I’m gong to make some adjustment to how I plot the next books, starting with Resistance Movement. I’m going to take more time to sink into the main characters’ skins and more clearly visualize the world from their perspective. I felt like I had done that for Conventional Forces. I was wrong. I think I let Moritz Lehner’s Nazism distract me.

Nazis are bastards like that.

Adventures in Audiobooks

I’ve been looking for ways to make audiobook versions of my books. I can’t afford a professional human narrator. Some Artificial Intelligence (AI) narrators sound pretty good, but I am honestly uncomfortable using any of them.

Regardless, I’m going to release The Sword of Sirius Prequel: Fallback Position with AI narration. If you’re on my newsletter, you’ll get a chance to listen to it a week or two. ElevenLabs has what seems to me to be the best offering at this stage, and that’s what I used to create Fallback Position. I need to know if this works.

At the same time, I may have found a human narrator for The Sword of Sirius. I’ll know more soon, but I like this narrator’s voice, and she sounds perfect for the roles of Ira Malhotra and Luisa Brunner. In fact, I asked her to read Fallback Position, and I loved her treatment of the Advanced Defense Solutions’ Manager. But the main character in Fallback Position is Jackson Scott. He’s bigger than I am (and I’m about 187 centimeters tall), and a woman’s voice just didn’t fit for him.

I think this’ll be my first human-narrated work.

I have to learn how to produce an audiobook. I’ve experimented with Adobe Podcast to polish voice recordings, and it’s a solid tool. I’m anxious about meeting Amazon’s standards, but that’s just a set of specifications, and I’ll figure out how to measure against them.

I guess my real concern is time. Everything in the indie writer space takes time, and none of us have as much as we want. But I think audiobooks is a priority, and I really want to see this happen.

Marketing Note

I wanted to test BookBub Ads for the $0.99 release of Evolution’s Hand Collection 1: Earthbound. I wanted to test the attraction power of a $0.99 collection. It sold better than I expected.

I’ve also noticed that The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning does not sell very well at a price point above $0.99. Page reads are fine, but ebook purchases are not. I refused to do perma-free. Too many writers have reported that perma-free doesn’t work well anymore. Plus, it goes against my instincts to de-value my work by giving it away for free.

Now, if it’s worked for you, cool. I’m not suggesting how I look at this for myself applies to anyone else. But I can’t get Harlan Ellison’s advice out of my mind. In Dreams with Sharp Teeth, he talked about how writers undercut themselves by giving their work away for free. That resonated with me. Since I do not wish the ghost of Harlan Ellison haunting me, I’m just not giving stuff away.

That said, I’ve concluded that readers expect indie writers to offer first books in a series at a lower cost. Many readers also wait for lower-priced collections to come out. I get it. If I don’t know a writer, it’s easy to take a chance if the cost is $0.99. So, I might drop the price of Red Flag Warning and see if sales pick back up.

Progress against Last Week’s Goals

Here’s now I did against last week’s goals:

1. Finish Gerhard Wimmer’s Resolution: Done!
2. Finish Moritz Lehner’s Resolution: Done!
3. Finish Owen Payne’s Resolution: Done!
4. Continue exploring audiobook options for The Sword of Sirius Prequel Short Story: Fallback Position: Done! I think I know how I’m going to move forward.

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2025 Week 20

Here’s what I hope to accomplish next week:

1. Begin developing the plot for both Wayland’s Hammer Book 2: Resistance Movement and Book 3: Lines of Operation at the same time.
2. Create the Scrivener directory/stub for Resistance Movement.
3. Announce the ElevenLabs version of Flanking Maneuver to my newsletter list.
4. Incorporate the alpha/beta feedback into Dreams of Deucalion Book 3: Bait and Bleed.

What Do You Think?

What positive experiences have you had with AI narration? Any books that stand out? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!