Wren audiobook, LIA, Wren 4 – 2020 Writing Week 2

Mike Grist Weekly Writing Update, Writing Leave a Comment

This week was my second at a new job, so it’s been tricky to find the time for writing – I got motion sickness from trying to write on the bus, and ended up nauseous for three days. Ugh, never again. To boot, the campus I’m at is right next to an airport (like two hundred yards from the runway across water) so every time a plane goes up or comes down, the air fills with the pollutant backwash of burnt jet fuel.

Double ugh.

But smile 🙂

I’m much better now, and the weekend is here!

Wren 1 audiobook

The other thing that’s been hoovering up time is proof-listening to my narrator’s work on Christopher Wren 1. This is obviously a great thing to do, I enjoy hearing the story performed, but it does take time, and my narrator is fast! So this week it’s been almost an hour a day of listening to stay abreast of things.

It’s a fantastic performance, though. Accents bring it to life. We’re halfway through now, then hard onto book 2 and 3 straight after!

LIA

For the London Indie Author group this week we had in Jo Forshaw, who worked for trad publishing in the audio department – managing the transition of thousands of books into audio format. She says ‘just do it’, basically. No reason to not have a book in audio. Like having a Masters degree these days, it’s considered bare minimum for entry.

She also cautioned though that it may not pay off. It can cost around £2000 to get an audiobook made. A big outlay for an indie.

Why did my audios not do well before? I put it down to unfinished series. I only made Last Mayor book 1 in audio – so people didn’t look too closely at it. Now I’m making all the Wrens, and will do so going forward. Simultaneous release, if possible. Get the biggest bang on launch that I can.

Wren 4

I’m also working on Wren book 4. This is proving a little tricky; lots of complexity in the set up, as things need to start moving on now. They need to build, sewing in previous plot threads. Also the stakes need to rise. It can’t be just the same level of threat as previous books. It has to go bigger.

I’m getting there. Dealing with a chunk of backstory. Wouldn’t it be good to get our first look at the Apex?

Well. It may come.

So, a workmanlike week. Let the weekend be full of words! Exercise! And some tasty food (we’ve been on vegetarian chilli all week – I’m so ready for a splash of tasty meat in burger form!).

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