Some weeks, we crawl instead of walk

On the CliftonStrengths test, a test that splits personality traits into thirty-four patterns of success, my Discipline ranks at number seven. Consistency ranks at thirty-one.

Maybe that explains why it’s very easy for me to get my butt in the chair every morning and work all day, but very difficult to work at the exact same thing for any great length of time.

(For interest’s sake, my number one Strength is Achiever, which means I start every day from zero and only feel a day is worthwhile if I have accomplished something that day. Shocking, I know.)

On a (totally not) unrelated note, this has been a difficult week for me, physical health-wise. I’ve been fighting through brain fog, exhaustion, cramps, and depression. There was not enough sleep and caffeine in the world to make me feel alert this week.

In spite of that, or maybe because of it, I’ve made significant progress on three projects this week (two of which weren’t even on my plan as of Sunday night, but here we are).

Re-enactment of my week. Photo by Joyuma (@joyuma), courtesy of Unsplash.

Updates to the Just Plain Socks pattern

This was the one item I’ve worked on this week that I’d planned to, lol. My popular free Just Plain Socks pattern was next on my docket of patterns to update. Like the others, I didn’t just overhaul the pattern layout, but tweaked the way it was written too.

In this case, the pattern is formulaic (also known as a recipe pattern,) meaning the customer does the math to create the design based on the formulas I included.

I tweaked a few of the formulas based on what I’ve learned about sock knitting since my last update of this pattern in 2016, then started knitting a sample to test the new math. I’m happy to say, the sample turned out perfect, and the updated pattern should be live by the end of today.

My nearly-completed sample sock. I needed a new pair, anyway, so bonus!

In addition, I decided to also do a calculated-for-you version of the pattern that will be a paid product. I hope to have that live by the end of today, too, but if it’s not, it will be up early next week.

Reader Merch for Rise of the Grigori fans

For quite some time, I’ve wanted to think of some cool merch for my readers that I could carry in my merchandise store. In the last three weeks, I’ve finally started, albeit modestly, with a bookplate sticker and a limited edition bookmark for Every Star that Shines.

This week, I finally came up with a cool idea for my Rise of the Grigori readers—school pride shirts and bookbags for the school in my series my characters all attend (the Royal Academy). I hired a designer on Fiverr to bring my idea to life, and as of today, I have two designs listed in my store. I’m waiting for a sample order for another product I’m less sure about before I list that one as well.

But even if you don’t know the story, this is kind of a cool piece of merch on its own—which is exactly what I was going for.

(If you’re reading on an RSS feed, the following block showcasing the new products will probably be missing, and you’ll have to click through to the post to see it.)

I’d love to hear what you think of this idea, or if you have more ideas for the types of merch you would love see.

Diving into auto-narrated audiobooks

Earlier this year, Google Play Books introduced the option to have any eBook listed with them digitally narrated (which they call auto-narration). While the product is in beta, it’s free.

Last December, I had one of my novellas, All I Want for Christmas, digitally narrated using the licensed voice of Edward Herrmann by a company called DeepZen. Though they weren’t perfect, I was pretty happy with the results.

While digital narration is not the same as having a book performed by a human narrator, DeepZen still produced a pleasant listening experience that sounded human-like. My biggest complaint is that the technology was not yet able to handle vocal tics or weird sounds like uh-huh, so I compensated for that by making some minor revisions to the text to replace those with yep in the digital audio version.* (I expect it’s only a matter of time before that problem goes away.)

*I recently re-listened to this book and discovered I’d missed one of these. Doh! It sounds like a weird, digitized growl. Oh, well.

Oh, and since I got the finished files back from the company after Christmas, I decided to hold onto it for the year before releasing it. Then I quietly published it earlier this month. (A little early for Christmas, but I was updating the book page and didn’t want to have to do more work on it later, lol.) You heard it here first, folks.

At the moment, you can only get the audiobook directly from me, delivered through the BookFunnel app, which is actually one of the best audio listening apps I’ve used. Check out the digital audio sample of chapter one of All I Want for Christmas on the book page.

Anyhoo, back to auto-narration through Google…

Even though digital narration is cheaper than human narration, it’s still not inexpensive in either time or money invested to produce the final product. In fact, the cost to produce my full-length novels was still prohibitive through DeepZen for my current budget. When Google introduced this free auto-narration option, I was excited to try it, but I had way too much on my plate to set aside any time for it for most of this year.

Yesterday, I had to log into my Google Play account for another reason, and they had an invitation to try auto-narration front-and-centre. And I decided, “You know what? Today’s the day.”

I’m excited to finally hear this story told in audio format, even if it’s digital. Coming soon! Woot!

I’m now half-way through proof-listening to The Friday Night Date Dress. I chose an American female voice they call Madison, which sounds like a Black woman in her thirties. And I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised by the results.

No, it still doesn’t touch a human-narrated performance of the book. But I find I’m actually enjoying listening to the story being told this way.

After some playing around, I’ve even been able to figure out how to correct most of the mispronunciations I’ve come across—and there haven’t actually been that many.

I’ve become an audio-first consumer for many types of reading for the past few years, so I find it intensely gratifying to listen to my story in audio form. But, more than that, I hope that offering digital audiobook sales of all my titles (not just the two short ones I’ve done so far as experiments) will open my brand up to the audiobook market, and that the extra revenue stream will allow me to save up for the human narration I desperately want to hire, especially for my more action-oriented books with trickier words (like the Rise of the Grigori series).

If all goes well, I’ll be posting a new digital audiobook every week for the next little while. (You know, if that low Consistency doesn’t flare up.) I’ll keep you posted.

In other news…

This has been one of my most social weeks in a while. Our family went to church last Sunday morning for the first time since the pandemic hit us. Of course, since I was a hormonal mess, I cried the whole time. But they were good tears. I really missed the experience of being in church, even if our Sunday afternoon play practice meant we couldn’t stick around to socialize afterwards.

On Tuesday, we got to see our dear friends Mark and Colleen and Mark’s parents (who happen to also be related to me) for supper when they came through on their way north.

Last night, I went out for a visit with my dear friend Jenn S. And I expect to get to go on a date with my hubby tomorrow morning at the local coffee shop, which has become a tradition since Monkey started working every Saturday morning. (Java Domain has fresh cinnamon buns on Saturday that are fan-freakin-tabulous. But also, date!)

I’m starting to remember what it looks like to have a life. And I like it. :-)

So, even if the progress was slow (which is kind of the point nowadays), or rather, slower than normal, there still was some.

How was your week, friend? And please, tell me what you think of the digital narration sample for All I Want for Christmas. I’m curious what audiobook listeners, especially, think about the quality and the experience.

Happy Friday!