Riches (are still) beyond my wildest dreams

At this time every year, I have to face learning whether I can retire to a glorious chateau somewhere and devote myself to my Art, to my Muse, to my Writing.  For non-UK readers, we have a bizarre situation where our tax year runs from 6 April of one year to 5 April of the next.  (It’s all to do with an ancient new year’s day being on 25 March, and then the Gregorian calendar getting involved.)  And so around the start of May I dig out all of my records to find out whether I have made any money from being a writer over the past year.  Last year, you may recall, I made a loss of £44.87 – in other words, for the honour of spending hours and hours and hours on writing and trying to sell the blasted things, I had to hand over nearly fifty quid.

Would this year be any better, I wondered?  I added up all the royalties I have received from Amazon, Smashwords and ACX (for the audiobooks), and the lovely cheques I have received from bricks-and-mortar bookshops.  And then I subtracted all the things I pay for in order to create these books.  (I should say that I don’t charge myself anything for office space, heating, lighting, printer cartridges and so on, because all of that is charged to “other Susan” for my day job.)  But I do include, for instance, paying for the design of book covers and bookmarks, and ordering copies of books from CreateSpace to deliver to those bricks-and-mortar bookshops, and subscribing to the Society of Authors.

And I can report – taxman please take note and pity – that this year I have increased my loss to a rather worrying £288.71.  I have gone a bit mad on the covers this year (two paperbacks and two audiobooks), but still, it’s rather sad, isn’t it?  What I shall do is divide it by twelve, and reason with myself that my hobby is costing me only £24 a month.  Ho hum.

Progress on all Planks

I once spoke to a professional author – a full-time writer – who said that one of the aspects of his job that he had not anticipated was the overlap of books.  And now I know what he meant.  At the moment I am (a) writing “Plank 5”, (b) trying to promote “Portraits of Pretence”, and (c) checking the audiobook version of “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”.  So here’s where I am with each of these.

“Plank 5” now has a completed first chapter and outlines for another twelve chapters, and I have been doing a great deal of reading around non-conformist religions in 1828 – from the familiar Methodists and Baptists to the more evangelical and (in those days) wacky Ranters.  We’re a bit too early for spiritualism, which is a shame, as I’d love to write a séance scene!  I am also looking at epidemics, but I’m not going to tell you why…

“Portraits of Pretence” is slowly, slowly gathering more reviews, including this lovely one today on Helen Hollick’s “Discovering Diamonds” blog (“Independent reviews of the best in historical fiction”, so I’m very flattered to have made the cut).  This means that I can now proudly display this logo all over the place:

And in a review on Amazon of the same book, a Mr L Moss said that “Worm in the Blossom” had been his favourite book of 2015, so that’s something I remind myself of when I am struggling with Ranters and epidemics.

And my fabulous narrator Guy has just sent me the final chapters of the “Canary” audiobook, so I shall listen to them over the weekend and we might just be able to audio-publish next week.  After a good start, the “Fatal Forgery” audiobook sales have slowed right down, so I am hoping that Guy will still be willing to record the other Plank books (we’re on a 50/50 profit share through ACX).  And if anyone has any ideas for how to promote audiobooks, please share them – I’m struggling a bit with this one.

Reading aloud: before and after?

As regular readers of this blog will know, I am gradually – very gradually – creating audiobooks of the Sam series.  I am doing it through a website called ACX – owned by Audible, which is in turn part of Amazon – and the basic deal is that the narrator and I share any profits fifty-fifty.  The narrator I found for “Fatal Forgery”, Guy Hanson – in essence, he’s the voice of Sam – has kindly agreed to stay fit and healthy so that he can narrate all seven books, and he’s now working on “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”.  He uploads chapters to ACX and I listen to them and ask for any changes.  Sometimes there will be a wrong word or a mispronunciation or a misplacing of stress, but Guy is so completely Sam-ish that my requests are few.

However, as I listen to my words read aloud, I do sometimes think, “Hmm, that’s a bit clumsily written”, or “I’ve used that word three times already this chapter – I should have thought of another”.  And sometimes Guy’s words do not exactly match the text but actually improve on it, making it smoother.  I have read the advice that authors should read their books aloud before publishing, to catch just such instances, but I’ve never done it.  I wonder whether I should from now on…

On the positive side, there is a quite a bit of Martha in “Canary”, and it is really helpful for me to reacquaint myself with her as I launch into “Plank 5”, which will focus more on her.  For instance, I have just heard her say this when spotting a fortune teller at the Bartholomew Fair: “Who would want to know their future?  If it’s bad, you’ll waste your life worrying, and if it’s good, it will be a lovely surprise.”  In “Plank 5”, I intend to have her rethink this position, giving Sam cause for great concern.

Plank on two fronts

Heavens, I’ve been so busy recently that I quite forgot to update you on my progress.  The crazy thing is that I am working on two Planks at once – the audiobook of “Fatal Forgery” and the final draft of “Portraits of Pretence”.

Audiobook first.  This is now published, and you can buy it all over the place – well, on Amazon, Audible and iTunes.  So far we’ve sold four!  A friend who is very big in the charity sector suggested that I should get it listed in the Talking Books catalogue for the Royal National Institute for the Blind, so I am finding out about that.  The narrator (known technically as the producer, as he did all of the fancy stuff with the audio files) has received his ten free download codes from ACX and is busy promoting them.  I am waiting for mine, and plan to use them to tempt reviewers.  I’ve not dealt with audiobook reviewers before, but I am going to assume that they are like all book reviewers: they have too many books to review, and you need to convince them that yours is worthwhile, so choosing the right reviewer who likes your genre of book is crucial.  (For instance, I was considering one until I looked more closely and realised that s/he reviews mainly erotic audiobooks – one of the questions is “How steamy does it get?”.  Sam is many things, but steamy he ain’t.)

Now for “Portraits of Pretence”.  Well, it’s been a busy weekend.  I’ve made the main edits suggested by Roy the beta reader – a mixture of typos, better phrasing suggestions, and actual alternations and clarifications.  I have registered the book with Createspace: at this point, all I have to give is the title, and this means that I can get the (free, Createspace-issued) ISBN.  I need to quote this inside the book as well as on the cover, so it’s good to have it.  I have cut and pasted all of the plain Word text into the book template, so that “Portraits of Pretence” will have the same interior look and feel as the other three.  This is a painstaking job that required a whole bag of chocolate buttons.  I have given a title to each chapter – this is a fun job.  I have worked out the (almost final) page count (334 – about twenty pages longer than “Worm in the Blossom”) which enabled me to set up the Createspace cover template that the cover designer needs and I have sent that to him.  (Until you have the page count you can’t calculate the spine width.)  So I have done all I can to facilitate the cover, and my remaining (big) task is to do my final read-through of the formatted text.  Thankfully my husband is away on Thursday and Friday, so I will have a mini-retreat for that.  In short, Sam and I are on track.

I name this book…

Thank you all for taking part in my title poll for “Plank 4”.  The poll has now closed, and I can report that 39 votes were cast (I didn’t vote myself, in case you’re wondering – after all, I was able to choose the candidates so in effect I had five votes).  And the winner, with sixteen of those votes, is “Portraits of Pretence”.  In second place, with eleven votes, was “The Art of Perfection”.  This was my husband’s choice and he is in somewhat of a grump about it, but The Poll Has Spoken.  I would have been delighted with any outcome, as I didn’t offer any titles that I didn’t like.  Today’s job is to finalise that back cover blurb so that I can give everything to the cover designer.

And in case you’re wondering about the inside of the book as well as the outside, I have now heard from beta reader Roy.  He likes the plot!  Big relief.  He has of course made some excellent suggestions for improvement, and that’s my goal for this coming fortnight: edits.  Sadly, now that my writing retreat is over, I can’t dedicate myself full-time to it (real life will intrude, with its demands for money and food), but I will do my best.

Quick update on “AudioSam”, as we’re now calling the audiobook of “Fatal Forgery”: the recording is all done as far as the narrator and I are concerned, and the files have been submitted to ACX for technical approval, which will take at least a week.

Hear today, Amazon tomorrow

I am delighted to report that I have finished checking the “AudioSam” files – i.e. the first run-through of the audio recording of “Fatal Forgery”.  Narrator Guy Hanson is doing a sterling job, and with his technical capabilities can seemingly change just a single word in a whole chapter without me spotting the join.  I thank my lucky stars every day that I did not make the mistake of trying to read my own book – wrong gender, for a start, but more importantly it is obviously such a skill.  For instance, in my final set of comments, I asked Guy to re-record Commissioner Mayne of the Met as “educated, slight Irish”, and he didn’t turn a hair.

As Guy slaves away at a hot microphone, I am researching how to market this audiobook.  I have tracked down some audiobook reviewers and will be tempting them with free downloads.  Part of the ACX process is the creation of a five-minute audio sample, and I will be adding that to my websites, Twitter feeds, blogs and Facebook pages.  I will also – once he has had time to recover – be interviewing Guy about his thoughts while recording Sam.  He doesn’t seem too alarmed at the thought of six more books, so that’s a good sign!  It turns out that, quite fortuitously, Sam lends himself well to audification (that really should be a word), as the books are quite dialogue-heavy rather than narrative- or description-heavy, and apparently most listeners prefer that.

I have also – perhaps rather late in the day – been familiarising myself with the ACX offering.  As I opted for the profit-share arrangement, I am required to offer exclusive distribution to ACX.  This means that “AudioSam” will be available only for digital download (no CDs) and only for sale via Amazon, ACX and iTunes.  But I figured that, for a first toe in the audio water, it made sense to share the risk, and anyway those are the three largest marketplaces for audiobooks.  The most unfamiliar thing about the process is that I have no say about the price of the audiobook.  As a self-published author, I have grown used to setting my own price for all of my paperbacks and e-books – it’s a bit scary, and there are reams written about the psychology of pricing, but I’ve done it.  But not for the audio ones: the price is set (and, I assume, adjusted as needed) independently by Amazon, ACX and iTunes.

An idea for marketing that did occur to me is that audiobooks might be good for learning English – particularly if the written English is good, standard English (that’s Sam for you) and the narration is clear (there’s Guy).  So someone trying to learn pronunciation could have the written book in front of them and read along with the narration.  I’ll have to put my mind to how to find those people.

A cast of thousands

In the terrifying gap between submitting the first draft of “Plank 4” for beta reading and receiving the resulting comments, I am distracting myself by listening to the audio version of “Fatal Forgery”. I explained a while ago about the marvellous ACX – which puts authors and voice actors together and enables them to undertake projects on the basis of a 50/50 profit split – and how I found my perfect “audio Sam”, Guy Hanson.  Guy is now reading “FF” aloud, chapter by chapter, and sending it to me for approval.

It is a really weird experience, hearing your own words read aloud to you – it somehow makes them seem more official and approved.  And Guy is (to my ear) 100% perfect as Sam: mature, warm, slightly wry, a bit rough at times.  It is also fascinating to hear him tackle the other characters.  As he explained at the outset, he is not trying to mimic anyone, to sound like an impersonator doing a series of skits, but rather intends to give the impression of each person.  And although I think of my cast list as being quite small, there are in fact dozens of roles to tackle, from a fourteen-year old prostitute to senior presiding judges.  Most of them are spot on – a particular favourite is the self-satisfied Foster at the Bank of England – but I wasn’t happy with my first encounter with Martha, as she sound too posh and a bit affected.  Guy had another go, having understood perfectly what I meant, as by then he had read the whole book and had much more the measure of Martha, and now she’s just right.

We’ve nearly finished the audio editing, so my next distraction project will be to research the marketing of audio books.  And lurking at the back of my mind is the worst duty of all: the writing of the back cover blurb for “Plank 4”.  But thankfully I can procrastinate on that one, reasoning that the beta reading might demand so many plot alterations that any blurb I write now would be irrelevant.  I’m not sure which thought scares me more: the blurb or the re-writes!

Sam comes to life

When I was at the Alderney Literary Festival (did I mention that?!) I said during my talk that I would love to have Sam made into audiobooks, but that I had made enquiries about Audible a couple of years ago, and it was way too expensive for me.  Afterwards someone came up to me and said that they knew of a new system, and – what can I say?  It’s miraculous.

The service is called ACX – Audiobook Creation Exchange – and it’s part of Amazon.  Basically you advertise the fact that you have a book that you would like audio-ed, and narrators and producers rush to audition for you.  If you’re CJ Sansom or JK Rowling.  (Is that where I’m going wrong?  Should I be SP Grossey?)  Of course, if you’re a nobody like me you have to chase them instead, but that’s fascinating anyway.  You set various filters to find the sort of voice you want – I went for male, mature (not old), UK, London, warm – and listen to their snippets.  And as soon as I heard one particular voice, I thought, that’s Sam.  I contacted the narrator – he works for himself, so no producer in the mix – and offered my project.  He liked the look of the book – obviously, if you’re going to spend hours reading something, it has to be something that interests you – and agreed to do an audition.  This afternoon I received his recording of the first chapter of “Fatal Forgery”, and it was spine-chilling to hear my own words read aloud to me.  And it sounded really, really professional – you know, like a proper book.  Long story short, he’s going to read the whole of “Fatal Forgery”, and has promised that he’s feeling hale and hearty and envisages being able to read all seven Sams.

What about the money, I hear you asking.  Well, ACX offers two basic arrangements: a 50/50 profit split between author and narrator, or a per-hour charge paid by author to narrator.  I offered the former, partly because I don’t want to pay a lot of money upfront for an untested idea (I have no feel for how much pent-up demand there is for audio-Sam) and partly because I think a narrator whose income depends on the sales of the audiobook will be much more involved in promotion.  And when it’s done, ACX puts it up on Amazon, Audible and iTunes – it’s an exclusive arrangement, so I can’t put it anywhere else, but I figure that they’re the big three anyway.

So that’s my latest project – apart from writing “Plank 4”, of course.  Which is going well, thank you for asking.