As I prepare to use AuthorScale’s output on TikTok (and maybe YouTube), I’ve used the opportunity to change my perspective on what advertising can do. I might have come to a conclusion that I can test! I also had an idea on how to refine my Amazon ads. In addition to that, I tried again to master an audio file to ACX’s standards. Have I gone back to the drawing board? Finally, did I manage to get any actual writing done this week? Let’s take a look at the KPIs first.
Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers
Shockingly, I managed to actually write something this week!
No, your eyes do not deceive you. I wrote new words this week! It was low for a whole week’s worth (my target is 10,000 words a week), but these are first chapters. Those always take me longer. The hook for Trent Raven in particular took longer because my outline started in the wrong place, any my brain wouldn’t let me start writing until I fixed it.
Of course, I misread my mental state as “I suck at writing and should do the world a favor by quitting.” Fortunately, I’ve been through this enough times that I stuck with it. That’s the value of experience! Yes, my writing sucks, but I always get over the despair and write anyway. Such is life.
I was a little surprised at how happy I was to bring Jadwiga Janczak back. Her chapter flowed easily.
Now all I have to do is build and maintain the momentum! I just hope that Real Life Family Event (RLFE) stays in hibernation. Because that sucker could go boom at any time. And when it does, it’s going to take a chunk of my life with it.
Reaching the Right Readers
I created another video using AuthorScale. I now have three that are more or less ready to go. AuthorScale went through Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners and extracted a couple dozen scenes that it determined were pivotal. Then, it suggested some intro text and pulled some dialogue from the book to turn into a slideshow. Why it did that, and the flow of the resulting suggestions, didn’t make sense to me.
That’s because the mind-set underpinning marketing remains opaque to me. But this process is starting to clarity things. I think.
I revamped my TikTok account and tried to train it to show me the kinds of books I think are comps to mine. As I did so, I came across slideshows from other writers. I watched them. I compared them to mine. Also, I checked other genres.
I think the reason this concept works for some writers is that each slideshow is an emotional snipped from the book. It’s goal isn’t to tell a story; it’s to evoke a feeling. It’s to get a reader interested. Most of these don’t immediately provoke a click. But in aggregate, they get readers used to the writer and the cover. That way, when they see the FaceBook or Amazon ad later, they’re primed.
I didn’t understand the eco-system enough to understand the importance of that idea. I’m going to try to fix by building a few more slide shows and starting to release them.
I hope the new slideshows will give readers a better idea of what to expect — and attract readers who will enjoy the novels.
Better Keywords
One technique to identify comps and keywords is to look at the also boughts for my books. Dutifully, I went to the first book in my series, identified likely candidates, used Publisher Rocket to identify keywords, and created ads based on those keywords.
And all the ads failed to earn a profit.
There’s a slight chance I now know why. I’ve struggled to find the right readers for book 1. Do you see where I’m going with this? My struggle to identify the right readers for book 1 manifests itself in the ratings and the percentage of readers who go onto book 2. However, readership from book 2 to 3 approaches 95%. The ratings are higher, too. So it dawned on me: why don’t I harvest the comp titles and keywords for books 2 and 3 instead? Those are the readers who actually enjoyed my books. Why not find audiences like them?
I likely can’t do that this month. Our geographical area, like many, has experienced storms of increased severity. I invested this month in a generator and a portable power station, which took the budget I would have used for my ads. At least now if I lose power, I can keep the refrigerator, a fan, a light, and phone chargers working for the duration!
Unless, of course, the entire region goes down hard and stays down. Then all bets are off.
Also, I know that I need to up my blurb game. I’m better than I was, but I’m not enticing readers like I should. Chris Fox just released the book Blurbs That Sell Books: Write Better Copy (Write Faster, Write Smarter Book 10) (affiliate link), and I hope to read it this week. He published a video about the same topic on YouTube, and it’s clear the guy knows his stuff. I hope I’m in the right state of mind to hear what he’s saying!
Logic Pro and ACX Standards
This week, I took Summer Foovay’s first recorded chapter for The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone and attempted to produce it. That included researching all the plug-ins that would craft the file to meet ACX’s requirements.
I tried to be smart about it. Having researched YouTube to find only a handful of relevant videos, I asked Google’s Gemini AI to build the workflow for me — including links to source materials. And promptly spent hours chasing quite a few wild geese. AI can be really useful, or it can be an complete waste of time. Prompt writing is, of course, one factor. But this isn’t my first rodeo. The other factor is what got me.
AI can provide better answers for more well-documented topics. If I have a questions about programming in Java or Python, there’s a strong chance AI can help with little friction. But if I use a little-known security tool, or something like Logic Pro that requires a lot of expertise to use at all, then AI falls down.
The plug-ins in the middle left seem to be the ones that work. At least they did on the first chapter!
As in, it gave me pages of flat-out wrong advice. I found that if I focused on exact error messages from ACX, AI helped more than if I asked for an entire workflow. In any event, the end result is that I now have a process that I think’s repeatable for producing a publishable audio file.
That’s no substitute for learning the concepts on which the tool operates. I still need to do that. But it’s a start, and I’ll take it!
Progress Against Last Week’s Goals
Here’s how I did against last week’s goals:
- Write three chapters of The Fissure Kings Book 2: Athena Unleashed.: Done!
- Monitor Summer Foovay’s recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 3: Firebreak: Ongoing!
- Engineer one chapter of The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone to ACX’s standards and document the process: Done!
- Create the September ad campaign for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Duty of Prisoners: Done!
- Continue experimenting with AuthorScale: Ongoing!
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2026 Week 36
Here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
- Write 10,000 words in The Fissure Kings Book 2: Athena Unleashed
- Monitor Summer Foovay’s recording progress for The Sword of Sirius Book 3: Firebreak
- Engineer two more chapters for the audiobook of The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone
- Create two more slideshows with AuthorScale and finish preparing my TikTok account for use
What Do You Think?
Do you have any tricks that you can share for getting your brain into blurb-writing mode? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!
