Writing Goals for Remainder of 2019 – Weekly Report 5

While many writers are in NaNoWriMo mode, I’m navigating through “Operation Manuscript Revisions”. For me, the month of November will be all about tightening up the first draft and functioning in edit mode. However, I’m going to come clean and admit that I didn’t quite make my deadline to have the first draft completed by the end of last week. Quite frankly, I’m still working on it. I have about three chapters that need a little more development. Go figure. Anyway, I’m still working on adding some content to these areas and probably will continue to develop them throughout the week. So, it appears that my pattern of being a day late and a dollar short has carried over to the completion of the first draft manuscript.

The silver lining is one in which I’m allowed to proudly announce that my book currently sits at 20,718 words. And, this number can only go up from here, because I’m sure my editing and development of the three chapters will add a few pages to a book that’s shaping up to be something special. As a matter of fact, over the weekend, I heard a YouTuber share some profound wisdom about becoming an entrepreneur and it instantly created the idea for a new section in one of my chapters. I distinctly remember this same type of phenomenon (continuing to write the book while editing the book) occurring at the end of my first draft manuscript for Playground Instruction for the Growing Adult. It’s uncanny how this scenario is replaying itself. I guess an author is never truly done with a book. There’s always something to add, revise, or perfect. I suppose we just come to a point when we’re ready to move on to the next project to add to, revise, and perfect.

I’m already looking at the end of the year, thinking that self-publishing this book before January 1st, 2020 seems like an insurmountable task at this point (especially since I’m planning to take on more of the self-publishing pieces with this book and especially since I’ve historically been off in guesstimating how long it will take me to accomplish some tasks). However, I don’t have a defeatist attitude, not at all. But, I am taking on a realist viewpoint at the present moment. I’m not willing to risk quality just to say that I was able to get my second book self-published before year’s end. Deadlines can be moved, but first impressions of books are lasting.

Since I didn’t self-edit as I wrote this book, I know my first draft will go through many revisions before the final cut. Therefore, I’m fairly certain that I’m not going to make the December 31st deadline. For me, that’s okay. For you, I’m guessing you probably understand. So, I’m making the decision to push back my date for self-publishing to January 2020. Good thing, too. I think January will be an opportune time for book #2 to make its appearance on the scene. With the turn of a new year (a new decade coming down the pike) and New Year’s resolutions at their height, my second book’s arrival will be right on time. My self-publishing vision may have shifted in time to completion, but it’s foundation is still intact.

Here are my updated goals through the end of the year:

1. Get my second book with workbook self-published by the end of January. I think I’d like to go through IngramSpark for this one because I want to make this book available in teaching establishments and libraries.
2. Get my audio book for Playground Instruction for the Growing Adult created and distributed by the end of 2019. I’m going to make it simple with this first book and just concentrate on distributing the audio book through ACX/Audible.
3. Identify two entities that I would like to volunteer for and create opportunities to present material from my books to these entities by December 31st.
4. Continue to give you weekly status updates on the progress of my goals through the end of the year.

Because I’m definitely wanting to publish my audio book fairly soon, I thought I’d list out the major items I found through my research. There are definitely some pros and cons, which I’ve taken into consideration, when comparing ACX/Audible to other audio book distributors. For this list, I’ve included some of those pros and cons as of November 4th, 2019.

• You can reach audiences through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.
• The audio book will be available in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, and Japan.
• If you go exclusive with them, you get a 40% royalty rate on every book sold. If you don’t go exclusive with them, you only get a 25% royalty rate.
• You can’t set your own list price for your audio book.
• You enter into a 7-year contract when going exclusive, and your contract is automatically renewed each year. However, you may be pardoned after 1 year, if you own the rights to your audio book; but you’ll have to contact ACX to see if you can be released from the contract. (Heard this last piece of information from a YouTuber instead of straight from ACX, so it’s somewhat hearsay.) Do your research.
• There are very specific audio submission requirements that have to be met or your audio book won’t be approved/can be delayed. This area is where the tech terminology and tech know-how come into play. And if you’re not an audio tech whiz, you should spend a considerable amount of time researching what is needed to meet the submission requirements.
• You must create an audio sample of your book that is between 1 – 5 minutes as a customer preview of your audio book.

There’s a definite learning curve to creating an audio book. It requires more than simply pressing record, talking out loud, and uploading your voice recording to a distribution site. You can’t cut corners in quality with this format of book. So, here’s some additional information that I’ve learned about audio book recording:

• Read your book out loud at least one time before recording. Two times would be better.
• Don’t eat or drink phlegm-producing items (like dairy and sugary foods and drinks) before recording.
• Don’t wear noisy clothes or accessories while recording.
• Make sure the room that you’re recording in is soundproof.
• Have water on hand when you’re in the recording room.
• Be prepared to speak/read for hours (with breaks in between, of course, but the more fluid the recording, the better). It takes quite a bit of stamina to record an audio book and you need to be at your physical best to get a quality product off.
• Be prepared to spend some money. Creating an audio book can be pretty expensive when adding up all the costs. You may need to rent a recording studio or purchase the equipment needed to create a home studio, hire a voice coach, hire an editor, and hire a narrator for your book (if you choose not to narrate yourself). I’m sure there are other costs to consider, but this list of expenses gives you an ample idea.