I spent a lot of time with audio work this week. I have nothing tangible to show for it, and the reason is pretty embarrassing. Though the efforts had an unintended positive side effect! Also, as I worked on The Fissure Kings Book 1: Semele’s Lament, I discovered a serious flaw in Trent Raven’s arc. Of course, I couldn’t keep moving forward without fixing it. How much did that impact my weekly targets? Finally, I’ve drawn some conclusions from my June marketing efforts. Do those conclusions bode well for Wayland’s Hammer’s release? Let’s look at the key performance indicators first.
Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers
I missed my 10,000 words a week target. But I have a good explanation!
I wrote one chapter this week (it was a Lincoln Taylor chapter). I was about to write Leah Flores’s next chapter (which should have a ton of action) when I had to stop. In the back of my mind, there were elements of Trent Raven’s chapters that didn’t sit right. The more I thought about it, the less I liked it. I realized I couldn’t go on until I fixed it.
The root cause? I didn’t have Raven’s motivation right. Fortunately, the character let me know before I got too far in. I went back through his arc from the beginning. What struck me as funny was that I’d put the hooks in for the changes to be made. Most of the time, I had to delete a few irrelevant bits. In a other places, I had to beef up what was already there.
It’s like my subconscious knew all along what direction I needed to take. Stupid thing could have let me know earlier! I still have a little more clean up work to do, because a few things occurred to me today. But those changes are minor. I can work them in this coming week. Or I might work them in when I write a particular upcoming point in Raven’s arc.
But I’m satisfied with where the arc is now. If I can avoid Real Life Family Events (RLFEs) this week, I should be able to resume forward progress.
Audio Efforts: One Step Forward
Did you know that the Rode NT USB microphone, the microphone I use most of the time, is directional? Well, I had that microphone on a boom near my work computer. Remember how I mentioned last week that I had a hard time finding a quiet place in my house? I bought a portable vocal recording cube and set up shop in my son’s room while he was at work.
I had to detach my microphone from its boom and attached it to its tripod. I recorded the first chapter from Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners. When I began processing it, I noticed it was really, really quiet. I didn’t expect that, but the Logic Pro + my microphone + the recording cube combination was still unfamiliar, so I didn’t know exactly what was going on.
You can probably guess the problem. I had the microphone backwards. I’d been speaking into the back of the directional microphone. So, that recording was a bust. Since it was now the weekend and my son’s off work, I tried to set up in my bedroom, but the chair creaked. I tried in the garage, but the acoustics are dreadful. Which is to be expected — it’s a garage.I tried in my living room, which had okay acoustics, but the air conditioner kicked on.
I think you get the picture.
Never let it be said that I give up easily. I’ve ordered a portable recording studio — basically some PVC pipes, some moving blankets, and an LED light. It should be here by the end of next week. I’m either going to try it in the garage or my bedroom (I wish I had a walk in closet!). If that doesn’t work, I might have to give up for now. There’s only so much I can do per unit of time! But I’m curious to see how this goes.
This has a proverbial silver lining. I had to re-read the first chapter so many times that I was able to notice some sub-optimal sentence flows. I was able to smooth them out and regenerate the ebook and PDF versions. So indirectly, this process helped improve Wayland’s Hammer!
June’s Marketing
In terms of raw sales, June has been my best month this year. The ad campaign was for Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action. I attribute the success to two factors: first, I replaced the covers with someone more genre appropriate and second, I priced that first book at $0.99.
Read through isn’t great. It’s better than back when I had the original covers. But Executive Action is a long book (about as long as Fellowship of the Ring) and it has more characters than most audiences enjoy. On the other hand, it gave me hope that I can reach audiences.
In July, one way or another, I’m going to release Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners. I’m going to price it at $2.99 for a few days (soft launch), then drop it to $0.99. I’m going to put Wayland’s Hammer Book 2: Resistance Movement and Wayland’s Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation on pre-order at full price ($3.99). And I’m going to see how it goes.
Progress Against Last Week’s Goals
Here’s how I did against last week’s goals:
- Try again to record the first two chapters of Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners for the newsletter: Done! In that I tried to record it again.
- Write four new chapters in The Fissure Kings Book 1: Semele’s Lament: Not Done! I only wrote one new chapter.
- Revise the blurbs for Wayland’s Hammer: Done! I have revised blurbs that I’ll probably revise one more time when I release them.
- Monitor proofreading progress for Wayland’s Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation: Ongoing! My proofreader is making progress.
- Monitor audiobook recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone: Ongoing! Summer Foovay is making progress.
- Hone my Apple Logic Pro skills: Ongoing! I learned some features because of my missteps with my microphone.
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2026 Week 26
Here’s what I hope to acomplish this week:
- Write four new chapters in The Fissure Kings Book 1: Semele’s Lament
- Monitor proofreading progress for Wayland’s Hammer Book 3
- Monitor audiobook recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone
- Evaluate locations for the portable recording studio after taking delivery
- Compare my wife’s old Shure microphone to my Rode microphone and decide which’ll work better for audiobooks
What Do You Think?
Have you tried publishing using pre-orders with Amazon? How has that worked for you? I’d love to hear your experience in the comments!
I can tell my spekky new walk in closet is certainly a better recording environment than the bathroom at the old apartment. By comparison, the bathroom in the other apartment was really echo-ey. However, that is my next suggestion – although that is probably nearly impossible with a family. On another subject, as a person who reads quite a bit and really gets overwhelmed by books with a lot of different characters – something I like that helps me is a Cast of Characters, perhaps at the end, for quick reference. Entries don’t have to be exhaustive, just a brief note or two to help me place them. A little more than name, rank, serial number, less than life story. I would say at the end, because to be honest if I saw a list at the front of the book of a huge number of characters I might just set that book aside. Hang in there and keep trying for the audio recording. I know you will find a great solution.
I like the idea of a cast of characters. I think I recently saw Peter F. Hamilton do that. His books have considerably more characters than mine do. So I might do that in an upcoming book!
Thanks!