Tag: advice

advice, Audiobooks, publishing

Audio Book Meets DIY

Melinda Kucsera

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Yesterday we talked about audio books, specifically about the money side.  You can refresh your memory here about that. I also referred you to a great post that Cecilia Lewis wrote up detailing how you pick a narrator for your book. Read her article here. Yesterday’s discussion centered around the cost to produce audio books and the options you have about production–if you go the professional route.

If you, like me, have some skill at editing audio files on your own, there is another option. You can narrate your book yourself, edit the audio yourself and submit the files to ACX. They have guidelines and tips to help you navigate your way through the DIY option.

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advice, Audiobooks, publishing

Is There a Narrator in the House?

Melinda Kucsera

100_0065-smallI love audio books. So do my coworkers. We have our own little audio book club where we advocate and cajole each other to listen to the audio books we have loved. Right now two-thirds of the audio book club is pushing me to read Robert Galbraith’s novels. They are also lobbying me to put a project on kickstarter.com to raise money for my novella’s audio book to be narrated by a real voice actor.

ACX, whom I will be doing this through, offers several options for turning your book into an audio book. Step one is to publish your book as a kindle book through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program. I’m working on that right now. Rest assured.

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advice, writing

Treat yourself to Book Writing 101 with a humous twist

Melinda Kucsera

desk

Ever wondered how to write a book? Wonder no more. Rands wrote a tongue in cheek blog post about the process: How to Write a Book. In his article, he advises:

Even better, stop thinking about writing a book. Your endless internal debate and self-conjured guilt about that book you haven’t written yet is a sensational waste of your time. My guess is if you took all the time that you’ve spent considering writing a book and translated that into actual writing time, you’d be a quarter of your way into writing that book you’re not writing.

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advice, writing

Laughs and an Outlet for your Writing

Melinda Kucsera

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Do you do any of these things? 
Camilla Marsh, writing for The Writing Cooperative, put together a list of quirks, anyone of which might apply to you. Here’s a sneak peak:

7. You’ve been known to taper off during a conversation, staring into oblivion, mouth slightly ajar, as your mind fills with an enthralling tale-to-be with characters yet-to-be named as your colleague’s fourth helping of stale office gossip falls unheard at your feet.

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advice

User Experience Matters

Melinda Kucsera

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

If you doubt this, come to my office where every little detail of a website is scrutinized. We’re not a big player in the web world. We don’t want to send our visitors screaming for the exit; we want them to come into our site and never leave. We are a black hole sucking you in. Spaghettification will begin soon…muahahahaha…..

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writing

Fresh Perspective: What Photography Can Teach You About Writing

Melinda Kucsera

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Looking for a fresh perspective to start your week? Look no further. I’ve got one to offer.

What photography can teach you about writing

On the surface, photography and writing have little in common. If you dig a little deeper, the commonalities become plain. Photographers frame life with their camera lens and capture those images in pixels or film. Writer also frame life–be it every day reality or a slice from their fantasy world–in words. A photographer’s frame is the limit of his/her lens; A writer’s is his or her imagination. 

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Audiobooks, book review

Sound off: Advice from the Web

Melinda Kucsera

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While you relax and enjoy your well-deserved Sunday morning rituals, here’s some advice culled from the internet on a writing, creativity, motivation and process. While your sipping orange juice, some exotic tea, a coffee confection or plain old milk, let your mind consider these tidbits and store them away for future reference.

Here’s a new way to look at your writing from The New Yorker, a piece entitled, Omission: Choosing What to Leave out:

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writing

Maintaining the Fictional Dream

Melinda Kucsera

As writers we’re charged with the responsibility of drawing the reader in, making him care about the character and identify with the characters. To do that, we must create and maintain the fictional dream. There’s an article on that on the website in the Writers’ Aids section, but let me say here that it is through the fictional dream that a reader is transported from reading words on a page to living the events of the novel. – Vicki Hinze I quoted the above text from Vicki Hinze’s article, The Reason Editors Reject Manuscripts.  Since I am pursuing the e-book/self publishing route, I … Continue reading Maintaining the Fictional Dream