Running late & Audio Book Progress
May came and went, and suddenly we're halfway through June!!!
TLDR!
Here’s what to expect from this month’s very short update:
I suddenly feel like my writing is an actual business!
Where’s my audio book?
There’s a new reader app on the block - listen to text/pdf files/websites & more.
Newsletter changes
May 2025 Accountability
I’m lucky Alaska doesn’t require license plates on the front.
Firstly, you probably noticed that this newsletter arrived later than usual. There were a couple of reasons:
I was trying to decide if I should change the newsletter format to make it quicker and easier to write.
I was waiting to see if anyone else was going to weigh-in on the poll in my last post.
I was waiting on something to arrive in the mail that I wanted to show off…
And it’s that last one that has me excited, even though it’s a small thing.
Yes, that’s a custom license plate, and frame that I designed and ordered for myself. For a while I’ve been trying to figure out ways to promote myself locally, and then I realized how many places I park my car.
The question was did I want to do a bumper-sticker or license plate frame? Well, while I was looking into the option of doing frames, I discovered that Alaska (like several US states) only requires a license plate on the back of the vehicle.
That made the choice easy, and I’m really pleased with the results.
It’s funny how something simple can make me feel like I’m taking my writing seriously enough for it to be a business.
Note to self… check where items are shipping from… It took three weeks to get the frames (from China).
Audio book update?
After last month’s poll, it looks like there wasn’t really a preference on how the audio book was put together. So, I dived into ElevenLabs and tried out their features, and was seriously impressed.
Their online tools allow me to use a description of how I imagine each character to sound to create a custom voices. I can then assign voices to read sections of text , and have it re-read a section if I’m not happy with the result.
It also allows me to add sound-effects into the text, letting me add texture.
All of this brought the stories to life in ways that just listening to the same voice for the entire book often doesn’t for me.
Here’s a sample from early in “The Lupine’s Call”, the second story in the Prequels collection. I chose this sample, so that there are no huge spoilers.
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Convert text to speech for on-the-go reading
They also have a reader app, so that you can convert news, PDFs, blogs, and web pages into audio, so you can listen on the go instead of reading.
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Changes to the newsletter format.
I’ve decided to do away with the Bookish Events section of the newsletter. It often took over an hour to put together, and I often questioned which events to include, and which to leave out.
With that in mind, I’m going to divert that extra time into writing projects.
Writing/Editing Update - May 2025
I’m shortening this section of the updates to actual achievements for each month.
Six major character voices created for the audio version of “Shadows Over Seattle: Prequels 1-6”.
Formatted and digitally voiced three of the six stories.
Continued fleshing out the characters from the short stories so I can give them more depth in the novels ahead.
Worked on the outline for “Of Wolves & Men”, but have some plot points to work out.
