Jaguar Catch-up, Christmas Edition!🎄 (Patreon)

December’s not usually a busy work month for me, but this year I have a bunch of projects simmering! Here's what's up:

Isn't this the best review ever? What more could you want in a holiday collection?? Sleigh Bells and Starships is out, and, as you can see, inspiring cavities in readers with its sweetness! If you need a holiday pick-me-up, grab it and re-read old patron gifts and enjoy the all new (enormo) novella. You wanted to hear how Lesandurel and Araelis got on… I promise you, it’s funny and lovely and there's a lot of it. Yes, it was trying to become a novel. As usual!

Also in keeping with the season, a Certain Fairy Godanimal sent me the Inkvent 2023 calendar, so every day I’m putting up a youtube short so you can open the little doors with me and see what ink color’s waiting for us. My first two shorts were learning experiences… by the third, I was in the groove, and now I’m really enjoying the format. Go take a look!

Moving on, my Kickstarter paperbacks are arriving in stages, because Amazon sent them in five different boxes. That’s how it took me a while to discover that I’d messed up on Rose Point Holiday, uploading a file that wasn’t laid out to my standards. I redid it, uploaded it, and ordered a physical proof this time to prove I didn’t mess it up a second time…! This is the first time I’ve made an error like this in years, and of course I made it to the tune of over $150. Lessons painfully learned! But I hope to have all the books in my hands by next week so I can begin the final stages of fulfillment for the campaign.

Meanwhile, for fun, I’ve been working on a text game, “Rival Mages,” as a way to learn coding for games. I love playing this kind of text-based game, and it occurred to me ‘wait… I’m a writer and this is pretty basic-looking, from an assets-and-effort standpoint… why not try it?’ So I downloaded the Choicescript engine and have been experimenting. (My Discord users have been patient about my many many screenshots and babble about what I’m learning about game design). 

This was my ‘goof off’ project for December, and I got pretty far into it when I got distracted by…

...Amazon opting me into the AI narration beta, which I requested so that I could produce cheap audio editions for the visually impaired fans who used to use text-to-speech functions on their devices to listen to books with no audiobook versions. I don’t see AI narration as a replacement for the experience of an audiobook narrated by a voice actor, any more than ebooks replaced special edition hardcovers with foil dust jackets and color plates. But I have no qualms restoring the text-to-audio options that allowed people who can’t read to enjoy my work. The results are surprisingly good…! Particularly since the tool allows you to train the AI how to pronounce unfamiliar words. Using it, I got a Mindtouch audio edition done in two hours, and it was available at Amazon/Audible in half a day. That’s… honestly, really stunning.

You can listen to the sample here! 

Having said that, the beta tool is a beta tool and breaks often. I’ve reported four different issues with it so far, and two of them are game-breaking and have halted my progress completely! I have to wait for them to resolve my tickets before I can continue. I am strangely impatient, because I have about 30 books that need audio editions. Some part of me is hoping they make enough profit that I can afford to hire narrators for them... high hopes, jaguar!

Finally, I’m also embarking on a significant retooling of my business processes. A couple of those initiatives involve getting my children’s books into catalogs via a different vendor (IngramSpark), which required a significant and painful outlay in cash; and reformatting the early Alysha books so that I can try email marketing with them. Since I haven’t so far been successful in finding a job, it behooves me to make a greater effort to raise my writing income. As usual, there are no guarantees, but everyone assures me I could monetize my assets better and I'm willing to take advice.

What I definitely want for Christmas is a job that allows me to continue to fulfill my other responsibilities!

Anyway, that's what's going on, amid the cookie-baking, various mom and family things, and the unexpected and lovely cold weather we're getting. A reminder that Discord is the best place to ask me (or other fans) questions, so if you need a fresh invite link here it is! And as always, comments, suggestions, and drive-by greetings are always welcome.