Progress Report 2025 Week 48

I’ve published twelve ebooks, plus two extras that were collections. By now, I’ve gotten a feel for ebook publishing’s cadence. I learned this week that publishing audiobooks is quite a bit different. In a more ways than I expected! On the writing front, I managed to test a theory about plotting. I’ll know for sure soon, but for now, I have an indication that theory’s working. Also, I started working (finally!) on the latest freebie for my newsletter list. Before talking about any of that, let’s look at the key performance indicators.

Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers

Still no new words written. But notice the last line!

I made time over the weekend to work on the plot for Wayland’s Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation. On Saturday, I tried my new theory of reviewing one arc at a time so I could make sure the character progression was correct — on top of the narrative itself working. On Sunday, I read through the whole plot to make sure the sequencing worked. That includes the emotional beats.

First, I’m stoked that I now have a plot I think will work. Second, I’m excited that I gave more conscious thought to the emotional beats. Previously, I relied on my daily writing to “instinctively” hit those beats. Now, I wanted those waypoints to be clear in my mind so I can focus on the writing. Craig Martelle said that in his experience, knowing those details ahead of time means he can write faster. That matches my experience.

Giving the plot more time to breath, in part by going back through the first book in the series, really helped me clarify their themes in my mind. i need to make sure I keep doing that.

The plotting phase for Lines of Operation is behind me. You know what that means!

Audiobooks Are Very Different from Ebooks

As I mentioned last week, I had to re-save all the audiobook chapters at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, a continuous bit rate of at least 192 kbps, and 2-3 seconds of silence at the beginning and end of each chapter. I converted all twenty-four chapters plus intro and outro and uploaded all of them to Author’s Republic.

Author’s Republic offers an automated check of an uploaded manuscript against these rules (copied from their upload screen):

• Format: MP3
• File Size: Each file must be 170 MB or smaller
• Channel Consistency: All tracks must be either mono or stereo (not mixed)
• Silence: Include 1 to 5 seconds of silence at the start and end of each track
• Loudness: Overall loudness should measure between -23 dB and -18 dB RMS
• Peak Level: No peaks should exceed -3 dB
• Noise Floor: Must be no higher than -60 dB RMS
• Bit Rate: At least 192 kbps, and the same bit rate must be used across all files
• Encoding: Use Constant Bit Rate (CBR) encoding
• Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz

I hoped that Adobe Podcast would take care of majority of those settings. It took Author’s Republic about ten minutes to dash those hopes. To be fair, only five of the twenty-six files had issues. The good news? Author’s Republic offered great help on how to fix each issue. The bad news? The advice in that help relied on Audacity. Audacity is a great open-source audio recording application. But it’s not Adobe Audition, which is what I used. So, I had to translate.

I fixed three of the files right away. I went back and forth with the last two because fixing one issue introduced another. That meant I had to buckle down and research how to fix it in Audition. It doesn’t help that I can’t get my head around audio concepts like “no peaks should exceed -3 dB.” But I finally got it finished. Author’s Republic let me submit for a final human review.

Imagine my surprise the next day when I received an e-mail saying that I had to declare the I had used AI to record the audiobook. The thing is, I didn’t, as Summer Foovay, the human narrator, can confirm. I had to provide screen caps of e-mails between Summer and me to prove that I had worked with another human to record this.

I asked if passing the audio files through Podcast could account for their misunderstanding. They never said directly; but they did say they would add a note to my file that I used a certain toolset for production.

The final shock? How long it takes to distribute! Here’s a list of the retailers Author’s Republic will send the audiobook to:

Author’s Republic will send The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning to a lot of retailers!

I waited several days and still didn’t see that the audiobook was for sale. I checked the help files and learned that it can take up to sixty days to distribute! If I took the time to think about it, I guess that makes sense. An audiobook is much, much larger than an ebook. Red Flag Warning in ebook form is about 745K (kilobytes). The audiobook is almost 1Gb (gigabyte). That’s quite a difference!

I’ve withdrawn The Sword of Sirius ebooks from Kindle Unlimited, and my exclusivity with Amazon ends in mid December. My hope is that about the same time I can go wide with The Sword of Sirius, the audiobook will be ready. I’ll then start a new ad campaign and see if I can get some reviews and feedback on the audiobook! If feedback is relatively positive, or if there’s no feedback but solid sales, I’m going to give serious thought to creating audiobooks for The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone and The Sword of Sirius Book 3: Firebreak.

Progress on Newsletter Gift

I was going to write a new short story as a lead magnet, which I also planned to give it to my newsletter subscribers. It’s been awhile since I gave them anything, and I feel like I’ve neglected them. I started plotting a story with a working title of Blue Angel Ascension. Trouble is, it immediately started growing in all sorts of directions. It might actually turn into my next trilogy. But it’s not going to be the short story lead magnet.

Since I want to start writing Lines of Operation, I don’t want to start a short story now. Instead, I’ve started work on a new short publication that will document the Sirius colonies. It’ll include a graphic that shows the system’s basic configuration.

Once again, I decided to use OmniGraffle.

I bought some stock art from DepositPhoto (the individual planets, stars, and some stellar backgrounds). I used PhotoShop to crop only the pieces I wanted. Since I was already in PhotoShop, I tried to assemble the diagrams there.

Professional photographers can make PhotoShop sing. So can professional artists. I am neither. PhotoShop requires a mindset that I just can’t engage. I couldn’t make it look the way I wanted. I tried Adobe Illustrator (I subscribe to the Adobe Creative Suite, so I start with those tools). No joy.

In ancient days, I purchased a license to OmniGraffle. It’s what i think of as a classic image application. It reminds me of the applications I grew up with. Or maybe I just have more experience with it. Whatever the reason, I made headway.

I’m not a professional graphic artist (yes, I know it’s obvious!). But these maps help me visualize the story’s setting. When I add the other elements, like a description of the colony, its geography, its political boundaries, its government structure, and its key characters, I think it’ll make a fun references for newsletter subscribers to have. It’s also helping me do that research. It’ll enrich Owen Payne’s arc in Lines of Operation.

I’m also looking forward to learning Adobe Indesign to assemble the ebook. Indesign’s the spiritual successor to PageMaker, which was the first Windows application I used. In fact, the Windows it came with was simply a runtime. It wasn’t a full version. I think it was on an IBM PC AT 5170-339. Wow. That was a long time ago.

I intend to work on that guide in my spare time. Ideally, I’d like to release it still this year.

Progress Against Last Week’s Goals

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

1. Finish converting and uploading at least half of The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning’s audio chapters to Author’s Republic. Done! I finished the whole thing (I got on a roll).
2. Send Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure to the beta reader. Done! It should be back this coming week.
3. Plot Wayland’s Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation. Done!
4. Monitor my first promotion through Books Butterfly (I just finished one through Book Barbarian that went well). Done!
5. Continue working on the Sirius colonial guide. Ongoing! I’m working on the graphics for the colonial star systems.

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2025 Week 48

Here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:

1. Write Owen Payne’s hook
2. Write Gerhard Wimmer’s hook
3. Write Mortiz Lehner’s hook
4. Review the beta feedback for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure
5. Continue working on the Sirius colonial guide

What Do You Think?

Do you enjoy working with graphics? If so, what applications do you use? I’d love to know about your experience in the comments!