Podcasts about kobo plus

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2025 22:44

It's the 250th episode of The Pulp Writer Show! To celebrate this occasion, this episode takes a look at the expectations people have of a full-time writer's life and contrasts them with the reality. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer, Book #6 in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store: TALONS50 The coupon code is valid through May 27, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 250 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 2, 2025, and today we're looking at what it is really like to be a full-time writer. This is also the 250th episode of the podcast, so thank you all for listening to the podcast over these last six years. Before I started recording, I totaled up the total length of previous podcast episodes and came to about 78 hours, give or take. That's like three days of continuous talking, which sounds less impressive when you realize it was recorded over the last six years. Thank you all for listening and here's hoping you can stick around with the next 250 episodes. Before we get to our main topic, which is the expectations versus reality of being a full-time writer, we are going to do Coupon of the Week, a progress update my current writing projects, and then Question of the Week. So let's kick off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer, Book Six in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That code is TALONS50. As always, you can get that coupon code and the links to my Payhip store in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through May 27th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we have got you covered. Now an update on my current writing projects. I am 60,000 words into Ghost in the Corruption, which puts me on chapter 13 of 21, so I'm about two thirds of the way through. I think the rough draft will be between 90-100,000 words long, so hopefully I can have that out before the end of May, if all goes well. I also just finished Chapter One of Shield of Power, which will be the final book of the Shield War series and that'll be my main project once Ghost in the Corruption is finished. I'm also 87,000 words into Stealth and Spells Online: The Final Quest, and that will be my main project once Shield of Power comes out. I expect Final Quest should come out pretty soon after Shield of Power just because I've been chipping away at it for so long and I'm getting close to the end. In audiobook news, recording is almost done for Ghost in the Assembly and that'll be narrated by Hollis McCarthy. Recording is totally done for Shield of Deception (as narrated by Brad Wills) and that is working its way through processing at the various audiobook platforms, so hopefully we'll not be too much longer before we can get that to you. 00:02:26 Question of the Week So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects. And now let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question, what is your favorite Jonathan Moeller book? The reason for this question is that this is the 250th podcast episode, so it seems like a good topic for that particular milestone. And as you might expect, we had an array of different opinions. Joachim says: You are kidding us! By the end of the week? How long did you think about your own answer? Let me mirror you: for my own answer, the question is a bit difficult because I spent money on all your books, which meant I thought all of them a good buy. So let me split my answer into male and female protagonists. The best female book was Ghost Exile: Omnibus One because it prompted me to continue with Ghost Exile and fill in the Ghost series later. The Ghosts Omnibus One and Ghost Exile: Omnibus One were my first two books from you. The best male book was the one with Jack March where Thunderbolt said, “males are ogling breasts which never existed”, especially as such AI generated videos are now all over the place on YouTube. I have to admit that I first came up with the character of Thunderbolt back in early 2021 when I was working on Silent Order: Rust Hand (that was before the AI boom really took off), so she turned out to be a very prescient character for the AI era in a number of ways. Joe B. says: That is a tough question as there are many contenders. I'm going to go with one that is a little different, Sevenfold Sword Online: Creation, but now known as Stealth and Spells Online: Creation. Justin says: I nominate Soul of Swords, an excellent end to an excellent series. Perry says: There can only be one! Demonsouled. Paul says: For me, I think my favorite female protagonist book is Cloak Games: Truth Chain. Such a dramatic change to Nadia, sets up the series in her struggles with self and enemies so well. Brad Wills (who as you know narrated the Frostborn, Dragonskull, Malison, and Shield War series for me) says: Does a three book arc count? Excalibur, The Dragon Knight, and The Shadow Prison made for a fantastic lead-up and finale of the Frostborn series. Hollis McCarthy (who as you know, narrated the Ghosts and Cloak Mage audiobooks) says: Ghost in the Storm, when Caina and Kylon meet in the Battle for Marsis. Nonstop action, incredible chase scenes, and a great intro to their combative relationship. Fred says: It's hard for me to say which book is my favorite. All your book series were all great. Juana says: Frostborn: Excalibur with Ridmark. I happen to love stories about Excalibur, odd but true. Caina in Cloak and Ghost: Rebel Cell because Caina and Nadia are an incendiary team. So there! Randy says: Frostborn: The Dragon Knight. This whole series is great, but that is one of the high points. Dennis says: I couldn't name my favorite as I enjoy everything you write. I probably enjoyed the Frostborn series best at the time, but having bought and read every one of your books it's now impossible. Kevin says: There's no way on earth that I could put one book above another, so I would've to take the coward's way out and say Frostborn: The Gray Knight simply because it has a book that drew me to the worlds of Jonathan Moeller back in the spring of 2017, since which time I have bought 117 of his books, including a few omnibus editions, so a few more actual books, I suppose. I avidly read them all as they're published these days, except the Silent Order series (just doesn't grab me and pull me in like the others). Jesse says: Cloak Games: Sky Hammer. Damaged Nadia at her best, epic action the whole way. And yeah, the chapter The Last Death of Nadia Moran was viscerally cinematic and probably the biggest emotional payoff you've written in my opinion, tied her entire journey together. In my head, I cast Castle-era Stana Katic as Nadia, and it worked better than I expected it might. Morgan says: I can't narrow it down to just one. So top three in no particular order, Sevenfold Swords: Swordbearer, Dragontiarna: Gates, and Stealth and Spells Online: Leveling. That being said, I think Niara might be my favorite character of all your books I have read. Jonathan T says: I too am torn though only between two books, Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife and Frostborn: The Shadow Prison. [Side note/addition from The Transcriptionist: My vote is for Half-Elven Thief!] So thank you everyone for the kind words about all those books. For my own answer, the question is a bit difficult because I've written them all, which meant I thought all of them were good idea at the time. I suppose the glib answer would be the one that made me the most money, which was Frostborn: The Iron Tower, but it really depends on the category, like my favorite heist book, my favorite mystery book, my favorite dungeon crawl, my favorite first in series. So I think I'll go for the most basic level of categorization and split it up by male and female protagonists. My favorite book of mine with a female protagonist would probably be Cloak Games: Rebel Fist, since it's such a turning point for Nadia and starts the trajectory of the rest of her character arc. It's the first time she really has to save the day instead of just trying to save herself and shows that her brother Russell can also handle himself, which as you know, comes up again later. My favorite book of mine with a male protagonist would probably be Dragontiarna: Defenders, since it has the Battle of Shadow Crown Hill, which was one of my favorite sequences to write. Four different characters have plans and they all crash into each other at the same time, which was a lot of fun to write and set up, which was a real highlight for me in 2020 because as we all know, 2020 was a fun year. 00:07:35 Main Topic of the Week: Writing Full Time: Expectations Versus Reality So that is it for Question of the Week. Now let's move on to our main topic this week, writing full-time: expectations versus reality (admittedly from the perspective of a self-published author). If you spent any time around the writing community on the Internet at all, you know that many people dream of becoming a full-time writer, and sometimes people think that the only way to be successful as a writer is to write full-time. There are many expectations that people have about what it means to be a full-time writer. Now that I've been a full-time indie writer for nearly nine years at this point, I can provide some lived perspective. In this episode, I will talk about five of those expectations that people have about full-time writing and the way those expectations might be skewed. So before we get to those, I should mention how I actually became a full-time writer. In 2016 (which seems like a really long time ago now), the Frostborn series was doing really well, and at the time I was also working full time and I realized that summer I was going to have to move for family reasons. I wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea of moving at first, but I decided to embrace the idea and try to make the best of it. This would involve moving a considerable distance to a different state and all the different problems that entails. So I thought about it and I thought I could look for a new job, but any job I would be qualified for in the area I was moving to would make less money than I was actually making from writing part-time. So I thought, why not try and make a go of full-time writing and see what happens? Since that was nine years ago, I think I can safely say it's worked out pretty well. And I will say that it's been a pretty good experience and I am very fortunate and very grateful and very blessed to have been able to do this because not everyone has the opportunity to pursue a full-time creative job like I have been able to for these last nine years. That said, while it has been pretty great, it comes with a lot of flexibility and I've gotten to write a lot of great books that many people have enjoyed, it's not always all wine and roses, so to speak, which is part of the reason why I wanted to do this episode to let people more in what the reality of being a full-time writer for this long has been like. So with that introduction out of the way, let's move on to our five expectations versus reality. Expectation #1: Full-time authors make a lot of money. The reality is that even full-time authors generally don't make that much money. A survey from The Author's Guild showed that the median amount that full-time authors make was just about $20,000, though full-time romance writers had a higher median income of about $37,000. Remember that this amount is before any health insurance costs, benefits, retirement contributions, and of course taxes that a traditional job might be able to provide or help with. In the United States, buying even fairly basic health insurance can easily be a thousand dollars per month for a family, and that doesn't include any costs related to deductibles, prescriptions, or additional dental or vision insurance. Authors are either on their own for healthcare in the US or have to rely on a spouse or partner's healthcare coverage. In other words, you either have to pony up a lot of money to buy your own health insurance or you have to rely on your spouse or partner's healthcare coverage. And at least in the US, taxes are also much higher on the self-employed. Uncle Sam really does not like the self-employed. If you are self-employed, it is in your best interest to essentially form a small corporation and work for yourself (though for details on how to do that, you should consult with an accountant licensed to practice in your region). Now all these costs can add up pretty quickly, and they make the amount of money that you'll earn from writing much less than you think based on raw earnings before taxes and all the other expenses we were talking about. You also have business expenses like cover design, site hosting, editors, narrators, advertising, et cetera, that take even more pieces out of those earnings. You can duck some of those, but not all of them. So it boils down to that you have to make a significant amount of money as an author to make an actual living after taxes, healthcare costs, and business expenses are taken out of your earnings, which is one of the reasons that writing part-time as you have a full-time job is not the worst idea in the world and can in fact be a very good idea. Expectation #2: My next book will make as much or more than the last one did. The reality is that your next book or series might not make you as much money as the previous ones did. In fact, you can reliably predict that most book series will have a certain amount of reader drop off as a series goes on, which is why these days I tend to want to keep my series under nine to ten books or so. Budgeting based on your current income levels is not wise, especially with the current economic climate (which for a variety of reasons is very unpredictable) and with increased competition in the ebook market. Most authors have a peak at some point in their career. For example, Stephen King is still obviously making a great living as a writer putting out new books, but his new books don't sell nearly as well as the ones he put out in the ‘80s. J.K. Rowling's novels for adults (she writes as Robert Galbraith the Cormoran Strike series) don't sell anywhere near the number of copies as her Harry Potter series did at its peak. For myself, my peak years in terms of writing income were 2016 and 2017, and I've never quite been able to recapture that level. In fact, in 2024, I only did about two thirds of what I did in 2017 (my peak year), which can be a little nerve wracking as you watch those numbers move up and down. That is why it is important for a writer (like many other creatives like actors) to anticipate that they might only have a limited window of peak success and to save aggressively rather than living large on the amount you're earning in that peak era. And I am pleased to report that I was fortunate enough and sensible enough to do that, so that even if my income has varied from year to year (2017 onward), it hasn't been a crippling loss and I haven't been out in the street or lost the house or anything like that. Expectation #3: You will be happier if you write full-time. The reality is that is not true for everyone. Some people actually do better creatively and emotionally with the time restrictions placed on them by having a full-time job. Many famous writers, including Trollope and Kafka, kept their full-time jobs. Even Tolkien was never a full-time writer. He was a professor of philology until he retired. That was interesting to me because personally, I haven't had much in terms of emotional trouble being a full-time writer. I've always kind of had the ability to hyperfocus on a task, and I've been doing that for almost nine years now, and it's worked out well for me. I've since realized that is not true for many people. One of the things that demonstrated it to me, believe it or not, was insurance actuarial tables. One thing that I tried to do after I became a full-time writer was try and get disability insurance in case I had an accident or severe illness and could not write anymore. I learned that it's extremely difficult for full-time writers to get disability insurance due to their high rates of substance abuse and mental illness. I was astonished by this because I've never had problems with substance abuse or mental illness myself, but given the number of writers and other creatives I've known who have had those issues, perhaps that's not that surprising, but I was still baffled to learn that. For example, in my area there are a number of tree management companies (because it's a heavily wooded area) and it's a lot easier for an arborist who works with a chainsaw all day to get disability insurance than it is for a writer, which is somewhat crazy to think about because as a writer, I'm mostly sitting in a chair all day pressing buttons on a keyboard while an arborist is climbing a tree or in a crane with a chainsaw, which is a much more physically dangerous thing. But because of the rates of substance abuse and mental illness among full-time writers, apparently it is very difficult for full-time writers to get disability insurance. Some people struggle with the lack of structure and outward accountability that comes from being a full-time writer and find that actually decreases their productivity and leads them to fall into substance abuse or sink deeper into mental health problems. Very few people have the self-discipline and mental resilience required to be a full-time writer for years on end. And that's not me tooting my own horn so to speak, but apparently it is just the facts. Some writers even go back to full-time work just because they find it less stressful or better for their wellbeing. So I think this is an excellent example of having to know yourself and know what is best for you. For example, if you're a very extroverted person who enjoys talking to people at the office, becoming a full-time writer where you spend most of your time by yourself typing might not be the best for your long-term mental and physical health. Expectation #4: Writing full-time will make me more productive. The reality is having more time does not necessarily mean that you'll be more productive. Writers are notorious for falling prey to time wasters, such as social media scrolling, research spirals, and writing adjacent activities (of which there is a whole series about on this podcast already). It does take a lot of a self-discipline, focus, and determination to be a full-time writer. If you are a full-time writer, especially a full-time indie writer, you also have to balance writing time with various administrative tasks, marketing and ads, social media, fan correspondence, and the various tasks involved in the self-publishing process. Writing is not the only thing that writers actually do, and the other tasks often make finding time for writing more difficult than you might expect. Even traditionally published writers still have to carve out time for administrative work and assisting with marketing and social media work. As your writing career scales up, so does the behind the scenes workload. This is true in my case. Up until 2023, I basically did everything myself, but I did have COVID pretty badly for a while in 2023 and it just knocked out my energy for a while and I realized that I can't keep trying to do everything by myself. I basically had a choice, either cut some tasks or get some help. So I have some people now, some contractors who help me with things like listening to audiobook proofs (I used to do that all myself), doing the podcast transcript, and Excel record keeping (which I used to do myself). While that is an expense, I don't regret it because it really has taken a lot off my plate and freed up more time for writing, which of course is the entire point. Expectation #5: I admit this one made me laugh. I will have more free time as a full-time writer. I can attest firsthand that that is not true. What you have as a full-time writer is flexibility. The reality is, although there is flexibility on the job, the hours can be more than for a full-time job. There's a joke that full-time writers can work any 12 hours they want every day. Most indie authors are putting out far more than one book a year in order to make a full-time income, and that requires a fairly demanding pace that most people don't have the self-discipline to maintain as a lifestyle for years and years on end. The majority of full-time writers right now are either romance or erotica writers who are putting out at least a book a month, sometimes even more. As I mentioned in an earlier point in the show, the administrative task can take far more time than most people would imagine. They could, depending on the circumstances, be easily 40 hours a week on their own before you have time to do a single word of writing on the page. I found you really have to guard your writing time well and find ways to keep administrative tasks, distractions, and necessary tasks such as home maintenance or childcare separate from writing. Anyone who has ever worked from home is familiar with how difficult that can be because home comes with a wide set of distractions. Granted, that's often fewer distractions than the office, but home can have its own set of distractions. I've mentioned before that you need a bit of tunnel vision to produce the quantity of writing I do month after month. I do keep to a pretty rigid schedule. I have daily word count goals I always try to meet and I use the Pomodoro Method to make sure that I'm prioritizing my writing time. If you are self-employed and working for yourself, that means there are no allocated vacation or sick days and no paid sick leave in the writing world. Taking a couple of weeks off usually means anticipating a loss in income, such as a month without a book being released. Sometimes, especially in the case of illness, family emergencies, and so forth, that just can't be helped. However, the long vacations people imagine writers being able to take mean either a loss of income or a couple of weeks beforehand of working extra hours to make up for it. For example, Brandon Sanderson, who is probably the most famous fantasy author right now, still works and writes on his vacations and does extra work before leaving for a vacation (such as pre-recording videos). So as you can see, most of the expectations people have about what it's like to write full-time come from the hope that it will change their productivity or make it easier to write. In reality, if you manage your time well, you can often meet all your writing goals even while working another full-time job. Some people are even more productive under the time pressure of only having an hour or so available to write each day. You don't have to wait until you are a full-time writer for your writing career to start. I wrote for decades and published for years before I was a full-time writer. Frankly, the idea that you need to be a full-time writer in order to be taken seriously or make money exists only in your own mind. Whether you are a full-time writer or not, what matters is having the discipline to shut out distractions and write with absolute consistency regardless of the circumstances. Even writing 250 to 300 words every single day can add up very quickly, even if you don't do it in 15 minute bursts like Anthony Trollope did. Finally, I suppose this makes it sound like I'm painting a very bleak picture here, but I'm not. As I said before, I'm very fortunate to be able to do what I do, and I'm very grateful to all my readers that I'm able to write full-time and even hire on contractors for narration and behind the scenes work. I appreciate and am very grateful to all the readers who have supported me by continuing to buy my work and access it through subscription services like Kindle Unlimited or Kobo Plus or library options like Libby and Hoopla. So that is it for this week. I hope it provided some insight into what it's like to be a full-time writer. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show and all 250 episodes. I hope you found the show and all 250 episodes useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Author Arrested Over Disturbing Allegations | Self-Publishing News (Apr. 7, 2025)

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 8, 2025 23:01

Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX) rolled out new features and analytics for account holders, plus I share deeper insights into ACX's new digital voice narration with the cloning capabilities. Kobo Plus expanded into two new regions. National Novel Writing Month shut down; what happened and what can authors do now? And an Australian erotica author has been arrested due to some disturbing allegations. Find out about all that and more in the self-publishing news this week! Book Award Pro - https://DaleLinks.com/BookAwardPro (affiliate link) Subscribe to The Self-Publishing Hub - https://TheSelfPublishingHub.com Subscribe to my email newsletter - https://DaleLinks.com/SignUp Join Channel Memberships - https://DaleLinks.com/Memberships Join Me on Discord - https://DaleLinks.com/Discord Check out my main YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@DaleLRoberts My Books - https://DaleLinks.com/MyBooks Wanna tip me? Visit https://dalelroberts.gumroad.com/coffee. Sources: Now in Beta: Narrator Voice Replicas on ACX - https://www.acx.com/mp/blog/now-in-beta-narrator-voice-replicas-on-acx Getting the most from your ACX reporting and analytics - https://www.acx.com/mp/blog/getting-the-most-from-your-acx-reporting-and-analytics Rakuten Kobo Launches Kobo Plus in Singapore & Malaysia - https://kobowritinglife.com/2025/03/18/rakuten-kobo-launches-kobo-plus-in-singapore-malaysia/ NaNoWriMo shutting down (covered by The Bottom Line) - https://janefriedman.com/the-bottom-line-janes-publishing-industry-newsletter/ (subscription required) The State of NaNoWriMo - A Community Update - March 2025 - https://youtu.be/TR6NnjgeIIY?si=Yr8eQ3F7fgYyukWd Apple Books for Authors - https://authors.apple.com Sydney author Lauren Tesolin-Mastrosa arrested over ‘pedophilia' book - https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/crime/sydney-author-lauren-tesolinmastrosa-arrested-over-pedophilia-book/news-story/5babb82438d7adc5ca699c877b07641a CoverRater - https://coverrater.com - use coupon code DALEROCKS for 20% off (good till Sept. 30, 2025) PublishDrive - https://DaleLinks.com/PublishDrive (affiliate link) PublishDrive presents: Building Your Author Platform with Evan Gow of StoryOrigin - https://publishdrive.com/building-your-author-platform-with-evan-gow-of-storyorigin.html Keith Wheeler presents: YouTube for Books - https://dalelinks.com/youtubeforbooks (affiliate link) Book Career in a Year by Nick Thacker - https://www.bookcareerinayear.com/sp/book/ref/1/ Books that Make You presents: Dale L. Roberts on Self-Publishing for New Authors – Your Guide to Indie Success - https://youtu.be/_9CejZROHcU?si=63ji1R6XkK9IAMCi Self-Publishing with ALLi presents: Marketing Strategies for Children's Books That Work - https://selfpublishingadvice.org/podcast-marketing-strategies-for-childrens-books/ The Writing Community Chat Show presents: A Haunted Island. A Spooky Investigation. - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thewccs/a-haunted-island-a-spooky-investigation?ref=project_link Teddy AG Smith presents: Dale L. Roberts - Beyond Amazon: The Strategic Approach to Publishing Wide - https://youtu.be/bea3M6zGlqQ?si=AlfTwqLTn9cBPXkw ULTIMATE ‪@DaleLRoberts‬ QUIZ | ARE YOU A SELF-PUBLISHING WITH DALE EXPERT? - https://youtu.be/o2n7Kw6q6l0?si=3IYU8M32GGqS8qaI Where noted, some outbound links financially benefit the channel through affiliate programs. I only endorse programs, products, or services I use and can stand confidently behind. These links do not affect your purchase price and greatly helps to building and growing this channel. Thanks in advance for understanding! - Dale L. Roberts

children state books australian discord arrested marketing strategies allegations disturbing bottom line self publishing nanowrimo national novel writing month make you acx publishing news dale l roberts publishdrive nick thacker keith wheeler kobo plus

Episode 228: November Writing Challenge, Part IV - Questions From Beginner Writers

RUBEN TIJL RUBEN - DÉ PODCAST

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2024 32:46

In this week's episode, we conclude our November Writing Challenge with questions from beginner writers. We also check in with our transcriptionist and see how she did with the challenge. Bonus! The transcriptionist's official Writing Playlist: Now I'm in It-HAIM Build Me Up From Bones- Sarah Jarosz Outnumbered- Dermot Kennedy Pain is Cold Water- Noah Kahan Orpheus- Vincent Lima Flight Risk- Tommy Lefroy If I Don't See You Again- Wyatt Flores Brink of Love- Teddy Thompson The Wire- Patrick Droney Coming Home- Leon Bridges More Love- Sara Bareilles White Flag-JOSEPH TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 228th of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November the 22nd, 2024, and today we are discussing the fourth and final part of our November Writing Challenge, which will answer questions from beginning writers. Before getting into that, we will have an update on my current writing and audiobook projects and our Question of the Week. First up, Cloak of Illusion, as I mentioned last week, is now out. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip Store. There was a bit of a processing glitch on Kobo that slowed it down this week, but now the book should be available at Kobo, so if you're a Kobo reader, you can buy it for your Kobo reader or read it in Kobo Plus without any difficulty. Now that Cloak of Illusion is out (and selling very well, thank you all for that), my next project is Orc Hoard. That will be the fourth Rivah Half-Elven Thief book and I am 44,000 words into it (on chapter 10 of 18, which means I'm over halfway through). I very, very much want to have this book out before Christmas and I will be doing my best to make that happen. I am also about 2,000 words into Shield of Deception, which will be the fourth Shield War book (and hopefully will be my first book in 2025). The outline has 31 chapters, which means this will be the longest book I have tackled in a while, so I'm glad I'm getting kind of a head start on it as the secondary project while I work on Orc Hoard. In audiobook news, as we mentioned last week, Shield of Conquest is out at all the audiobook stores (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), and you can get that at your favorite audiobook store. In other good audiobook news, Cloak of Spears (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is now out at all the audiobook stores and if you are looking for something to listen to on your long Thanksgiving drive or plane trip, I should mention that Cloak of Spears is about 12 hours long, so it will have you covered. 00:02:01: Question of the Week So that's where I'm at with my current writing and audiobook projects and let's move on now to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics and this week's question ties directly into what we just talked about: what do you do for entertainment while traveling (whether by car, plane, train or otherwise- podcasts, audiobooks, portable games, that kind of thing)? No wrong answers, obviously. The inspiration for this question, as you might guess, was the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, which for many people was a great deal of travel and finding ways to amuse yourself while traveling. So in answer to this question, Justin says: music- classical, rock, movie scores, and video game tunes. If I'm traveling, I'm almost always driving. Music helps relax and entertain without demanding my attention. Brett says: I read- very often one of your books. You've published 100+ books, but because I've read them multiple times, I may be at 1,000 plus reads of your books. (I got to say Brett has a good taste here.) If I'm driving, I don't usually have any entertainment. Surabhi says: I love reading while traveling. Kindle is a nice advantage, being easy to carry, and I usually have easy to read books to read for traveling, which of course is why I have so many of your books in my Kindle Library. They're simple yet enjoyable to read. I got to say Kindle does make traveling with books a lot easier. I remember in the old days all I had was space for two books to bring on a trip, and so I was trying to pick out which two books to bring. Venus says: Reading and geocaching. Bonnie says: about all the traveling I've done recently is to work and back, usually local radio station and ‘80s music. Juana says: so my dad drove like he was in NASCAR. Consequently, I read books, because I was not brave enough to watch death coming for us. The habit is still with me. Darla says: riding in car listening to Sirius XM, looking at scenery or talking to the driver, driving by myself- listening to radio or CD music and singing. On an airplane, I read hard copy books or ebooks on my tablet, maybe try to sleep. Cheryl says: read the Kindle, but mainly keep an eye on the road, even as a passenger. You never know what is going to jump out into a country highway here in Australia. Ashley says: I listen to audiobooks while driving and that has made working overnights more bearable. Adeline says: Apple's Books app on my phone has been my best friend while on the move for years-planes, trains, London's public transportation. MW says: while driving, I listen to either music or a podcast. When I'm being a passenger, I love to read or draw. I'm always carrying my Kindle and my sketchbook everywhere, or I try to catch some sleep. I generally avoid conversing unless I'm actually traveling with someone, but even then I reserve some time for myself. John says: audiobooks while driving, Kindle on my phone while flying or lounging around, physical books while camping, though I use the phone at night. I like to hang out in restaurants and pubs at the bar, reading books and talking to strangers. If there's a beach or river, occasionally fish and walk around either the city, beach, or trail. Jenny says: all the books or podcasts/radio shows. BBC has a fun one I have on CD called Cabin Pressure. It's hilarious. And if I'm alone in the car, singing along at full volume with my singalong playlist. Just a comment quick, I did listen to all of Cabin Pressure in 2022 and early 2023, and it is indeed hilarious and I recommend listening to it if you get the chance. JT says: when I travel, I generally intend to read and thus take several books. Instead, I listen to YouTube videos, audiobooks, music, play games, or nap. It is rather frustrating. Brandy says: I haven't been able to drive myself since 2010, so I generally read books, coordinate meds, snacks, and travel stops since my partner is diabetic and I am epileptic. I navigate, take pictures of interesting scenery for attempted art later, bug people through texts, and Facebook. Barbara says: if I'm not driving, I usually just watch the traffic and scenery. Of course, depending on whom the driver is, I may just close my eyes so I don't panic. Unfortunately, I have to board an airplane in a couple of weeks for an out-of-state wedding. I'll distract myself from the agony of the flight by reading. Morgan says: I don't travel much, but I'm a delivery driver for work and I do a lot of audiobooks and podcasts, especially tabletop RPG actual play podcasts. And Rob says: usually talk to the driver/navigate. If it's by bus or train. I read. For myself, whenever I travel, most of the time I'm the one who's doing the driving, which obviously narrows down the entertainment options. So when I travel any long distances, I'm usually listening to audio books. A quirk I have with that is that I prefer to listen to audiobooks of books I've already read. So if I need to tune out the audiobook and focus on heavy traffic for a while, which happens often, then I don't feel like I'm missing anything. 00:06:30 Main Topic of the Week: November Writing Challenge Week 4 Now it's onto our main topic, the fourth and final week of our November Writing Challenge. As you know, if you've listened to the previous three episodes, our November Writing Challenge is sort of a let's call a low stress way to build a writing habit and get into writing and do writing because the traditional way of getting into writing in November, NaNoWriMo, may be a bit overwhelming for some people. If you feel like you're missing out when others are working on a bigger writing challenge this month, and if you want to start writing but feel overwhelmed, a smaller writing challenge for the absolute beginner- 300 words a day or some other small number of your choosing. The key is that it should be small and something you can manage daily. Follow along with our podcast transcriptionist who has never finished writing a book and feels overwhelmed at the idea of starting one. Follow her progress and see what advice I have for her and other beginner writers. So with that in mind, let's start with our transcriptionist update for the fourth and final week of the challenge. She says, “I completed another week of the challenge. I averaged 355 words per day, taking an average of 14 minutes per day. It's getting easier as the challenge goes on this month. For my overall challenge, I averaged 363 words per day, taking an average of 14 minutes per day to finish my daily word count. I finished three chapters of a rough draft even in a month where a lot of things happened in real life that ordinarily would've kept me from trying. I plan to keep going with the challenge in December since it feels like a habit at this point.” So as we can see, our transcriptionist had good results from the challenge and feels like she's gone a long way to build a consistent writing habit. As I've said before many times on the podcast, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the possible and the achievable. And if a 1,000 words or 1,600 words a day just seems overwhelming, 300 words a day might be far more achievable. So that might be something worth looking into. So now onto the questions I've been sent about writing from beginning writers. So we're going to go through these questions one by one. #1: Do you listen to music while you write? Yes, I do. My preferred genre is soundtracks from movies, TV shows, and computer games that I like. And my listening habits tend to be a bit eclectic and not transferable to other people because if I talk to other people about my age, they prefer listening to bands they remember from their teenage years or their twenties. It's true for everyone, whatever the music you were listening to when you were a teenager and in your early twenties becomes the gold standard for music for the rest of your life, and nothing else can quite live into that. But for me, I prefer listening to soundtracks from movies, TV shows, and especially computer games I enjoy. For example, yesterday I was working on chapters 9 and 10 of Orc Hoard, and during that time I listened to the main theme from Dragon Age: The Veilguard like 15 times in a row. Am I going to play Dragon Age: The Veilguard? No, I don't have time for another computer game of that size, but I like Han Zimmer's music and have many of his soundtracks and I like the main theme to Dragon Age: The Veilguard, so I listen to it like 15 times in a row. #2: Our next question: is writing fun for you most of the time? I would say it is fun for me most of the time. It's always an expenditure of energy, however. I mean there's always this temptation in the back of your mind or in my mind that I could knock off for the day and play Starfield all day, but then the words wouldn't get done, the books wouldn't get done, and then the books wouldn't sell, so I would have no money to pay my bills. So that is pretty good motivation to write for me. But we're talking about beginning writers here and I'd say it's important to recognize that writing should usually be fun, but it's not always going to be fun. Creating anything, whether writing a book or writing a song or painting a picture or building a cabinet, whatever it is, is always going to take an expenditure of energy and it is a form of work. Even if it's not as difficult as compared to say digging ditches or doing open heart surgery, it is still a kind of work and therefore there are times when it will feel like work and you have to make yourself do it. If you absolutely hate writing and don't enjoy doing it at all, then by all means you should not be doing it. Go find something else to do that you enjoy and you'll be happier and healthier for it, but if you do enjoy writing most of the time, then that is probably a good place to be. #3: Our next question: how do you know how much worldbuilding is too little or too much? That is a good question because worldbuilding is definitely one of those writing adjacent tasks that can really be something of a rabbit hole that writers go down and then don't actually get writing any writing done. And I would say the answer is simple. You need to do whatever the right amount of world building is just enough, which I realize is very glib and pat answer, but it's true. You just need to do just enough worldbuilding that the story will be interesting, so that there may be mysteries for the character to solve. Worldbuilding is a bigger deal in fantasy obviously, especially fantasy that deals entirely with secondary worlds where you've made up the entire world and the history and so forth. What you want to do is avoid info dumping. I did an earlier episode about that where the joke was that if contemporary novels written the way that a fantasy novel is written, when someone went to an American airport for the first time and they encountered the security checkpoint, one of the characters would stop and deliver a three page history of the TSA and airplane security procedures in the United States over the last 30 years, which is what you want to avoid. You want to do just enough world building that the story moves forward. You don't want to get bogged down into it. And depending on the nature of your story, you may want to keep some of the world building secret in order to help create a mystery that will hold the reader's interest and drive the plot forward. For fantasy novels, Brandon Sanderson is notoriously good at this where he'll design an elaborate magic system and keep part of it concealed from the reader, and then the reveal about the magic system or the nature of the world is part of the climax of the book. Even in contemporary novels like mysteries or thrillers, you can do that with world building since obviously mysteries and thrillers have their own fictional parts of the world that you construct as part of the world building and so you can have reveals about your fictional police department or fictional spy agency be part of the world building. So to sum up, just do enough world building that you can tell your story, but don't get bogged down in it. #4: Our next question: what's something no one told you about writing but you wish they had? Well, that's a good question. I think the biggest thing that I wish someone had told me, but it turns out I probably would've had to learn it myself, is the extreme value of persistence plus time plus experience. I saw an interesting Tweet the other day that said that your twenties are basically like being a level one character in an RPG where you have no skills, no experience, and you need to spend all your time level grinding on boring and repetitive tasks in order to acquire the experience and skills that will carry you through your thirties, forties, fifties, and hopefully onward. That struck me as very true because in my case, I started self-publishing when I was about 30 and I obviously spent all of my twenties essentially learning how to self-publish even though I didn't know that what is what I was doing at the time because self-publishing in this current form hadn't come along yet. So as I was teaching myself to write novels and with my technology blog, teaching myself about how to write for the internet and search engines and so forth, I didn't realize it at the time, but I was acquiring these skills that would be very valuable to me in my thirties and forties as I continue self-publishing. So to sum up that question, I would say what I wish I had been told and really understood in my twenties when I was starting out was the value of persistence over time. Because if you look at it, the Grand Canyon is essentially water exercising persistence over time. #5: Our next question: should I tell people I'm writing a book? Well, that is a tricky question and I would say the answer boils down to it depends, which again is a pat and glib answer, but it really does depend on your personal circumstances and your relationship with your family and friends as well. For one thing, a lot of people say they're going to do things and never do them. In fact, I'd say a lot of people who announced very loudly that they're going to lose weight or learn to draw or learn to write a book or learn to program, never actually get very far or give up on it. So there's something to be said for remaining quiet and just doing things and letting the results speak for themselves once they can no longer be kept quiet. I would also say it really does depend on your relationship with your family, friends, and spouse and/or life partner. If you have a spouse or life partner who is very supportive of your goals and is willing to encourage you, then it's a good idea to tell them. It's not a good idea to keep secrets in that kind of relationship. But if you suspect your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or life partner is going to belittle and mock you, it might be a good idea to keep this to yourself. For your family and friends, it might, again, it really depends on the individual personalities involved in your relationship with them. Some friend groups and families have this very bad habit of crab bucket syndrome or tall poppy syndrome where if someone tries to exceed the overall average of the group, they try to pull them back down to their level. That's why you occasionally hear stories of someone who gives up drinking or loses a lot of weight ends up losing their friend group in their process because it turns out their friend group was based on excessive consumption of alcohol or excessive consumption of food and something like that might occur with your friends and family as well. So I would say, on balance, it probably would be best to keep it to yourself unless you think your friends, family, and a significant other would be encouraging and welcoming of your efforts in this endeavor. But as always, it depends and your mileage may vary. #6: Our next question is a pretty interesting one that people ask frequently: how long until I can become a full-time author? Now this is again a very complicated question that boils down to your circumstances, and once again, the answer is it depends. Terry Brooks, when he wrote a writing advice book about 20 years ago, said that his editor, Lester del Rey, advised him not to go full-time until he had a year's salary in the bank, and that was 40 years ago. Nowadays, I would say at the bare minimum of going full time is you want to have a year's full salary in the bank and you would want to be making at least 40% more than you would be from your day job. Why 40%? Because once you are self-employed, especially in the US, you are responsible for paying a lot of things that your employer usually does, such as a variety of taxes and insurance costs. Also it's a very good idea, especially in the US, to have some sort of savings for retirement such as a 401K or something similar because there's absolutely no guarantee Social Security is going to be around by the time you retire. So I would say those are the absolute bare minimum before you would even think about doing this is to have a year's salary in the bank and you are making 40% more than your day job on a consistent basis. Again, it might be something you don't want to consider doing at all and you would need to ask yourself, why do you want to be a full-time author? Would it be the prestige of it? Would it be the fact that you really hate your day job? I have to say the reality of being a full-time author is often quite different than the fantasy people have of it, and that there have in fact been many authors who very successfully wrote while also maintaining day jobs. Anthony Trollope very famously wrote for two hours every morning before he went to work for the British Postal Service, and he did that his entire career and some of his books are remembered as classics of English literature to this day. Glenn Cook the fantasy author worked at a GM plant the entire time he was a writer because the benefits and pension were quite good. J.R.R. Tolkien was famously a professor of philology for his entire professional career and he wrote on the side and that became Lord of the Rings. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with keeping a full-time job and also writing on the side as you're comfortable doing so. So some writers have gone full-time, especially since the indie revolution started, found they absolutely hated it and then went back to working a day job and working and writing on the side. And again, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And for many people it is in fact a very good idea, especially if you have children, more than one child (children are expensive) and they need medical care or if you or another family member has a sort of chronic condition and it helps to have it covered by your employer's health insurance. So again, I hate to keep saying this, but it really does boil down to your personal circumstances and whether it's the right fit for you and your family and your financial situation or not. For myself, I'll give a few examples for my own life here. For myself, I've been a full-time writer for over eight years now. I've been very fortunate to be able to do that. Thank you all for buying the books and helping me to do that. I think my personality is pretty well suited to that because I have absolutely no problems writing for most of the day the way when many writers would find uncomfortable, and I have no problem doing a 6,000 word days or higher on a regular basis. That said, it was not originally my plan to be a full-time writer. I had originally planned to keep my day job and write on the side, but due to family circumstances, I had to move to a different state. And at the time I thought I could look for a different job or I could give full-time writing a go and see what happens, and I gave full-time writing a go and it's worked out pretty well for the last eight years. Thank you. So for me, in my circumstances at the time and the time since going full-time made sense and was a good choice. But again, and I hate to keep saying it, but it really does depend on your personal circumstances, finances, and family situation. #7: Now our last question, does piracy and AI mean that people won't be able to make money writing anymore? The answer to that is a big old no. Let's address those one at a time-first, piracy. Piracy has been around since the existence of the internet. It is older than the internet. Both J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Dickens had American publishers who ripped off their works and made bootleg copies of them that led to a bunch of lawsuits. So piracy is nothing new. The internet has just made it easier, and we know that the way to beat piracy is to make getting your books easier and more convenient than it would be to pirate them. There's always going to be a level of people who pirate stuff no matter what. And to be frank, you should not consider that being lost sales because the people who pirate everything are going to pay for anything anyway, though I've had a few readers email from me from time to time saying that they did pirate my stuff and felt bad about it and eventually went on to become regular readers and paying customers. So there's really nothing you can do to stop piracy and it's kind of futile to try and fight it. I do know one indie writer who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to shut down pirate sites, and it was, in my opinion, while that was a noble fight, it was a tremendous waste of money. So piracy, it's best not to worry too much about it. It is one of those things like retail shrink (which is what the big box retailers call shoplifting) that is always going to be with us. The way as an indie author to fight that is to make your work as available as on many paying platforms as possible so that it's very easy for people to get it legitimately. While AI is a big deal, I think it is somewhat overrated, and I also think that it has some structural problems that it's going to run into sooner or later. For one thing when it comes to writing, while you could use AI to churn out an entire novel, it would require significant editing to make it palatable, in which case you might as well just write it yourself. For another thing, AI is very, very expensive mainly not for the individual users, but for the companies that run them. And I'm not at this point entirely convinced that AI has long-term profitability. I wonder if it's another tech bubble, like the way the Metaverse was at the start of the 2020s when Facebook thought that the pandemic restrictions were going to be permanent and that society was going to become entirely remote. Subsequent events proved otherwise, and Facebook ended up temporarily losing about two thirds of its company value on its whole Metaverse bet. Finally, this is a bit on the fluffier side, but novel writing's art and art is essentially about human emotion and human connection. And no matter how smart the AI gets, that is something that would be very difficult for it to copy -one's own unique voice, one's own unique writing style. Those are something that only humans can do. And so I don't think AI is a long-term threat to fiction. It might be a long-term threat to things like sports writing and instant news articles, but less so for fiction. So to sum up, I don't think piracy and AI mean that people will no longer be able to make money from writing. And now for the final segment of our writing challenge episode, Jon's Advice Corner. We'll start with editing tips, what to do once your rough draft is done. So first, what should I do to edit the book once it's done. For myself, what I usually do is I do a first read through using track changes in Microsoft Word, chapter by chapter. And what I focus on then is reducing length, getting rid of sections that don't make sense, reducing excess words, tightening up sentences, making sure there are no continuity errors. I very often in this phase will split up chapters and do smaller chapters or rearrange scenes or move things around. Once that's done, I do a second edit where I essentially have my computer read the book aloud to me, and that's for typo checking. And sometimes you notice things when read aloud that you wouldn't have noticed on the page. After that, I have a couple different people who check it for typos for me and then we publish. Then I do another typo check, and then any typos that I find after the publishing process, I upload and correct as I get them. So that's my process. People would say that you need to hire an editor, and I think for many people that's true, but for myself, after 157 books, I'm reasonably confident I know what I'm doing and so I am confident doing it myself, even as I recognize that's not good advice to give to younger writers. Our next question, how do drafts work? The standard term is the first draft is just the first writing you do, getting all the writing down on the page. Depending on the writer, some people do second, third, and fourth drafts where depending on the writer, they might rewrite it entirely from scratch or just do editing on what they've already written. And then the final draft is one you are done with and comfortable with. Next question, how do I know when I should stop editing? That's a tricky question because many beginning writers fall into the trap of endlessly polishing their book over and over and over rather than writing new things. I would say once you've done your edits, once you've had a couple of beta readers look at it, eventually just decide that it is done and that we are going to move on and write new things because no matter how well you write, it's never going to be quite as cool as it is in your head when you are imagining it. I mean, you can get close, but it's never going to be quite there. So I would say a quick rule of thumb is maybe do two drafts, have your beta readers go over it, and then that would be a good place to call it quits because the truth is you can endlessly repolish the same book over and over and over again, but that may not be the best use of your time. Next editing question, how many beta readers should I have? It depends. I heard of one writer who has like 30 or 40 beta readers, and I think that might be a bit excessive, but if you can do three to five people whose opinions you trust and who aren't going to just say complete nonsense, that would probably be a good idea to do. I'd say around three to five (though as I mentioned, some writers can go much higher). Once you're editing is done and you have a final draft, you decide if you want to self-publish it or look for an agent. Here are things to avoid while publishing. For one thing, you really need to avoid predatory publishers. If you are approached by a publishing company that wants you to pay in any capacity to publish, it is probably a scam and you should avoid it. If you are self-publishing, you will need to come up with your own cover design anyway. But if you are approached by a publishing company that offers you a package where you pay $1,000 or $3,000 or even more, that is probably a scam and you won't get good value for your money. This is again, my opinion. I think new writers and in fact writers at all levels of experience would be better off self-publishing, but I would recommend avoiding agents and avoiding publicists. Hiring a publicist for your book is just going to waste your money, and an agent will probably not get you anywhere these days. It really helps if you want to be traditionally published to be famous before you try to get traditionally published-like a former president of the United States. If a former president of the United States decides that he (or someday she) is going to write a book, the former president of the United States is going to have absolutely no trouble finding the book a publisher whatsoever. If a music star or a movie star on the level of someone like Taylor Swift or Tom Cruise decides they want to write a book, they also will have no trouble finding a publisher. But for regular people like you and me, you are probably better off self-publishing and learning the skills to market and the various related publishing skills yourself. Things you would want to understand well before proceeding with these is finding a cover designer. Unless you are proficient with Photoshop and familiar with book covers, you should probably hire a cover designer, and this can be very affordable since many of the big cover designers offer premades where they just drop in your name and title for around $150 to $200 (though custom cover can require more). Hiring editors-this is again, something probably you should research and check out various writing groups on Facebook for recommendations. You want someone who isn't that expensive. You'll want someone who comes with good client recommendations. Hiring narrators is also something to research well in advance. But it might be a little early with your first book because audiobooks are so expensive. So that's it for our questions, and that is it for our November Writing Challenge. As a bonus, our transcriptionist included her official writing playlist, which I'm not going to read here, but you can see it on the show notes if you are curious. And I would include my writing playlist, but as I said, it's mostly random computer game, movie, and TV show soundtracks that I enjoyed. So that is it for this week. Thank you for coming along for our November Writing Challenge. I hope you found it helpful and informative. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

De tamponheld | Miranda July - All fours

Boeken FM

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2024 58:00

Op vrijwel elk feestje dat de boekenliefhebber deze zomer bezocht, ging het gesprek over All fours van Miranda July.In All fours (vert. Lydia Meeder & Gerda Baardman, De Bezige Bij) besluit een semi-bekende kunstenaar van 45 jaar oud dat ze een roadtrip wil maken van Los Angeles naar New York. Twintig minuten nadat ze afscheid heeft genomen van haar gezin neemt ze zomaar een afslag van de snelweg en huurt een kamer in een goedkoop motel. In eerste instantie voor één nacht, maar al snel beseft ze dat ze er langer wil blijven. Ze verandert de kamer in een luxe suite en begint een affaire met jongere, getrouwde man. All fours is een boek over vrouw zijn, de (peri)menopauze, en vrouwelijke seksualiteit na je veertigste. Over de midlife crisis en de eenzaamheid van het hebben van een vrouwenlichaam.Waarom was dit boek dé hit van de zomer? Waarom was dit een verhaal dat we nog niet kenden en dat echt verteld moest worden, en waarom waren zoveel lezers er wild van?Genoemd in de afleveringBeluister hier de aflevering van de podcast Culturele bagage van de Volkskrant over All foursILFU - Exploring StoriesOp zaterdag 28 september nemen we een live aflevering op tijdens Exploring Stories van het International Literature Festival Utrecht. Koop hier je kaartje!Sponsor: KOBO PlusNeem via bol.com/koboplus een abonnement op KOBO Plus. Met de code KPPC2024 luister je als nieuwe klant maar liefst 60 dagen gratis.Zie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

De Olympische Spelen, cokedealer Mareike & herrie in Colombia

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 6, 2024 60:28

De vakantie is voorbij, en de mannen zijn weer helemaal terug! Ruben van der Meer vertel dat hij niet snel mee zal doen aan survival-shows – de angst om hongerig én agressief over te komen, houdt hem tegen. Ondertussen ontpopt Ruben Nicolai zich tot Limoncello-expert. Tijl deelt verhalen over zijn vakantie in Italië, die niet altijd vlekkeloos verliep, en zijn bijzondere butleropleiding (voor een jong docententeam). Verder duiken ze in de wereld van portwijn uit Porto, filosoferen ze over de legalisatie van cocaïne, en fantaseren ze over een flamboyante sponsor.Probeer Kobo Plus nu 30 dagen gratis. Ga snel naar bol.com/koboplus. Heb je nog geen Kobo Plus? Met code KPPC2024 lees en luister je als nieuwe abonnee zelfs 60 dagen gratis

tiktok ga colombia acast meer heb porto verder volg itali ondertussen mareike olympische spelen limoncello tonny media herrie kobo plus petje af

Babystemmetjes en alles wat er onnodig is bij Arno - B&B vol Liefde #23

Reality Check

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2024 34:09

Till, Jan en Eva bespreken alles wat er onnodig is bij Arno. Dat is veel! Eva kan er niet meer tegen en heeft een top 10 samengesteld, a la de ergernissen van Jan Mulder. Bij Albert praat iedereen alsof ze tegen een baby praten. En Till kan er niet meer tegen hoe vals Joyce is. Jan analyseert de keuzestress van Robert Jan, elke vrouw brengt weer haar eigen kwaliteiten mee.Ga naar bol.com/koboplus en probeer Kobo Plus nu 60 dagen gratis, met de code KPPC2024.Elke maandag t/m donderdag verschijnt rond 16 uur onze nabespreking in je favoriete podcastapp. Op vrijdag kan je luisteren naar een extra lange terugblik op de week met een special guest, exclusief op Podimo. Je kunt nu 30 dagen helemaal gratis luisteren via podimo.nl/realitycheck.Heb jij een hot take, spannende achtergrondinformatie of wil je heel graag je mening met ons delen? Stuur ons dan een (voice)berichtje op instagram (@realitycheck_depodcast). Op onze Instagram & TikTok houden we 24/7 alles voor je in de gaten van dit seizoen B&B.Hosts: Marissa van Loon, Till Toxopeus, Timo Harmelink en Eva EssersProductie: Eva EssersZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

tiktok reality ga alles reality tv heb arno loon stuur podimo cultuur californi televisie robert jan b&b b vol liefde jan mulder kobo plus popcultuur

B&B vol Liefde #15: zwijg vrouw!!!!!

Reality Check

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2024 32:01

Till, Jan en Eva hebben het over dat het Iris haar levensmissie lijkt om nooit, maar dan ook NOOIT te koken. Anja heeft enorm veel last van Jan. Ze lijkt te moeten kiezen tussen twee mannen die allebei niet echt bij haar passen. En bij Robert Jan piept er iemand in maar lijkt er ook iemand langzaam tussenuit te piepen. Ga naar bol.com/koboplus en probeer Kobo Plus nu 60 dagen gratis, met de code KPPC2024.Elke maandag t/m donderdag verschijnt rond 16 uur onze nabespreking in je favoriete podcastapp. Op vrijdag kan je luisteren naar een extra lange terugblik op de week met een special guest, exclusief op Podimo. Je kunt nu 30 dagen helemaal gratis luisteren via podimo.nl/realitycheck.Heb jij een hot take, spannende achtergrondinformatie of wil je heel graag je mening met ons delen? Stuur ons dan een (voice)berichtje op instagram (@realitycheck_depodcast). Op onze Instagram & TikTok houden we 24/7 alles voor je in de gaten van dit seizoen B&B.Hosts: Marissa van Loon, Till Toxopeus, Timo Harmelink en Eva EssersProductie: Eva EssersZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

tiktok reality ga reality tv ze heb anja nooit loon stuur vrouw podimo cultuur californi televisie robert jan b&b b vol liefde kobo plus popcultuur

B&B vol Liefde #11: wilde seks bij Iris en Safari Sekte

Reality Check

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2024 31:15

Till, Jan en goochelaar Eva hebben het over sektarische praktijken in Zuid-Afrika, over de dynamiek tussen Malgosia en Albert en over de seksuele spanning tussen Iris en Jannie. Ga naar bol.com/koboplus en probeer Kobo Plus nu 60 dagen gratis, met de code KPPC2024.Elke maandag t/m donderdag verschijnt rond 16 uur onze nabespreking in je favoriete podcastapp. Op vrijdag kan je luisteren naar een extra lange terugblik op de week met een special guest, exclusief op Podimo. Je kunt nu 30 dagen helemaal gratis luisteren via podimo.nl/realitycheck.Heb jij een hot take, spannende achtergrondinformatie of wil je heel graag je mening met ons delen? Stuur ons dan een (voice)berichtje op instagram (@realitycheck_depodcast). Op onze Instagram & TikTok houden we 24/7 alles voor je in de gaten van dit seizoen B&B.Hosts: Marissa van Loon, Till Toxopeus, Timo Harmelink en Eva EssersProductie: Eva EssersZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

tiktok reality ga reality tv heb safari wilde seks loon stuur podimo sekte cultuur californi zuid afrika jannie televisie b&b b vol liefde kobo plus popcultuur

Sheffield 40. Engelse drop komt uit Sheffield!

Man met de microfoon

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2024 31:20

Ja, inderdaad: Engelse drop komt uit Sheffield.Maar er blijken nog meer snoepverhalen in Yorkshire te liggen. En die heeft Chris uitgezocht.Met zijn Bowls Club speelde Chris in zijn eigen buurt, namelijk in Bole Hill Park. En zijn tegenstander deed aan mind games.Daarnaast hebben we een filmrubriek (Bend it like Beckham) en een theaterrubriek (we zagen een geweldige uitvoering van Shakespeare's A Midsummer nights dream in de Botanical Gardens).Tot slot is Wiek op schoolreis geweest naar Scarborough (en nee, we draaien het nummer van Simon en Garfunkel niet in de aflevering!)Wil je 60 dagen gratis Kobo Plus proberen dan is dit je geheime code: KPPC2024Dit is het Instagram-account van Man met de microfoon.Wil je lid worden of een eenmalige donatie doen via petjeaf.com dan kan dat: hierEenmalig overmaken kan ook naar: NL37 INGB 0006 8785 94 van Stichting Man met de microfoon te Amsterdam.Reacties: manmetdemicrofoon@gmail.comWil je adverteren, dan kun je een mailtje sturen naar: adverteren@dagennacht.nlZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episode 188: The Best Ereader?

covid-19 america tv american amazon uk apple nfl ghosts super bowl speaking football european fire romans professional taylor swift android switch soccer ios titans chiefs ipads google play fifa wifi cancelled storms gambling shield kindle swift oasis wired app store usd donuts verizon libra roman empire barnes and noble prime video gareth dropbox ordered skyrim razor dunkin christopher walken pathfinder cloak tablets ipad pro pdfs leveling google play store overdrive coupon good housekeeping amazon kindle consumer reports samsung galaxy kobo rakuten kindle unlimited hoopla humble bundle veils amazon fire windows updates ereaders kindle fire kindle paperwhite icewind dale pc magazine litrpg samsung galaxy tab kindle oasis kindle scribe us now niara paperwhite eclipsa kindle fire hd kobo plus caina

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2024 24:29

In this week's episode, I take a look at different models of ereader devices and try to determine which is the best one. I also reflect on the experience of watching the Super Bowl for the first time in several years. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of GHOST IN THE RAZOR as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of GHOST IN THE RAZOR for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: WINTERRAZOR The coupon code is valid through March 1st, 2024, so if you find yourself needing an audiobook to break up the winter doldrums, we've got one ready for you! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 188 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February the 16th 2024 as I record this, and today we are looking at the best ereader devices. I also talk a little bit about what it was like to watch the Super Bowl for the first time in like 20 years. Just a little word of warning, there is some fairly substantial construction noise going on the street outside that may intrude in the background. Additionally, yesterday the computer I use for recording for received a Windows Update that messed it up rather severely, and the processor is constantly maxing out, which means it makes a loud fan noise. So if you hear hissing noise in the background, that is what is happening. I just haven't had time to fix it yet, so between the construction noise and that hissing noise, we are going to have an adventuresome podcast today. Before we get to our main topics, let us do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon is going to be for the audiobook of Ghost in the Razor, as excellently narrated by narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of Ghost in the Razor for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: WINTERRAZOR. That is WINTERRAZOR and that will be included in the show notes. That coupon code will be valid until March 1st, 2024. So if you find yourself needing an audiobook to break up the winter doldrums, we've got one ready for you. Now let's have some updates on my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report that Sevenfold Sword Online: Leveling, the second book in my LitRPG series, is now out and you can get it at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. After a year's worth of sales data from the first book, I have concluded that LitRPG really does seem to perform best in Kindle Unlimited and audio so that is where it's going to go. It's currently in Kindle Unlimited and hopefully we should have audio in a few months, but we'll see how that works out and remind you that it's at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. I'm not sure how long the series is going to be. I am leaning towards making it a trilogy and wrapping it up with the next book, but we will see how Leveling performs for the first 30 days it's out in the marketplace and maybe it would merit becoming a longer series, but if it sells at the level I expected it to, I think it will probably be trilogy. My next big project will be Ghost in the Veils, the second book in the Ghost Armor series with Caina, and I am 8,000 words into that, putting me on Chapter 2 and hopefully that will come out towards the end of March. It does need to come out before April because that's when I have a recording slot scheduled for it, so it does need to come out by then, so it's going to come out by then. I'm also about 26,000 words into Wizard Thief, the second book in the Half-Elven Thief series, and hopefully that will come out fairly quickly after Ghost in the Veils comes out. I am also writing the outline for Cloak of Titans, which would be the eleventh Cloak Mage book, and that will be my main project after Ghost in the Veils and Wizard Thief are out. In audiobook news, recording is underway for Shield of Storms, and hopefully that should be out in March sometime, but we will see how things go. 00:03:17 Reader Comment Before we get to our main topics, let's have a comment from a reader. James says: having just finished the Dragonskull series while waiting for Cloak of Titans, I thought how great it would be if there's a short story about Gareth's return home with Niara would be. His mother's reaction would be precious. Just starting on the Sevenfold Sword series. I love all your books and you have totally taken over my Kindle. Thanks, James. I am glad you have enjoyed all those books. In answer to your question, that is a fairly major part of the plot in Shield of Storms, where Gareth and companions return home. Just the difference is in the Shield War series, Gareth and his friends aren't the main characters. They're supporting characters and Ridmark is one of the main characters. 00:03:57 Thoughts on the 2024 Super Bowl Now let's talk about something a bit uncharacteristic: The Super Bowl. I did something I haven't done since the early 2000s, and I watched the entirety of The Super Bowl last week. The reason I did that was that some family members wanted to watch it, and I had no objection. So I watched The Super Bowl. Though to be fair, when I say watched, what I really mean is I had it on in the background while playing Icewind Dale on my iPad for the most part, along with some Skyrim on my Switch. I admit that when I was younger and more insufferable, I would make a point of refusing to watch The Super Bowl. Then I realized such an approach was self-defeating. Professional football is no better or worse than any other form of recreation. Additionally, connecting with people socially is not among my strengths, and very often sports discussions are the low hanging fruit of easy social engagement. That said, I don't exactly pay close attention to professional sports, so here is what I found interesting about The Super Bowl as an outsider, so to speak. I think an observer completely unfamiliar with American culture and professional sports, upon watching The Super Bowl, would conclude it was a 3 1/2 hour block of commercials infrequently broken up by two-minute clips of football. That said, the Christopher Walken commercial was the funniest one and also the one with Dunkin' Donuts. The NFL may not be a cartel in the strict legal definition of the term, but we all know it's totally a cartel, which is a pretty sweet position to be in because you have massive corporations like Apple and Verizon shelling out big bucks. So it's the Apple Music Halftime Show or the Verizon Pregame Show or whatever. I do think from an objective viewpoint that it is rather surprising that football became the predominant sporting event in America. And I think the reason has to do with the football commissioners rather foresightedly seeing the potential of broadcast television in the 1950s and the 1960s. American football, if you look at it from the outside, is this really weird mutant form of rugby with a lot of arcane terminology and non-intuitive rules, and compared to soccer or basketball, it's just a very slow and plodding game. There's 15 seconds of action and then everyone stands around for two or three minutes. It's time for a commercial break, brought to you by Verizon. Soccer and basketball are much faster paced If American football is the imperial system, then European football/soccer is the metric system that everybody else in the world uses. I suspect to really appreciate American football, you have to get into it as a child and grow up with it so all the weird rules become second nature, which is probably why the NFL embraced Taylor Swift so much this year, which did annoy some long-term NFL fans who are not fans of Swift's music. I don't really have an opinion on Taylor Swift one way or another, since I mostly listen to computer game soundtracks, that is my preferred musical genre. But like I said above, I think to really appreciate American football you have to grow up with it. Football doesn't quite have the cultural hegemony it had in the ‘80s and the ‘90s. It's still massively popular, but more and more parents are keeping their kids away from playing it because of the danger of long-term head injuries or because of all the many sketchy things the NFL has done over the years. Though, to be fair, it's not like FIFA is a paragon of business ethics either, so you have more young people who don't grow up with it and therefore can't be bothered to pay attention. But Swift is popular with the young people, and the NFL desperately wants more of the young people watching the games. I don't think the Super Bowl or the NFL season is scripted in advance, but I can definitely see how people come to that conclusion, partly because the NFL's broadcasts are so slick and media savvy that they feel like they should be scripted. I think it's mostly because the human brain has this tendency to see systems and order where there is in fact, nothing more than chaos. Though this year's Super Bowl game was so dramatic, with the Chiefs squeaking out a win in overtime, that it feels like it should have been written in advance. Finally, are football and professional sports the modern “bread and circuses” like they had in the Roman Empire? Maybe. But if they are, is that necessarily even a bad thing? If you look at history, every large civilization has had games and public spectacles as part of the maintenance of social and public order. Some aspect of human psychology really seems to require it. There's lots to criticize about the NFL, but it's certainly better than a lot of the stuff the Romans got up to or early medieval tournaments, which were mock battles that sometimes escalated into actual battles that turned into actual local wars. Perhaps modern professional sports or a more efficient and usually more bloodless method of public spectacle. So I don't really have any grand conclusions here, just observations from an outsider's perspective made while watching the Super Bowl and mostly playing Icewind Dale on my iPad, though I am pleased to report that in Icewind Dale during The Super Bowl I defeated an ogre with a bunch of Level 1 characters and my thief and my cleric both leveled up during the game. When I talked about this on my Facebook page, my readers had some good comments, so I thought I'd read a few of the few of few of them here. 00:09:11 Reader Comments on the 2024 Super Bowl Our first comments from William, who writing from the perspective of someone in the UK, says: I've seen the Super Bowl described as one of the great shared cultural experiences of the US and one of those times you can enjoy American football even if you're not really into the sport otherwise. It's one of those times you get together with family acquaintances you have few, if any common interests with. I think that's true and that's some good insight there. An opposing comment comes from reader named Mary, who says: I grew up breathing NFL. My sons played football through high school. As an adult, I watched consistently until I moved to an area without many services. Went four years without TV. Ordered a new streaming device and service. I hoped to bring some of those great memories forward. My goodness, what a disappointment. The commercials are heavily pharma-based or bad food. Gambling is another frequent advertisement. You're correct, the advertising is the point. I spend most of my free time reading, a much more immersive experience. Cancelled my service today with relief. So we can also see that the emphasis on ads during The Super Bowl and I think during regular football games as well, really does turn off some viewers. I definitely approve of reading as someone's main form of recreation, though I admit that might be a bit of self-interest on my part. 00:10:24 Main Topic: Best ereaders for 2024 in the US Now let's continue on to our main topic: the best ereaders available for 2024 in the US market. A couple of notes before we start. This is not sponsored. There are no affiliate links here. I'm not getting paid for anything I say here and these are just my opinions and research we are talking about on the show today. Because technology changes so quickly, I want to emphasize that this is current information or current information to the best of my ability as of February 2024, and since I'm based in the US, this mostly applies to the US market. It's definitely a good idea to do your own research when you're buying an electronic device, especially regarding specs, and especially if you have very specialized needs. The information was pulled together with a lot of help from my podcast transcriptionist by combing through user reviews and looking at testing from popular magazines such as Consumer Reports, Wired, PC Magazine, Good Housekeeping, and similar magazines. So I suppose we should start with the obvious question. Why have a dedicated ereader when you can easily read ebooks on your phone or tablet? An ereader does have several advantages that you don't get with a phone or a tablet. For one thing, it's lighter. It's easier to use with one hand, which, depending on the size of your tablet or phone, may be impossible. It also helps with eye strain if you're using a dedicated grayscale ereader. It doesn't have a backlight or it has a much weaker backlight than a tablet or phone will have, and therefore it is generally easier on the eyes, though that can vary from person to person. And it can also help you to focus on reading and minimize distractions, because if you're reading on a tablet or a phone, you might get a lot of notifications coming in from text messages or emails or social media and all that, all of which can pull you out of the book you are trying to read. So if you are a serious reader and you don't mind reading ebooks, it can be definitely worth your while to have a dedicated ereader. So let's look at the most popular model of ereader, which of course in the US and several other countries is the Amazon Kindle. In general, Kindles are superbly integrated with the Amazon ecosystem, but they generally don't work well with non-Amazon or non-Kindle products. I've run into that a few times myself on my Payhip store (which hopefully you will visit soon to get your discounted copy of the audiobook of Ghost in the Razor). I often have to include several different kinds of file formats to work with whatever generation of Kindle people might be using. Additionally, if you use your local library's ebook service and they use Libby, not all Libby books are available for Kindles. A couple of times I've run into that, where I want to check out an ebook from Libby and it turns out that it's not available for Kindle, which is kind of disappointing because then you have to read it on your phone, which defeats the purpose of this episode. For specific Kindle models, the Kindle Oasis seems to be the high end one, and because it has the strongest backlight, it is considered generally best for reading at night. The Kindle Paperwhite seems to be overall the best reviewed and most popular model. It is lightweight. It weighs less than half a pound and it is waterproof. It has strong reviews from many review publications like Wired and Good Housekeeping and has a major fan following. Finally, the perhaps most esoteric Kindle ereader would be the Kindle Scribe. It's the biggest one, designed for note taking. So that's something that interests you that might be worth investigating, though it would be harder to hold the Kindle Scribe with one hand. After the Kindles, probably the most popular model of ereader in the US is the Kobo family. I'm a big fan of Kobo. Most of my books are available on Kobo, and most of them are also in Kobo Plus, their subscription program. In general, Kobos are best for people who do a lot of side loading, which involves taking ebook files and loading them manually onto your device and people who want a lot of customization. The one weakness of Kobo is that we're not entirely sure how well it will work with the various library services. The OverDrive app is being retired in favor of Libby and Kobo relies heavily on OverDrive because Kobo's parent company, Rakuten, used to own OverDrive for a while until they sold it off. So with OverDrive going away in favor of Libby, it's sort of an open question how well Kobos will integrate with library services in the future. Additionally, it's important to note that audiobooks and magazines from Libby are not presently available for Kobo devices. Hopefully that will change in the future, but that is the case right now. For specific models of the Kobo, Eclipsa is considered the best for people who like to take notes and annotate the actual pages, and it has the feature where you can convert handwriting to type text and then export those notes to Dropbox. The Kobo Clara model is the budget option that still has waterproofing, which is different from the Kindle base model, which doesn't. The Paperwhite does. I don't think the Oasis has waterproofing, but the Kindle Paperwhite does. If you are one of those people who likes to read in the bath and you drop your ereader, hopefully it will survive the immersion till you get it out of the water. Clara does have that waterproofing feature. The most popular model seems to be the Kobo Libra and it's best for those who are not locked into the Amazon ecosystem or another specific vendor. It has a very loyal cult following. It has physical page turn buttons, for those who prefer that feature, and it is highly regarded for its screen clarity. It also has very good battery life, which again is one of those strengths of ereaders over phones and tablets, which tend to be charging every other day, especially because the Libra settings allow you to easily shut off the Wi-Fi, dial back the lighting, and so forth to extend the battery life. So Kindle and Kobo are the big ones, but there's a couple others we should address. One of them is the Nook Glowlight, which is the current ereader available from Barnes and Noble. The tricky part with Barnes and Noble is that while they do have ebooks, it is not really a priority for the the company's current management, which has chosen to focus primarily on physical bookselling and which has apparently kept Barnes and Noble from going bankrupt. So good thing. But they're not hugely as interested in ebooks as they used to be. The Glowlight is best for those who have a lot of Barnes and Noble gift cards to use, since that's a popular present or who already have a lot of ebooks from Barnes and Noble. Unfortunately, it does not integrate very well with public library software like Libby. It can be done, but it is a lot of work and not nearly as easy as it is with the Kindle or the Kobos. And there are complaints of system problems like it's difficult to set up or prone to freezing. Another popular but niche ebook reader is the Onyx Boox Tab, which is a tablet with a color E ink display and the picture quality resembles color newspapers (for those of you who are old enough to remember when newspapers had color pictures). It has a loyal cult following, especially with comics and manga readers, and it has good note taking features. However, the big weakness is it is expensive and costs around $600.00 USD. Now, while we've mostly focused on dedicated ereaders, the truth is that tablets can in fact be very good ereaders if you know what you want and you know what you want to use them for. The advantages tablets have over ereaders is that they are more versatile than ereaders. And if, like nearly all of us, you are on a budget and limited what you can spend, which, let's be honest, is true of everybody, it may make more sense to buy a device that can do many things instead of an ereader which can do just one thing. Tablets are also good for those who aren't committed to a single source for their ebooks. You can easily download apps for all of the main ebook stores on an iPad. You can have the Kindle app, the Barnes and Noble app, the Kobo app, and a bunch of library services such as Libby and Hoopla, and you can enjoy them all on one device. Tablets are also good for those who enjoy reading manga or magazines often because if you have a color display, you can see the illustrations that come in a magazine or an ebook that has a lot of color illustrations, like a technical manual or a history book that has a lot of color plates, and the larger screens minimize the need for constantly zooming text. This is something I have done myself. I have a Kindle Fire HD-10 and I also have a bunch of various PDFs I bought from the Pathfinder company from a Humble Bundle and it's a lot easier to read PDFs in color on a Kindle Fire than it is on a dedicated ereader because you can move around the page easily. The screen is big enough you can see most of the text. You can see all the illustrations in color. It's really nice. So let's take a look at the specific families of tablets and nowadays, for all practical purposes, there are three major tablet families. The first and the most successful one is the iPad. Everyone knows what the iPad is. It's the best device for those who want to use it for web browsing, media use, and ebook reading. The iPad Pro models are rather overpowered for normal reading and web browsing and media use. They're also quite a bit more expensive. The base model iPad is the cheapest it's ever been. I think as of right now, as of this recording you get a base model iPad for about $329, which while a lot of money, is still significantly cheaper than has been in the past. And it also is a very capable device that can do everything we've listed above. The second major family is the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which is generally well regarded and is the iPad's chief competitor, and it gets high reports for reliability and performance from all the reviews. You get access to the full Google Play Store so you can install a bunch of apps and you can get all the different ereader apps and all the different library apps on Samsung Galaxy Tab. The third major tablet family is Amazon Fire tablet line. I have one and I'm quite happy with it. It's better for those who play games or watch videos heavily, since it's very strongly tied into Amazon's media ecosystem. So it does make a pretty good portable video player if you are tied into Amazon's Prime Video ecosystem. It's not as convenient for sideloaders, and the biggest weakness of the Amazon Fire is that you only have access to Amazon's curated App Store. You don't have access to the full Google Play ecosystem, which is a lot bigger and more vibrant than Amazon's App Store. Very often you will find popular Android and iOS apps that are available for regular Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy or for the iPad are just not available on the Amazon Fire. So I'd say overall that's it's biggest weakness. It is possible to install the Google Play Store on the Amazon Fire, though, it does take a bit of finagling, and given the rumors that that Amazon is planning to develop its own operating system for its Fire tablets, that option may go away in the future. So that is something to bear in mind. And I thought it would be interesting to wrap up the show by sharing what I personally use for ereading and what my podcast transcriptionist personally uses for ereading, since she did most of the research for this episode and helped me pull it all together. The transcriptionist's favorites that she likes are the Kindle Paperwhite for outdoor reading. It's easier than eyes on the eyes than the tablet screen. She prefers the iPad for magazines and books with lots of color photographs, like cookbooks. For myself, I do most of my reading on a Kindle Oasis that I bought before COVID broke out in 2020, which, given the amount of reading I did during COVID, turned out to be a really good investment. After four and a half years, it's still going pretty strong and I'm hoping to keep on using it for several years to come. For a tablet, I have an iPad that I use pretty regularly. I do some reading on it when I have some with a lot of photographs, though for most color reading I have a Kindle Fire 10 that I got for editing because in my final stage of editing my books, I use it to read the book aloud to catch anything weird and hopefully fix any lingering problems, but it's also really great for viewing full color PDF files because you can load the PDFs on the Kindle Fire and then they show up in your library. It's very easy and convenient and smooth to read them on the Kindle Fire HD-10. So that is what I personally use for ereading. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes of the show with frequent transcripts on https://thepulpwritershow.com. Speaking of transcripts, I'd like to once again thank my transcriptionist for helping me to do the research for this episode. So if you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Episode 185: How To (Legally) Find Free & Low Cost Audiobooks

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2024 14:29

December 2023 was my best month ever for my audiobooks, so I thought I would take a look at the best places to (legally) get free and low-cost audiobooks. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of GHOST IN THE HUNT as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of GHOST IN THE HUNT for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: WINTERHUNT The coupon code is valid through February 13th, 2024, so if you find yourself needing an audiobook to break up the winter doldrums, we've got one ready for you! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 185 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is January the 27th, 2024, and today we're going to talk about how to find low-cost audiobooks. Before we get to our main topic, let's have Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of Ghost in the Hunt, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of Ghost in the Hunt for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: WINTERHUNT and that is WINTERHUNT and that will obviously be in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through February 13th, 2024. So, if you find yourself needing an audiobook to break up the winter doldrums, we've got one ready for you. So that is Coupon of the Week. Now let's have a current update on my present writing projects. I am pleased to report that Shield of Storms, the first book in the new Shield War saga set in my fantasy realm of Andomhaim, is complete and it is out and published. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. Initial sales and reviews are positive, so thank you all for reading. A few people have asked when the audiobook is coming and recording should start for that on January 29th (Monday). So realistically, probably around March for the audiobook to be available. Now that Shield of Storms is out, let's have a look at my next couple of projects. The next book I publish will be Sevenfold Sword Online: Leveling, and I am about 2/3 of the way through it. In fact, I think I might be closer to 70% of the way through it and so I am hoping to have that done before too much longer. I've had a year's worth of sales data with the previous book and I think I've pretty definitively established that the LitRPG market is pretty much Kindle Unlimited and audio so Sevenfold Sword Online: Leveling will be in Kindle Unlimited and hopefully in audiobook before too much longer, if all goes well. We will see how that goes. After that is done then I will write Ghost in the Veils, the sequel to Ghost in the Serpent and the second book in the New Ghost Armor series. I think that will probably be out towards the end of March or the beginning of April. It's scheduled to be recorded as an audiobook in April. So, I definitely want to have it out before that happens. I am also about 19,000 words into Wizard Thief, the sequel to Half-Elven Thief in December, and that…lately I've been adopting a model for writing where I have a main project that takes up 80% of my time and then do like 10% projects that I work on in the morning when I have my coffee. By the time I get done with Ghost in the Veils, I will probably be like halfway through or maybe even 2/3 of the way through Wizard Thief. So hopefully it should be out before too much longer after Ghost in the Veils is published. So that is where I'm at with all my current writing projects. 00:03:08 Main Topic: Legal and Cheap Ways to Get Low-Cost Audiobooks So let's move on to our main topic this week: legal and cheap ways to get low-cost or free audiobooks. So why talk about that this month or this episode? Well, looking over figures, it looks like December may have been my best month ever for my self-published audiobooks, which I'm very happy about and now very grateful to all of you for. But as we all know, the economy is not good and it is not likely to improve anytime soon. So, budgets are tight for many, many people and so I thought it would be a good way to take a look at the free and legal ways to get free and low-cost audiobooks because obviously it's fairly simple to pirate audio books. I don't endorse that, and there's also always a measure of risk with that, because very often pirates will use fake pirated material to distribute, like, you know, malware and cryptocurrency scams and that kind of thing. I remember a long time ago, back when I was doing tech support, I had a university student come to me very concerned that her computer had gotten a virus, and so I asked, how did do you think this happened? She said, well, I had to watch this movie for class, so I didn't want to pay for it. So I Googled where to watch a pirated copy of this movie online and I clicked on the first link I got and my computer is now filled with viruses. I don't know how this happened. This was not, needless to say, the most mysterious case I ever had to deal with when I was doing tech support back in the old days. So piracy, aside from the moral and ethical implications, can also carry a measure of risk. By contrast, the methods that we're going to talk about today are legal and should have no risk of infecting either your phone or your computer with various forms of malware or cryptocurrency scams. So let's look at the best way to get free audiobook titles and the best way is the one of the most old fashioned ways: your local library system. I should note what I'm about to say applies strongly to the US, since that's obviously where I live, and that I'm most familiar with how things work here, so obviously things will probably work differently in different countries if that is where you live. In the US, there's usually two ways you can get audiobooks from the library. The library will either use a service called Libby, which is sort of a friendly user interface on top of a service called OverDrive, or the library will use something called Hoopla. Not all libraries will have Libby or Hoopla, though many of them will have some sort of service like Libby or Hoopla that provides ebooks or audiobooks. Be sure to check your local library's website to see if your library subscribes to these resources and to learn more about them. One thing, if your library uses Libby/OverDrive is that there will probably be a wait list for newer titles or titles that suddenly get popular (like the the biography of Oppenheimer that inspired the Oppenheimer movie in the summer of 2023). It's not uncommon for a big release or very popular book or audiobook to have a wait list of a couple hundred people, though obviously if you're looking at older or less popular titles, the wait list will sometimes be shorter or no wait at all. Selection will also vary wildly by library. The trouble with a lot of these ebook subscription platforms for libraries is that they're very expensive because the library's essentially a captive market for the vendors. Libraries have to subscribe to the Libby platform and then buy additional titles for their patrons. And if you're familiar with the way the publishing industry works at all, you know that library editions are usually much more expensive than regular consumer editions. For example, a book that might cost a library like $9 in print can cost like $85 on Libby for a copy that expires after 26 checkouts or a similar level of set checkouts. That's often why libraries will only have one or two copies of a very popular title, just because it's so expensive. If they just bought copies for everyone who asks, it would rapidly deplete their budget. The checkout and limits are set by the libraries and not Hoopla or OverDrive, so they vary from library to library. Like one library might have four checkouts per patron per month or another library system might allow ten simultaneous checkouts and ten items you can join the wait list for at the same time. It can vary quite a bit from library to library. So as the saying goes, your mileage may vary, but if you are looking for a low-cost way to listen to audiobooks and read ebooks, then the best place to start is probably your local library system. Now let's move on from free to subscription products. Something new that's come up recently is that Spotify is offering audiobooks. They bought Findaway Voices a couple of years ago and basically imported Findaway Voices' audiobook catalog into their platform, which includes quite a few of my audiobooks. And for a Spotify premium subscription, you get access to a library of audiobook titles included in the cost of an existing Spotify Premium subscription. It comes out to 15 hours a month per individual Premium account or per family account, and depending on your audiobook listening needs, one fifteen hour audiobook might tide you over for the entire month worth of commuting. It is important to note that this does not include all audiobooks available on Spotify. Not all of them are available for this fifteen hour a month subscription and that Spotify does also offer what are called a la carte audiobook sales, where you just buy the audiobook on top of the subscription cost that you're already paying. So, if you're already paying for Spotify for your music listening, as apparently quite a few people do, this could be a fairly cheap way to listen to audiobooks on top of your Spotify subscriptions, as you're paying for that already anyway. Another subscription option is Kobo Plus Listen where you pay about $8 US a month to access a collection of about 100,000 audiobook titles, and for an initial $2.00 a month you can throw in the entire Kobo Plus collection of ebooks. Kobo's audiobook platform is relatively new, so it tends to have fewer frontlist and bestseller titles. Quite a few of my audiobooks are on there and I think the vast majority of my ebooks are in Kobo Plus as well. So, if you're looking for a low-cost way to listen to audiobooks, that could be a good way to do it. Another option is a platform called Everand, which you may also know as Scribd, because that's what it used to be called until a couple months ago. For some reason, they decided to change their name from Scribd to Everand. Whenever companies do this, it's often very confusing and you always suspect that they paid too much money to an MBA consultant for some bad advice, but that is a tangent and let's not dwell on that. Everand has a slightly lower cost than Audible. It's $12.00 a month versus $15 for the lowest tier of the Audible subscription plan and that also includes ebook access. However, it's not a truly unlimited subscription. There seems to be a limit that isn't advertised based on reports, and it's apparently frequently very frustrating to power users. In fact, back when Everand was still Scribd a couple of years ago, there was a bit of a minor kerfuffle where they started limiting romance power users because romance readers are famous for reading so many romance books and listening to so many romance audiobooks. And so they deliberately dialed that back and throttled it and it was a bit of a problem. Audible also has what's called the Audible Plus lowest tier for their Audible subscription. For $8 a month, you can subscribe to Audible Plus and then you can listen to anything that's in the Audible Plus catalog, which does rotate fairly frequently, and things tend to move in and out of it. For a while, the first Dragontiarna Publisher Pack, which would be Dragontiarna Books One and Two, was in Audible Plus, and that did do a good job of driving sales to the rest of the series, but only the first audiobook was in Audible Plus, so it's kind of a loss leader for Podium to do that. Now onto some low-cost a la carte options, where you're just paying for the audiobook rather than subscribing. I have to admit my favorite low-cost option is Chirp. If you're familiar with Bookbub at all, Chirp works basically like Bookbub. Every day you get an email listing the low-cost and discounted audiobooks in genres that you indicated you like when you signed up for Chirp. There's no monthly costs, no recurring fees, anything like that. You just get email every day with a list of audiobooks that are currently on sale for a low cost, ranging from like $0.99 to $4.99 (depending on the title), which is usually a pretty good deal. So, if you're looking to stack up on some low-cost audiobooks, Chirp is a good way to go about it. And if you don't mind a bit of a plug, another good way to get low-cost audiobooks is to listen to this podcast. If you will remember from the start of the show, I have Coupon of the Week for Ghost in the Hunt for 75% off, which comes to about…ah, the audiobook will cost you about $3.00. So listen to this podcast and watching for the coupon code is also a good way to get discount audiobooks, since I do use audiobooks for Coupon of the Week pretty frequently. Finally, if you want to listen to some free public domain audiobooks (this is where the book has been in the public domain, and therefore anyone can make an audiobook of it for any reason), check out a website called LibriVox. That is https://librivox.org and it has a large collection of public domain titles which are all read by volunteers, but the quality may vary depending upon the equipment and technical competence of that particular volunteer, but they are free. If you can't find something you want to listen to at the library for free, this might be a good substitution. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I'd like to once again thank my transcriptionist for pulling together the research for this episode. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

#07 - Astrid Harrewijn over escape-literatuur, friends fiction en fun fiction (S02)

Liefteratuur

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2024 53:24

In aflevering 7 van seizoen 2 van Liefteratuur spreek ik met Astrid Harrewijn: de allereerste Nederlandse feelgoodauteur! Waar veel feelgoodboeken de liefdeslijn als hoofdlijn hebben, kenmerken Astrids boeken zich door vriendschappen, de struggles in het leven en de bijbehorende obstakels die moeten worden overwonnen. Tuurlijk hoort daar af en toe ook een verliefdheid bij, maar... niet altijd. Met andere woorden: we hebben het over friends fiction of fun fiction, met als overkoepelende term: escape-literatuur. Heerlijke, fijne boeken waar je gelukkig van wordt!Astrids eerste boek verscheen in 2006, wat betekent dat ze het feelgoodlandschap behoorlijk heeft zien veranderen in de afgelopen jaren. Hoe kijkt ze daar tegenaan, en waarom heeft ze besloten haar boeken voortaan in eigen beheer uit te geven? En... welk boek is haar feelgoodbijbel? Astrid vertelt er alles over!Boeken die in deze aflevering worden genoemd en/of besproken:• Alle boeken van Astrid Harrewijn, met in het bijzonder Ja kun je krijgen, de Stroopwafelshop en Het geheim van Müritz (Storytel Original)• Pippi Langkous van Astrid Lindgren• Wat wil een man nog meer? van John O'Farrell, in het Engels verschenen als The Best A Man Can Get• De verborgen geschiedenis van Donna Tartt• Het negerboek van Lawrence Hill

friends escape fiction wil nederlandse engels winkel kobo storytel boeken astrid s literatuur jolien heerlijke tuurlijk kobo plus

#333 – The Year in Review with the Kobo Writing Life Team

new year books reading publishing readers 2024 self publishing tbr kobo best of the year kobo writing life kwl kobo plus

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 26, 2023 37:42

In this episode, we sat down as a team to talk about everything do with Kobo Writing Life that took place over the last year! KWL Director Tara, Author Engagement Manager Laura, Promotions Specialist Rachel, Kobo Originals Lead and Content Coordinator Vanessa and Content Coordinator Terrence all shared highlights from their work in 2023, including insights into Kobo Plus, the Kobo Plus expansions, Kobo Originals, translations, conferences we attended, the Kobo Writing Life podcast, promotional offerings, and much, much more! We also chatted about what to expect from us next year, including some exciting hints as to what's to come. Plus, don't miss out on the many great books we recommend to our listeners – be sure to take notes and stack your TBR piles for the coming year! Lastly, happy 2024 from the Kobo Writing Life team. Here's to another great year of publishing! We can't wait to continue working with you in the new year. Go to our site to learn more about Kobo Writing Life, and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and X.

Episode 179: Why Did I Put HALF-ELVEN THIEF In Kindle Unlimited?

Wish I'd Known Then . . . For Writers

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2023 11:39

In this week's episode, I examine my reasoning for putting HALF-ELVEN THIEF in Kindle Unlimited. I also discuss THE SHIELD WAR, my upcoming epic fantasy series. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello everyone. Welcome to Episode 179 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is December 15th, 2023, and today we're going to talk about why my new book, Half-Elven Thief, went into Kindle Unlimited. Before we get into that, let's have an update on my current writing projects. First up, as you might have guessed from the opening of the show, my new book, Half-Elven Thief, is out. The last book I will publish in 2023 is now available at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited, so if you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can read that for free as part of your Kindle Unlimited subscription. Now that that book is out, my next big project will be Shield of Storms, the new Andomhaim book, which I will be talking about more later in the show. Hopefully that will come out in January. I'm also almost 50,000 words into Sevenfold Sword Online: Leveling, and I think that will probably be out in February, if everything goes well. I've also written about 1,500 words of the sequel to Half-Elven Thief, but I haven't decided when that's going to come out yet. It depends on what happens over the next few months and what the coming year brings us. In audiobook news, Dragon Skull: Crown of the Gods just went live as of the time of recording. It is currently on Audible and Amazon. It should be showing up on Apple in another few days and then hopefully it should be showing up on Chirp, Google Play, Kobo, and the various library services in a couple of days after that. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects. 00:01:39 Shield of Storms News/ 12 Days of Short Stories Christmas Let's talk a little bit about more about one of those, Shield of Storms. I am now (as of recording) about 11,000 words into it and it will be the first book of my new The Shield War epic fantasy series. If all goes well, it will be the first book I published in 2024 on Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play, Smashwords, and Payhip. I think the series is going to be about six books long. It might get up to seven, but I'm going to try to keep it at six and will be set in Andomhaim immediately after the events of Dragonskull. So what will this book be about? Well, we will have four protagonists and three chief villains. The protagonists: the first protagonist will be Ridmark Arban, who is returning again. He knows that while the Heptarchy might have been repulsed, someday the Armies of the Seven Temples will attack Andomhaim again and that they will use their stronghold on the Isle of Kordain as a base for a new invasion. Will Andomhaim be ready? Ridmark doesn't know, but if you can find a way to wrest the Isle of Kordain from the Heptarchy's grasp, that might go a long way to deciding the coming war. The problem is that the Heptarchy has more warships than Andomhaim and attacking the Isle of Kordain from the sea might bring disastrous defeat unless he can find another way. The second protagonist will be Lika, the leader of the thieves of Teramis, the chief city of the Isle of Kordain, currently ruled with an iron fist by the Exarch of the Heptarchy. Once Tyrannus was the city of the Corsairs, free men who bowed to no king, and certainly not to the High King of Andomhaim. Then ten years ago Warlord Agravhask, exterminated the Corsair Lords, and the Heptarchy has ruled the Isle of Kordain ever since. Lika needs to protect her people until her father is returned, for her father went to the abandoned halls of the Mountain House to seek a weapon to defeat the Heptarchy. She knows that he will return, even though he left eight years ago. Our third protagonist is Niara Arban, who has returned to Andomhaim far different than the one she left, far different and far weaker. The modern Magistri are weak and feeble and no match for the first Magistri who drove back the ancient urdmordar (at least in her opinion), but the realm still has enemies and Niara will show them what war is really like. And our final protagonist will be Nikomedes. He was once an assassin of the Heptarchy, and now he serves the Master of the Mountain House. He still isn't entirely sure about the difference between right and wrong, but he's trying really hard to find out. All he knows is that the Master will make a better world in the end, and if Nicomedes has to kill a lot of people to make that happen, it will all be for the greater good. Now on to our three main antagonists. The first antagonist will be Seziravorna, the Exarch, the High priestess of the Temple of the Crimson and the head Tarkey governor of the Isle of Kordain. It is her task to make the isle a stronghold of the Heptarchy to prepare for the return of the Seven Temples in the decades to come. But so many senior priestesses and battlemages perished in Agravhask's invasion that Seziravorna sees her chance of complete victory. She will lure the armies of Andomhaim into a final catastrophic battle, and then she will be the exarch not just of the Isle of Kordain, but all of Andomhaim. Our second antagonist will be the Master of the Mountain House. The Mountain House is a dangerous ruin beneath the mountains at the center of the Isle of Kordain, and long the Corsairs have had legend about the mysterious wizard who dwells there and the terrible powers he wields. No one who ever crosses the ruined gate of the Mountain House ever returns, for the master of the Mountain House has been laboring for millennia to prepare a new and better world, even if he has to burn away the old one to make it. Our final antagonist is Urzo and Urzo is…. well….Urzo is hungry. We will find out more about all these characters soon. Anyway, if all goes well, Shield of Storms will be my first book of 2024, hopefully coming out sometime towards the end of January. Before we get to our main topic, I also want to mention our 12 Days of Short Story Christmas. In the lead up to Christmas, I am giving away twelve of my short stories for free through my Payhip store and then will wrap it up with a coupon for a big discount on any of the paid items on the store. So if you go to my website, Jonathanmoeller.com, and look at the top page, there will be many links to the 12 Days of Short Story Christmas and you can get quite a few free short stories. The short stories will remain free on my Payhip store until December 31st, the last day of 2023. So head on over to jonathanmoeller.com and get yourself some free short stories to read during your holiday travels. 00:06:15 Main Topic: Half Elven Thief and Kindle Unlimited Now let's come to our main topic of this week's episode: why I put my new book Half-Elven Thief in Kindle Unlimited. First, I want to say it had a very strong launch, especially for something new and unconnected to any of my previous settings. It wasn't a tie in for The Ghosts or Nadia's world or anything in Frostborn and Andomhaim. It was a completely new setting with completely new characters. The last two completely new things I've tried in the last couple of years were Covering Fire in 2021 and Sevenfold Sword Online: Creation in 2023 and Half-Elven Thief had a stronger first day than both of them and came within two copies of having a stronger first day than both books combined. So thank you for reading, everyone. That means Rivah Half-Elven will join Caina, Nadia, Victoria Carrow, and Moriah Rhosmor as one of my Angry Thief Girl characters. The series with Rivah will have six books. I'm going to work on them as I do other stuff in 2024. I did, as I mentioned, put Half-Elven Thief in Kindle Unlimited, which means it's only available on Amazon. I do regret that it's only on Amazon, but once the series is complete, I will take it wide. I think I have good reasons for this decision, which I will now enumerate in the Internet's performed format for discourse: a numbered list. Number one: I did this before in 2020 and it worked pretty well. We all dealt with the great COVID panic in different ways, some for better, some for much worse. Myself, I spent 2020 learning how to use Photoshop and writing an entire epic fantasy series (specifically, Wraithshard). I ended up writing all five Wraithshard books in 2020, and I originally put them in Kindle Unlimited and then phased them over to all the other stores in 2021 once their Kindle Unlimited term ran out. This had a very good result in terms of sales and I'm hoping to have something of a repeat with Half-Elven Thief. Reason Number Two: Amazon and its AI problems. Amazon had a bad problem with ChatGPT over the summer of 2023. Scammers were using ChatGPT to churn out content formatted as ebooks uploaded to Kindle Unlimited and then used click farms to harvest page reads. This caused widespread problems, since the best seller lists on Amazon were filled with this AI generated nonsense and the page payment rate for authors plummeted because so many of the page reads were going to these AI generated click farm books. Amazon finally responded by limiting the number of new books an individual author could publish to three a day. Some of the scammers were uploading hundreds or even thousands of new books every day, so this put a serious crimp in their operations. I had avoided Kindle Unlimited entirely for that time, but since it seems to be stable again, I'm willing to give it another try. We'll see how things go. The third reason why I put the short story The Jeweled Curse wide and not in Kindle Unlimited is because then I can give it away for free on my Payhip store. Everyone gets something. Reason #4: The bad economy. Don't believe what you see on the news about good job numbers or investments and so forth. The real economy is very bad and has been that way for some time for many complicated reasons, so subscription services are a really important part of people's entertainment because the value for the cost is in fact pretty good. That's why nearly all of my books are in the Kobo Plus subscription program, and most of my ebooks and audiobooks are in Scribd or whatever Scribd is calling itself now (I think it's like Everand or something like that) and many of my audiobooks are on Spotify. Even though the money from those particular channels isn't always super great, it does add up over time, and it's nice to have a lower cost option for people on tight budgets. Reason #5: Everything else will stay wide. Indie authors sometimes gets stuck in binary thinking about Kindle Unlimited and wide, but why not both? I write enough that I can put books into both on a pretty regular basis. The Shield War series we already discussed, the new Nadia books, and the new Caina books in 2024 will be wide and not exclusive to Amazon, which is similar to what I did in 2020. Wraithshard was in KU, but Dragontiarna and Cloak Mage were wide, and in 2024 the Shield War, Cloak Mage, and Ghost Armor will be wide, but Half-Elven Thief will be in Kindle Unlimited and I think Sevenfold Sword Online will perform better in Kindle Unlimited than it did wide, so those books will be in Kindle Unlimited as well. So that is my reasoning. Hopefully that makes sense. If you are a wide reader, I apologize for the inconvenience, but once the Half-Elven Thief series is finished, it will go wide and the Shield War, Cloak Mage, and Ghost Armor will also all be wide in 2024. Hopefully we will soon see more from Rivah Half-Elven in 2024 as well. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. And don't forget also to go to jonathanmoeller.com and get your free short stories from now until December 31st, 2023. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy, and see you all next week.

Tara Cremin on Thinking Globally and Kobo Plus Subscriptions

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2023 44:40

Episode 197/ Tara Cremin is the Director of Kobo Writing Life and has great tips for how to go wide, how to reach readers globally, and how Kobo Plus, their non-exclusive subscription platform, helps authors reach new readers. We also talk about common mistakes Tara sees authors make as well as library distribution and cover trends. Kobo website: www.kobo.com/writinglife www.kobo.com/p/kwlpodcast Other links mentioned:Get Jami's branding special: jamialbright1@gmail.comJami on the Indy Author Podcast: https://www.theindyauthor.com/214---your-persona-is-your-brand.htmlAfternoona Delight Podcast: https://www.afternoonadelight.com/podcast

director thinking write series craft globally subscriptions kobo big list kobo writing life kobo plus indy author podcast

Audiobook Sales Under Siege: Spotify's Game-Changing Move | Self-Pub News (Oct. 30, 2023)

spotify ai society sales discord marketplace audiobooks siege game changing spotify premium reedsy kobo writing life findaway voices dale l roberts kobo plus

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2023 19:06

Spotify is rolling out even more changes to the audiobook distribution service, Findaway Voices. The Marketplace is going away after a short run on Findaway Voices, Spotify Premium might not be what audiobook rights holders want, and more. Also, Reedsy shares the difference a professional cover design can make in your book sales. And, Kobo Writing Life updated their Kobo Plus reports and analytics. All that and more in the self-publishing news! Join Channel Memberships - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl9CjdZQtzufqgYx0CidSbA/join Join my community at: Discord - http://dalelinks.com/discord Sources: Dibbly Create - https://DaleLinks.com/DibblyCreate (affiliate link) Holiday Ordering Deadlines - https://mail.barnesandnoble.com/H/2/v60000018b41022003a1e7f46e96c660a0/87ce7d25-327d-4d48-9056-715e3f72bb9c/HTML IngramSpark Recommended Order Dates - https://www.ingramspark.com/%F0%9F%93%A6act-fast-recommended-order-dates-and-book-nominations LaterPress - https://www.laterpress.com/ There is No Marketing Magic Bullet: Reaching More Readers Podcast, With Dale L. Roberts and Holly Greenland - https://selfpublishingadvice.org/podcast-marketing-magic-bullet/ GetCovers - https://DaleLinks.com/GetCovers - use code TREAT20 (affiliate link) Kobo Plus Data - https://preview.mailerlite.com/a0s2y7l2v8/2332257606858446275/y8b6/ Can a Professional Book Cover Double Your Sales? - https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/book-design/redesign/ The NEW Findaway Voices by Spotify - https://www.findawayvoices.com/dale Spotify Premium Analytics - https://my.findawayvoices.com/reporting/spotify-premium-analytics Spotify's new audiobook streaming could have ‘devastating effect', says Society of Authors - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/11/spotify-audiobook-streaming-devastating-effect-authors No Fakes Act wants to protect actors and singers from unauthorized AI replicas - https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/12/23914915/ai-replicas-likeness-law-no-fakes-copyright Game-Changing Creator Insights for 2024 - https://assets.lulu.com/media/unbounce/lulu-tilt-creator-insights.pdf Where noted, some outbound links financially benefit the channel through affiliate programs. I only endorse programs, products, or services I use and can stand confidently behind. These links do not affect your purchase price and greatly helps to building and growing this channel. Thanks in advance for understanding! - Dale L. Roberts

#691 Behind the Pages: A Deep Dive into Contemporary Romance Writing with Author Samantha Chase (2023)

Build A Successful Author Business For The Long Term With Joe Solari

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2023 88:57

How can you build an author business for the long term, and not just for the launch of one book? How do you ensure secure cash flow and profits, instead of focusing on short-term spike sales? Joe Solari discusses key aspects of your author business. In the intro, Kobo Plus expands to audiobooks in Australia […] The post Build A Successful Author Business For The Long Term With Joe Solari first appeared on The Creative Penn.

australia long term solari successful authors creative penn kobo plus

Kobo Plus Hits US Markets: Interview with Tara Cremin at Kobo

The Author Revolution™ Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 21, 2023 33:31

Indie authors have so many opportunities to reach readers. This year alone has opened up a ton! One of the latest is Kobo Plus finally entering the US market! In today's podcast episode, I'm speaking again with Tara Cremin at Kobo. We discuss Kobo Plus and the new geos, the new e-readers they have available, and the reading experience that makes me want to buy one ASAP. Click here to listen! Be sure to check out the show notes by going to https://authorrevolution.org/188.

interview hits indie podcast interviews kobo us markets ereaders writing podcasts expert interviews kobo writing life publishing podcast self publishing podcast kobo plus

KDP Alternative: Tap Into New Markets with Kobo Plus | Tara Cremin, Director of Kobo Writing Life

director uk ama kobo new markets kobo writing life amazon kindle direct publishing kwl kobo plus

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2023 20:46

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing has dominated the market yet leaves many authors in the cold with their exclusivity agreement for distribution through KDP Select (Kindle Unlimited). What if authors had a viable alternative? Enter one of the best KDP Alternatives in Kobo Writing Life (KWL)! Recently, KWL expanded Kobo Plus - their subscription-based program for ebooks and audiobooks - to reach the US and UK, officially reaching ten regions across the world. I sat down for a chat with Director of Kobo Writing Life, Tara Cremin, to discuss Kobo Plus, library distribution, and selling more books through Kobo. KWL Live Q&A – Kobo Plus US & UK Expansion: an AMA with the KWL Team - https://www.youtube.com/live/LKizumuyPoA?feature=share KDP Alternative: Is Kobo Writing Life Worth It? - https://youtu.be/A7Bf2oNarhw Kobo Writing Life - https://www.kobo.com/us/en/p/writinglife Kobo Writing Life on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@KoboWritingLifeKWL Discord - http://dalelinks.com/discord

#633 Author Interview: Julia Jarrett

Episode 470 - Kobo Plus, Writing Sprints & Optimizing Author Pages

The Sell More Books Show: Book Marketing, Digital Publishing and Kindle News, Tools and Advice

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 12, 2023 26:00

Claire and Bryan embark on a new journey. Get excited for Season 2 of The Sell More Books Show. Top story is Kobo Plus Has Arrived Stateside. Question of the week: Are there any drawbacks you can see in Kobo Plus? Do you plan on putting your books in Kobo Plus?

writing optimizing pages sprints sell more books show kobo plus

185 Using Book Covers as Marketing Tools with Katia from MiblArt

The Rebel Author Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 12, 2023 55:15

Episode Show Notes In this episode we cover: Working with a designer Being ‘on genre' while still being unique Tips for an effective cover reveal Using your book cover as a marketing tool How to rebrand a series This week's question is: What is giving you life right now? Recommendation of the week is: Ghosts from the Veil by Scott Williamson (patron) On all good stores! ***this show uses affiliate links Links I mentioned: Kobo Plus pricing for indies here Full article here Find out more about Katia and MiblArt: MiblArt Website Katia's Facebook Instagram Marketing material examples and cover designs from MiblArt: Rebel of the Week is: PT Saad If you'd like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com 1 new patron this week, welcome and thank you to Tae. A big thank you to my existing patrons as well. If you'd like to support the show, and get early access to all the episodes as well as bonus content you can from as little as $2 a month by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack

ghosts recommendations rebel veil katia marketing tools tae book covers scott williamson kobo plus

Writing Nature Memoir With Merryn Glover

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 10, 2023 61:24

How can we bring a place alive in our writing? How can we tackle the challenges of writing different types of books at different times in our writing career? Merryn Glover talks about her experience in this episode. In the intro, Kobo launches Kobo Plus in the US and UK; Amazon is closing Book Depository; […] The post Writing Nature Memoir With Merryn Glover first appeared on The Creative Penn.

amazon uk nature writing memoir glover kobo book depository creative penn merryn kobo plus

Why KDP Select Should Be Worried | Self-Publishing News (Apr. 10, 2023)

amazon spotify canada uk worried self publishing publishers weekly kindle unlimited kdp amazon kdp book depository kdp select findaway voices publishing news dale l roberts kobo plus

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 10, 2023 18:28

Kindle Unlimited has had a stranglehold on the reader subscription model for years now while a competitor has slowly been extending its reach. Also, find out what Publishers Weekly suggests for protecting your work on Amazon KDP. Spotify expands its reach. And, Amazon is closing down the Book Depository. Find out all about that and more! Let's discuss the news in self-publishing on Mondays at 6:15pm EST (UTC-5)! Sources: Laterpress - https://laterpress.com Protecting Your Work - https://booklife.com/news/authors/03/27/2023/protecting-your-work.html How to Sell Your Audiobook on Spotify With PublishDrive - https://publishdrive.com/sell-audiobooks-on-spotify.html Spotify Launches Audiobook Sales in Canada - https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/91816-spotify-launches-audiobook-sales-in-canada.html Findaway Voices - https://findawayvoices.com KDP's Kindle Vella - https://kdp.amazon.com Kobo Plus launches in the US and UK - https://preview.mailerlite.com/f2e2j5p8t7/2186091478147667616/z8t0/ Help your books stand out with Sponsored Brands webinar - https://advertising.amazon.com/resources/library/webinars/register?webinar_key=2631838740472983391&organizer_key=5730221780046494214&ref_=pe_24209330_709653810_email MK Williams - https://youtu.be/KlTckewLQ2c Book Depository will close this month - https://thenewpublishingstandard.com/2023/04/04/amazons-dismantling-of-its-books-operations-continues-book-depository-will-close-this-month-what-will-be-next/ The Self-Publishing Hub - https://theselfpublishinghub.com/ Where noted, some outbound links financially benefit the channel through affiliate programs. I only endorse programs, products, or services I use and can stand confidently behind. These links do not affect your purchase price and greatly helps to building and growing this channel. Thanks in advance for understanding! - Dale L. Roberts

Cortes Literacy book club gets off the ground with eReader grant

Cortes Currents

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 1, 2023 5:33

Anastasia Avvakumova A grant of eReaders from Rakuten Kobo has translated into a monthly book club on Cortes Island where readers use both print and digital media to access titles. Late last year, 20 Kobo eReaders came under Cortes Literacy's stewardship. Through the partnership, a regular book club is now being held: readers have access to the devices and subscriptions to the Kobo Plus book library included with the grant, as well as public library's offerings. Rebeka Carpenter, the book club's current organizer, has also just obtained a special book club library card from the Vancouver Island Regional Library, which provides a 12-copy set of one title at a time. "I'm hopeful that once those start coming down the pike and I can distribute those to people, it'll spur more reading and enjoyment of books," she said. About 20 people are currently on the book club's email list, with more inquiring about book recommendations. A fireplace set into a grey stone wall and living room furnishings. The location for the next meeting is in a home in Whaletown. Image courtesy of Rebeka Carpenter. The new group has held two meetings so far in 2023, with the next scheduled for March 26 (postponed from March 19th, as originally stated in the audio). To learn more, contact bekinbc@gmail.com

#308 – New Year, New Indie Publishing Trends with the KWL Team

new year tiktok ai happy new year advice writers self publishing kobo indie authors writing advice indie publishing new indie kobo writing life publishing trends kwl kobo plus

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 10, 2023 28:51

Happy New Year, writers! In this episode, the Kobo Writing Life team gets together to discuss our indie publishing predictions, forecasts, hopes and dreams for 2023! Hear from Tara (director of KWL), Laura (author engagement manager), Rachel (promotions specialist), and Terrence (content coordinator for KWL) as they discuss everything from AI-narrated audiobooks and the Kobo Plus expansion to the influence of TikTok and trends in cover design! Whether you agree with our predications or think we are wildly off-base, we hope you enjoy listening to what we thought of the trends we saw in 2022 and what we expect (and hope) to see in 2023. And be sure follow Kobo Writing Life on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram for indie publishing tips, advice, and inspiration.

Ep 191: Burnout

Feminists Without Mystique

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2022 88:40

We kick things off with a little discussion of Elon Musk's disastrous appearance at a Dave Chapelle show, and then attempt to discuss Sam Bankman-Fried (wtf...is...FTX), then the unpleasantness of Kyrsten Sinema switching parties and then... burnout. We're burnt out, everyone's burnt out! We're slamming into the holidays this year. We're tired. We see you: The report about the rampant abuse of women in US prisons, Bruce Freidman, People complaining about the release of Brittney Griner, Meghan and Harry haters, Ron DeSantis This episode is brought to you by Kobo Plus! - feministswithoutmystique.com Support us on Ko-fi! Twitter: @fwmpodcast Instagram: @feministswithoutmystique Facebook: facebook.com/fwmpodcast Email: feministswithoutmystique@gmail.com

elon musk burnout dave chappelle ko ftx brittney griner kyrsten sinema kobo plus

"To All The Boys I've Loved Before"

Girls Like Us

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2022 63:20

We cover Jenny Han's love letter rom-com.Book talk starts at 23:04.Today's episode is brought to you by Kobo Plus. Find out about Kobo Plus in your country:CanadaAustraliaNew ZealandItalyLINKS:Dr. Ben Winning PatreonOur merchGLU TwitterGLU InstagramDiscordWebsiteSuggest topicsOur theme song is by Leggy. You can email us at girlslikeusshow@gmail.com.Girls Like Us is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!

boys loved frolic jenny han leggy girls like us frolic podcast network kobo plus

Kobo e-readers and Cortes Islands DYI Literacy Book Club

Cortes Currents

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2022 8:09

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Assuming they don't get snowed out, Cortes Literacy is holding a mandatory training for their new Rabuten Kobo e-readers today. Manda Aufochs Gillespie explained this is connected to Cortes Island's new book club. Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “This book club is a hybrid of just another community organized volunteer 'Let's everybody pitch in book club' like we have seen multiple times before on Cortes and an attempt to blend with a program that Cortes Literacy is doing with Rabuten Kobo, which brings 20 digital eReaders into our community to loan and reuse, as well as a subscription to the Kobo Plus book library. They basically saw a need in rural and remote communities. People had no access to books during COVID. Libraries shut down, community halls shut down, schools shut down, and people in these remote communities had no access to books and reading material.” “I thought, oh my goodness, this is exactly the thing that we need for our community. I was so distressed about that lack of access to reading material during COVID. So I put in an application and we now have 20 Kobo e-readers on the island and that we get to use for those in the book club who want to use them.” Cortes Currents: How many books are there in the system? Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Apparently, it's thousands. I will say that the Kobo Plus subscription seems to focus on new releases, and so I find that it works best if you blend your Kobo Plus subscription on your Kobo with your public library card. This allows you access to all the books that the library has digitally accessible, as well as the Kobo plus subscription books. This is a great way to go. Anybody with a Kobo eReader or other eReader device can use their library card to basically check books out of the library like you would, except for their digital books.” Cortes Currents: Is there some kind of payment plan involved? Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “No.” Cortes Currents: No? It's free?

Kobo Plus come to Canada

Kelly and Company

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2022 15:06

Kobo reader has released Kobo + in Canada. Ryan Hooey tells us more about this exciting, accessible platform for audiobook consumption.

canada black friday audiobooks kobo rakuten kobo plus

The Farewell (2019) Lulu Wang, Awkwafina (Special Guest Kristen Meinzer By the Book)

Book Vs Movie Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 28, 2022 60:51

Book Vs. Movie: The Farewell The Lulu Wang Story from NPR's This American Life & the 2019 FilmThe Margos have a special guest for this episode devoted to an NPR story by writer/director Lulu Wang. Kristen Meinzer (co-host of the By the Book & Romance Road Test podcasts) is a return guest who wanted not only to talk about her new shows but also to share one of her recent favorite films, which is an adaptation of a true story contribution by Wang she shared with This American Life in 2016 (episode 585: In Defense of Ignorance.) In her audio essay called What You Don't Know, Wang's family deals with the news that her grandmother has terminal cancer by not telling her she is sick but rather all coming together in China under the guise of a lie. That they are there for a marriage. It's a hilarious and heartwarming story about what true love means and cultural respect. We won't give away the ending, but it will surely find a place in your heart! Rakuten Kobo sponsors this particular episode. They want to introduce our listeners to Canadian Chinese romance author Jackie Lau who has just her newest work, the sexy, funny, and unconventional The Unmatchmakers. Plot:From the author of DONUT FALL IN LOVE comes a perfect summer love story set in the forested paradise of Canadian cottage country that asks the question: Can love beat the odds when the odds are two mothers dead-set against it? (This book has Canada-core down! Tim Horton's coffee, butter tarts, kayaks….) SynopsisYou'd think my mother would be trying to set me up with architect Neil Choy, the unmarried son of her best friend. But you'd be wrong. My single mother has always been fiercely independent. Since I was a small child, she's always told me not to believe in fairy tales and that I don't need a man. So she's failed to mention that Neil is a total hottie in glasses. When I see him on a multi-family cottage vacation for the first time in a decade, I'm in for quite a shock. (I nearly fall in the lake, but let's keep that a secret.) He sure can grill a mean steak and mix a killer cocktail, plus he's pretty impressive in a kayak. Yes, he's a little stern and grumpy, but that just makes him more fun to tease—and makes it more satisfying when he quirks his lips in my direction. Even though my mind is spinning romantic fantasies, I'm not entirely sure how he feels. And I'm afraid that if anything happens between us, it'll screw up the friendship between our staunchly anti-relationship mothers. Especially since they've been acting increasingly weird since we arrived—I will never forgive them for the S'mores Incident. I think they're trying to sabotage my love life, and I'm starting to worry that I won't make it through this bizarre summer vacation… About the AuthorJackie Lau is a biracial, Asian-Canadian author specializing in contemporary romantic comedies in Toronto/Ontario. The main characters of her books are usually of Asian heritage and often include interracial couples. Jackie has a background in engineering and geophysics and has written many main characters who work in STEM. Follow her at JackieLauBooks.com #AsianRomCom Twitter/Instagram @JackieLauBooks AvailabilityThe Unmatchmakers is available as an eBook and audiobook through Kobo and across our global storefronts. The title is available for Canadian readers under Kobo Plus, our all-you-can-read eBook subscription. It starts with a 30-day free trial, meaning that readers who haven't started their subscription yet can begin their trial and read it for free (alongside hundreds of thousands of other eBooks). For those who are already Kobo Plus subscribers, this title is available in the catalog and ready to be read! In this ep, the Margos discuss:Lulu Wang's story and the changes she made to filmThe Chinese tradition of family members keeping medical information secret The process of filming on locationThe cast: Awkwafina (Billi Wang,) Tzi Ma (Haiyan Wang,) Diana Lin (Lu Jian,) Zhao Shu-zhen (Nai Nai,) Lu Hong (playing herself,) Aoi Mizuhara (Aiko,) Zhang Jing (Yuping,) Li Xiang (Aunty Ling,) Yang Xuejian (Mr. Li,) and Jim Liu as Dr. Song. Clips used: The doctor explains in English what is happening to Nai Nai The Farewell trailerBilli wants to stay in ChinaBilli and her mother talk about griefThe different music at the weddingMusic by Alex WestonBook Vs. Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts. Join our Patreon page to help support the show! https://www.patreon.com/bookversusmovie Book Vs. Movie podcast https://www.facebook.com/bookversusmovie/Twitter @bookversusmovie www.bookversusmovie.comEmail us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Margo D. @BrooklynFitChik www.brooklynfitchick.com brooklynfitchick@gmail.comMargo P. @ShesNachoMama https://coloniabook.weebly.com/ Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine

The Farewell (2019) Lulu Wang, Awkwafina (Special Guest Kristen Meinzer By the Book)

Book Vs Movie Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 28, 2022 60:51

Holy Fire® Reiki, Spirit Release and Mental Health with Jennifer Taylor

Reiki from the Farm™

Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2022 71:11 Transcription Available

Jennifer and I discuss the entities and spirits that sometimes attach, and can lead to challenges with mental health. Then Jennifer leads us in a beautiful sound healing meditation to clear any attachments or entities not part of the Divine Plan in your life!Pam's ICRT Classes: https://www.reiki.org/users/pamela-allen-leblanc#classesNewsletter: http://eepurl.com/dFm-19Reiki session: https://squareup.com/appointments/book/7dvtqlfp939e8g/LPSC51C92BN20/servicesMonthly Reiki share: http://eepurl.com/hWruP5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reikifromthefarm/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hiddenbrookfarmReikiHorsesOilsYoutube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW5ScR7ObSiPIpgnDkWkiQAemail: pam@reikifromthefarm.comJennifer Taylor, Holy Fire Karuna Reiki Master/Teacher, Animal Reiki Master/Teacher, and Sound Healer Website: www.willowridgereiki.com Facebook: facebook.com/WillowRidgeReikiInstagram: www.instagram.com/willowridgereikiRecording of Spirit Release sound healing meditation: https://www.willowridgereiki.com/recordings Subscribe: Reiki News MagazineThe Reiki Business Book is available from tens of thousands of Retailers, Libraries, Schools, E-commerce companies, book retailers and wholesalers across North America including: Amazon,Barnes & Noble, Independent bookstores, Walmart.com, Target.com, Chapters / Indigo (Canada) United Kingdom & Europe from: Adlibris, Agapea, Amazon.co.uk, Aphrohead, Blackwell, Book Depository Ltd, Books Express, Coutts Information Services Ltd, Designarta Books, Eden Interactive Ltd, Foyles, Gardners, Trust Media Distribution, Mallory International, Paperback Shop Ltd, Superbookdeals, The Book Community Ltd, Waterstones, Wrap Distribution. Australia & New Zealand: Amazon AU, Booktopia, Fishpond, The Nile, James Bennett, ALS, Peter Pal. Ebook versions available: 24Symbols, Ainosco, Amazon*, Apple**, Barnes & Noble Nook, Bibliotheca, BibliU, Bolinda, Bookmate, Chegg, De Marque, eBooks.com, EBSCO, fable, Follett/B&T, Gardners, Glose, hoopla, Hummingbird, iGroup, ITSI, Kobo Plus, Kortex, Libreka, Libri.de, LitRes, Mackin, Odilo, OverDrive, Perlego, Perusall, ProQuest, Publica.la, RedShelf, Scribd, SpoonRead, Storytel, VitalSource, WF Howes, Wheelers, Wook, YouScribethank you to Music from Pixabay for the intro musicPam Allen-LeBlanc is a scientist, a businesswoman, and a Licensed Reiki Master Teacher with the International Center for Reiki Training. She is the author of "The Reiki Business Book" and a co-author of ICRT Animal Reiki training. Pam teaches Reiki, Animal Reiki, and Animal Communication online and in-person in Canada, the US, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

music amazon canada australia europe apple mental health united kingdom north america new zealand target schools walmart als independent ebooks barnes reiki noble libraries nile retailers pixabay blackwell sound healing entities hummingbirds overdrive libri publica international center animal communication waterstones storytel scribd chegg divine plan mackin booktopia wheelers litres wook jennifer taylor adlibris gardners holy fire reiki james bennett animal reiki foyles proquest reiki training bibliotheca kortex fishpond ebsco icrt bookmate spirit release kobo plus bibliu glose amazon au noble nook vitalsource licensed reiki master teacher aphrohead 24symbols

The Rise of Subscription Models with Tara Cremin - #124 The Indy Author Podcast

The Indy Author Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2022 38:45

This week on The Indy Author Podcast, Tara Cremin of Kobo Writing Life discusses SUBSCRIPTION MODELS, including Kobo Plus. She talks about the rise of subscription models ... what sets subscription readers apart ... how authors get paid in subscription models, and why Kobo chose minutes read as the measure of reader engagement ... and Kobo's “globally local” approach. She also discusses how authors can reach libraries through Kobo. Do any of those topics pique your interest? Check out my new YouTube playlist, 2 Minutes of Indy (https://bit.ly/2MinutesOfIndy), where you can find a brief video clip from the interview on each of those topics! For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html. Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple). Tara Cremin is the Director of Kobo Writing Life, Kobo's independent publishing platform. As a subject matter expert in all aspects of indie publishing, her aim is to make KWL the greatest and most user-friendly self-publishing platform available, and she's and always looking for ways for indies to reach a new audience of readers. Tara hosts KWL's monthly live events with author and industry experts and you can sometimes hear her as a guest host on the Kobo Writing Life Podcast.

director coffee models indy subscription kobo kobo writing life kwl kobo plus indy author indy author podcast

SPA Girls Podcast – EP325 – All About Kobo with Tara Cremin

SPA Girls Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2022 44:10

In this episode Tara brings us up to speed on Kobo's new audiobook platform, other updates from Kobo including Kobo Plus, and top tips for marketing your books and audio.

kobo girls podcast kobo plus

SPA Girls Podcast – EP325 – All About Kobo with Tara Cremin

SPA Girls Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2022 44:10

In this episode Tara brings us up to speed on Kobo's new audiobook platform, other updates from Kobo including Kobo Plus, and top tips for marketing your books and audio.

kobo girls podcast kobo plus

Kindle, Kobo e gli audiolibri

Il Tech delle cinque

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2021 17:45

Vezio ha appena iniziato a leggere in digitale su Kindle: approfittiamo quindi dell'occasione per parlare un po' di ebook reader (Kindle e Kobo), ma anche di audiolibri, dato che Kobo ha recentemente lanciato in Italia il servizio Kobo Plus, che include anche i libri in formato audio.Questo e molto altro in questa puntata de Il tech delle cinque.Kobo Plus arriva in Italia: https://www.smartworld.it/tecnologia/kobo-plus-arriva-in-italia-ebook-e-audiolibri-a-partire-da-10-al-mese.htmlI nostri canali Telegram:► SmartWorld Live: https://bit.ly/SmartWorldLive► Offerte tecnologia: https://bit.ly/SmartworldOfferteSeguici sui social!► FACEBOOK: https://bit.ly/SmartWorldFacebook► INSTAGRAM: https://bit.ly/InstagramSmartWorld► TIKTOK: https://bit.ly/SmartWorldTikTok► GRUPPO FACEBOOK: https://bit.ly/SmartWorldFamilySe vuoi sostenerci:► FAI ACQUISTI su AMAZON con il nostro link: https://bit.ly/GrazieDaSmartWorld

amazon ebooks italia kindle questo kobo audiolibri htmli kobo plus

Episode 96: 4 Reasons To Write Mystery Novels

write mystery novels kobo plus

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 15, 2021 10:49

In this week's episode, I take a look at four reasons for writing mystery novels. I also discuss the release of GHOST IN THE SUN, Kobo Plus, and how to properly organize an asset library.

Episode 385- Staying Focused, Author Learning, and Goodreads Ransoms

The Sell More Books Show: Book Marketing, Digital Publishing and Kindle News, Tools and Advice

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 18, 2021 43:04

We have a great show in store for you this week! Please be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcast and answer the Question of the Week in the comment section. The winner this week is Sara Prow Blackard. Top Tips of the week include what books you need to jumpstart your indie author career, why these marketing strategies just won't work, and how to stop temptation and start writing. The 5 News stories that matter most to indies this week include how you can maximize your hourly rate, why readers are willing to buy wider, what's selling on Kobo Plus in Canada, why Goodreads is in the news for regular people not just authors and why Apple's new email privacy isn't such a big deal. Question of the Week: In the next 3 months of your business, what is the project that you're most excited about?

canada learning apple news apple podcast top tips goodreads staying focused kobo plus

Episode 370 - A/B Testing, Subscription Selling, and Instant Gratification

The Sell More Books Show: Book Marketing, Digital Publishing and Kindle News, Tools and Advice

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2021 55:27

This week we have a great show in store for you. Make sure to leave a review on Apple Podcast and answer the Question of the Week! The winner this week is - Anmarie. Top Tips of the week include how to get clicks on your ads, why to switch out your email list, and how to catch scammers. The 5 News stories that matter most to indies this week include who is Disney refusing to pay, what is new with Amazon, how to get into the right mindset when writing, where has Kobo Plus launched, and how to take on new opportunities. Question of the Week: What sort of environmental accommodations do you make to aid your focus and get the most out of your deep-work time when you have it?

amazon disney news selling testing apple podcast top tips subscription instant gratification kobo plus

084: Book Launch Check List

Six Figure Authors

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 1, 2021 63:18

This week, the hosts discuss their book launch checklists, such as download bonuses, book covers, editing, newsletter and social media announcements, and other things that help them stay focused and get the ball rolling for…

checklist book launches kobo kindle unlimited kobo plus

SFA 049 – Subscription Service Strategies, Marketing Tips for 2020, and Listener Questions Answered

Six Figure Authors

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2020 71:49

We’ve got a mix of topics for today’s show. We start out with some news from our hosts, then jump into discussing the expansion of Kobo Plus into Canada and why authors should consider having…Continue ReadingSFA 049 – Subscription Service Strategies, Marketing Tips for 2020, and Listener Questions Answered

canada strategy marketing tips free ebooks kindle unlimited subscription services listener questions answered kobo plus

Episode 329 - Five-minute Marketing, Pre-order Peril, and Shucking Scammers

The Sell More Books Show: Book Marketing, Digital Publishing and Kindle News, Tools and Advice

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 22, 2020 48:31

There are many different ways to promote your book, what is one five-minute task that you could do today to promote your book? This week we have a great show for you! Don’t forget to leave us a review on Apple podcast. This week’s Super Charger Story Course Winner is Steph Pajonas. If you become a Patron of the show you will now get access to the show 8-12 hours earlier then when it airs! The Top Tips of the week include what ten marketing hacks bestselling author Zoe York is giving to you, how to create content that will attract your ideal reader, and why pre-orders may be hurting you instead of helping you. The 5 News stories that matter most to indies this week include how to avoid getting scammed by a vanity press, what new service NetGalley is adding to their lineup, what publishers look for when deciding which book to bet on, how BookBub’s new feature “related authors” could be beneficial to you, and where Kobo Plus is being launched next. Question of the Week: What is one five-minute task you could do to promote your book today?

apple marketing news top tips scammers peril five minute bookbub netgalley shucking kobo plus

#205 - An In Depth Look at Kobo Plus with Erik Rigters

canada netherlands depth subscription self publishing kobo indie publishing kwl kobo plus

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 21, 2020 31:33

Kobo Plus, our all-you-can-read subscription service, launched in Canada last week, so we asked the director of Kobo Plus and Publisher Relations, Erik Rigters, to join us on the podcast to help answer the big questions surrounding the launch. Using the data we’ve seen from Kobo Plus in the Netherlands, Erik explains how Kobo Plus can benefit authors, how it can help boost your backlist, and why you should consider enrolling your books! Learn more about this episode!

Episode 321: The End of RITA, Kobo Plus Canada, and Facebook Shops

The Sell More Books Show: Book Marketing, Digital Publishing and Kindle News, Tools and Advice

Play Episode Listen Later May 27, 2020 49:24

You are running an awards show for your genre, what would you call it and why? This week Bryan is having a FB Ads Webinar with Alana Terry and H. Claire Taylor is getting back into her writing groove! Don’t forget to leave a podcast review. This week’s Super Charger Story Course Winner is Kori D. Miller. Thank you to our featured Patrons - What Am I?: A Collection of Traditional Word Riddles – Deluxe Edition, Ships of My Fathers, and Somebody's Darling. The Top Tips of the week include what to know when it comes to pricing your books, why you should be asking questions before writing a guest blog, and how many words should you be writing. The 5 News stories that matter most to indies this week include whats going on with Wolf-Kink Erotica, why self-help books are doing so well right now, how you now have the opportunity to sell your books on Instagram and Facebook, why to get yourself ready for Kobo, and why the RWA has retired their RITA award. Question of the Week: If you ran an awards show for your genre, what would you call it and why?

canada news collection darling ships top tips shops kobo rwa claire taylor kobo plus

Ep 19: The Final Word on Going Wide

All Things Indie

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 12, 2019 22:17

Episode 19: The Final Word on Going Wide Prologue: Podcasts for Writers (besides All Things Indie) Grammar Girl Podcast: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl The Career Authors: https://thecareerauthor.com/ Writing Excuses: https://writingexcuses.com/ Akimbo: https://www.akimbo.me/ Main Story: The Final Word on Going Wide KDP: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/ Kindle Unlimited: https://www.amazon.com/Browse-Kindle-Unlimited-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=9069934011 Kobo Plus: https://www.kobo.com/nl/en/plus Epilogue: eBook Aggregators Draft2Digital: https://www.draft2digital.com/ Gardners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardners_Books Google Play: https://play.google.com/books/publish/ iTunes: https://www.apple.com/itunes/ Kindle Direct Publishing: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/ Kobo Writing Life: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/p/writinglife Nook Press: https://press.barnesandnoble.com/ Odilo: https://sonomalibrary.org/odilo Overdrive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OverDrive,_Inc. Playster: https://www.playster.com/us/en Scribd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribd Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/ Tolino: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolino Music "Never Surrender" by Chasing Noise, off their album, Everything http://chasingnoise.wixsite.com/chasingnoise

#11: Christine Munroe, Kobo Writing Life, a digital self-publishing platform

Author Friendly

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2018 37:03

Christine "Chrissy" Munroe is Director of Kobo Writing Life, a digital self-publishing platform from Rakuten Kobo who partnered with Walmart to provide Walmart eBooks and a co-branded app. Before joining Rakuten Kobo, Munroe was a foreign book scout and literary agent in New York. So why should an author go direct with Kobo (and the other retailers) rather than use an aggregator to distribute ebooks? The answers are personal, says Munroe, and you'll find out that with Kobo you don't just get direct to Kobo; you get personal feedback from their in-house marketing staff, you get your ebook in independent bookstores via the American Booksellers Association, an opportunity to distribute to libraries with Overdrive (also owned by Rakuten) with a more favorable royalty split then going through an aggregator, and many more perks we'll explore in the podcast. After hearing this conversation, you may end up deciding to upload your book directly to the big five (Amazon, Kobo, Apple, B&N, and Google Play) rather than reaching these sales channels with an aggregator. If you own your book ISBNs you can easily make the switch and experiment. There are definitely pros and cons, which you already realize if you've listened to the podcast episodes with the aggregators (Smashwords, StreetLib, Draft2Digital, PublishDrive, Scribl). We also discuss marketing opportunities with libraries, how merchandizing between Kobo, libraries, and aggregators work, the Walmart eBookstore experience for customers, and the Kobo Plus subscription program for the Netherlands and Belgium with bol.com and how English-language authors can reach this market (and why you'd want to). Also find out about their partnerships with Reedsy, Damonza, NetGalley, and other services that help authors with editing, design, formatting, and marketing.

#98 - A Mindset Shift to Write Every Day with Rachel Amphlett

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 4, 2017 24:42

Rachel Amphlett, bestselling crime and thriller writer from Brisbane, Australia, was at Kobo HQ earlier this fall as part of an international author tour. Rachel spoke to Mark Lefebvre about: Rachel's re-introduction to writing after a long lapse and the underlying concept for a story that just wouldn't let go The wonderfully inspirational Christmas gift from Rachel's husband Nick and his keen words of advice on how to deal with that story (which became the novel WHITE GOLD) The Italian publisher who approached her wanting to purchase Italian language rights to that first published novel The mindset shift that requires discipline on a daily basis in order to hit the daily word count first thing before all the other business and marketing tasks take hold The necessary step of turning off the wifi and putting her phone in another room when it is time to be serious and get down to writing The Gantt chart Rachel uses to outline and stick to her twelve month pre-planned publishing schedule Her latest book, the November 2017 release HELL TO PAY and how it wraps up an underlying sub-plot that had been developing over the previous three novels in the series How emails and feedback from readers around the world have helped Rachel to “up” her game when writing the books in her two series The decision Rachel has made to use British English versus American English for different books depending on where they are set How Rachel's Canadian audience on Kobo was established well before any of her other international audiences started to grow How being in Kobo Plus in the Netherlands and Belgium have helped Rachel sell more books in those territories than ever before Her advice for beginning writers, which include “don't give up” and “do your homework” Nick's advice for the spouses of writers

#86 - Writing Stand Alone Novels in a Series with Catherine Coulter