My plans for audiobooks continues to evolve. Whether my latest decision is cowardice or self-enlightened interest it up for debate, but I’ll share it with you nonetheless. I’ve received all the alpha feedback from Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure. Was it as uniformly negative as I’d feared? Finally, I’ve begun working through the list of priorities based on my consultation with Chris Fox. What’re the first things I’m going to tackle? Before diving into those questions, let’s take a peek at the key performance indicators.
Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers
I missing being able to report forward progress! But maybe that sentiment is part of the problem.
Still zero words for Wayland’s Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation. To be clear, it’s not the only thing I’m working on, so I’ve been working on other writing-related things (as well as doing my job!). But I still feel this abiding disappointment that I can’t report forward progress on Lines of Operation! That, despite the knowledge that I first need to fix the plot issues in Point of Departure (more on that later) and ripple those changes through Wayland’s Hammer Book 2: Resistance Movement.
I suspect my desire to plunge forward might have contributed to me rushing through Point of Departure. Maybe “rushing through” is the wrong way to put it. But I remember, and mentioned here, that the book felt like a slog in some places. The next time I get that feeling, instead of trying to push forward, I’m going to ask myself why I feel that way. And I’ll try not to accept any easy answers!
Sure. Writing about Nazis is hard. Yes, seeing the world through Gerhard Wimmer’s eyes feels heavy. But those characters and situations are part of the story. I suspect I knew I was not doing the story justice. Next time, I’ll try to get those voices to the surface where I can deal with them.
Alpha Phase for Point of Departure
I have all the alpha feedback for the first book of Wayland’s Hammer. The feedback agreed on several points, two of which would be fatal if I tried to publish as is. I consider that to be positive feedback. During an alpha read, I want to hear what’s wrong so I can fix it.
Of course, I would love the alpha readers to say the story’s awesome and perfect and ready to go. But only if the story is, in fact, awesome and perfect and read to go. Knowing it’s not is a key step in fixing the problems.
I went through the feedback on Sunday and created a punch list. This week, I intend to work through it to get the story into the shape my readers deserve. All three alpha readers agreed that the ending in particular didn’t work. Sorry if I mentioned this before, but this was especially frustrating because my original outline called for an ending that would have worked! I just allowed myself to lose the narrative’s thread.
Which reminds me: I need to find better ways to keep myself well-rested and mentally calm. With the news lately, it’s tough, but I have to find a way. Otherwise, I allow those who would destroy our country take another step toward that goal — by allowing them to diminish another citizen. So, it’s my patriotic duty to remain vigilant and as capable as possible!
Priorities from Chris Fox Consultation
Two priorities emerged from my talk with Chris Fox: audiobooks (more on that later) and better advertising. There were other things, but I’ve loosely grouped most under those two banners.
Indie writers are using generative AI to create ad content. Chris Fox mentioned that as an option. Specifically, he suggested I look into using generate AI to create scenes or short animations with characters, equipment, and situations from the book I’m advertising.
So far, I’ve seen the most success using David Gaughran’s methods to turn my cover into an ad. But I’ve hit a ceiling. I’m not moving as many books as I’d like, even with those methods. I did some more research and found, through the Facebook group 20BooksTo50K, that other writers are seeing enormous success using generative AI for ads. Not for covers; not for the books themselves. For ads.
I have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, so I tried using Adobe Firefly to create a scene from Evolution’s Hand: Executive Action. Here’s the prompt:
I would like a scene where a male character who looks similar to Joseph Gordon-Levitt (a caucasian male in his mid 30s). He should be wearing a suit that looks like the Vinci 5HT-BLK Mens Suit (from this URL: https://menssuitworld.com/products/vinci-mens-suit-5ht-blk-2pc-single-breasted-five-button-banded-collar-side-vents-single-pleated-pant-solid-color). The suit should be dark gray. He should be sitting in troop transport helicopter’s passenger compartment. He should be looking out the window with a concerned expression on his face. His hair should be black. There should be a control panel on the bulkhead, and that control panel should have holographic buttons.
Here’s one of the results:
No lie. Three arms. Firefly gave the guy three arms. At least he looks comfortable!
The character’s wrong. The suite is wrong. The number of appendages is wrong. I tried several times, but I just couldn’t get it right. Part of me looked at that and wondered if there was any point in continuing. But there is. Writing prompts is a non-trivial effort, at least if you want to get exactly what you want. I’ve heard some people call it “prompt engineering,” which sounded a little exaggerated — at least until I tried to get exactly what I want.
I really want to revamp the advertising for Dreams of Deucalion Book 1: Special Recon. So, I fooled around with prompts to get a shot of Jadwiga Janczak and Supervisor Pinzari on the bridge of the Paul Revere. This looked a little better:
This was from ChatGPT. I’m having better luck with it than Firefly.
This was progress. The lighting contrast is still poor, and it needs work. But I can see how this could make my advertising more interesting and dynamic. There are supposedly ways to animate characters, too. I’ll look into those.
I’m going to go without a Facebook ad (my last one terminated on August 31) until I can get a fresh approach in place. The previous approach was just not driving the income I need to justify the expense anyway.
Virtual Voice Version of Special Recon
I spend a huge chunk of time last week going through the Amazon Virtual Voice version of Dreams of Deucalion Book 1: Special Recon. I did so for two reasons. First, I wanted to understand the production process for Virtual Voice. I now know what it’s like to get a book ready to publish. I give Amazon high marks for the interface. It’s easy to use, and I found it more functional (for the things I wanted to do) when compared to its competition.
The second reason was, as of last week, Special Recon had two ratings, and both were threes. That greatly concerned me. I’m confident in that story and its characters. But as I listened to more of the Virtual Voice rendition, I discovered something terrible. I was averaging about two typographic errors per chapter. In later chapters, that average edged up to three or even four.
So, I tracked every error I came across in an Apple Pages document. When I was finished with the Virtual Voice draft, I went through the Scrivener version and fixed everything I’d noted. Then, I compiled the results, push them through Vellum, and re-uploaded the ebook and paperback. It’s too soon for the ratings to really reflect the fixed version, but today, I saw that I’ve gotten three more ratings. They were fives.
I am absolutely taking this as a sign.
I wondered what happened to the Virtual Voice version after I uploaded a new ebook. Turns out Amazon regenerated the audiobook. The good news? All the pauses and pronunciation changes I’d entered remained intact! The corrections I’d made flowed through, too. Looks like Amazon intelligently merged the fixes into to the audiobook. That’s extremely cool.
Publish With Virtual Voice?
Income from Kindle Unlimited
Now I face a choice. But to put it into perspective, I want to share something that I learned in my discussion with Chris Fox: audiobooks have more income potential than ebooks, if done right.
That makes perfect sense, especially for Kindle Unlimited. Kindle Unlimited (KU) pays authors for each page read. Amazon gets the money from subscription fees that readers pay to join the “club.” Readers can read any ebook enrolled in KU. Writers get paid for each page read. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
And for the most part, it is. A substantial portion of my sales come from KU. I like it. It’s simple, in terms of managing marketing campaigns. I just need to worry about Amazon. Apple, Barnes and Noble, and all the rest require different approaches to marketing. I know, because Evolution’s Hand is not in KU. It’s more expensive for me to generate sales on platforms other than Amazon.
However. More and more writers are putting their books into KU. That means the rate Amazon pays to each writer per page slowly diminishes over time. KU is probably paying as much as it ever will. Banking on it in the long term isn’t going to work.
The Audiobooks Equation
Enter audiobooks. I’ve noticed that many independent writers don’t have audiobooks. That market is still under served. Not only that, but Chris Fox shared a perspective I had not considered: when readers enroll in Audible’s program, they get so many credits a month. One credit per book. Many readers will go to the list of books, sort by length, and use their one credit to listen to the longest book they can find. Say a massive boxed set. A massive boxed set like Evolution’s Hand could be.
But, and this is a big “but,” I need the audiobook first. I finished listening to Special Recon through Virtual Voice. It’s not as off-putting as AI narration used to be. But it’s not as good as a human narrative. Do I want my brand to be known for AI narration? I had previously decided I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t think I can afford to pay a narrator.
Chris Fox suggested I research ACX’s Royalty Share program. So I did. It’d tie me to ACX, but there’s a chance I could get an audiobook version of Dreams of Deucalion for considerably less than the going rate of $250.00 per finished hour. I don’t mind sharing the profits with a narrator. Not at all. So I’m going to see what it would take to make that happen. I’m starting with Dreams of Deucalion because the trilogy is 34 1/2 finished hours, whereas Evolution’s Hand is closer to 100 hours.
If that doesn’t pan out? Well, I’m still working on producing the audio narration that Summer Foovay created for The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning. I still don’t know if I have the skill to get it into a format that can be published. I’ll know more soon (I hope!). If that works, I can pursue that direction. If that doesn’t work, either, then I’ll have to reconsider Virtual Voice.
Progress against Last Week’s Goals
Here’s how I did against last week’s goals:
- Craft the optimal to-do list based on my meeting with Chris Fox. Done! I have the tasks broken down, and I’ve established the priorities according to the current needs.
- Receive and process the final alpha read for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Extraction. Done! The feedback was excellent all around.
- Begin revising Point of Extraction. Underway! I’m working on Wimmer’s arc first. I’ve already split one chapter into two, and I have a to-do list of things I want to fix.
- Draft new blurbs for Evolution’s Hand. Done! I have revised all six blurbs with Chris Fox’s feedback.
- Investigate ACX, specifically the requirements and particulars of a Royalty Share agreement, for Dreams of Deucalion. Underway! I have an idea of how it works. Now I need to actually try it.
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2025 Week 36
Here’s what I hope to complete this week:
- Continue revising Point of Extraction. Finish at least Wimmer’s and Lehner’s arcs, since they intertwine so much.
- Learn how to bid Special Recon as an audio job with Royalty Sharing on ACX.
- Revise the blurbs for Special Recon.
- Create new marketing graphics for Special Recon.
- Process three more chapters of the audiobook version of Red Flag Warning
- (Stretch objective): Begin a new Facebook ad with the updated graphics
What Do You Think?
If your book’s not earning the ratings you want, how do you triage the problem? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments!
