Monday Meanderings - 12.11.2017

Well, the big news around these parts is the Blizzard of  '17! Yes, it actually snowed here in Austin (and southward as far as the coast)! What made this snowfall so remarkable is that the weatherman was completely wrong - "No snow in this front! Maybe a flurry, but no accumulation! Nope! Not going to happen!" Then it started snowing,and remarkably, the farther south you went the greater the accumulation. Naturally, all the school, city and government agencies did the predictable thing - panicked and shut everything down. That's the ATX way.

But the really big news is that my audio book passed QC and is "live" - listed on Amazon and Audible.com. There was a little hiccup during the checking process; ACX, the Amazon company that handles all the audio book preparation kicked out the opening credits file because I also had a forward and dedication recorded there. It seems they only want prescribed, scripted opening credits - if there is a dedication or some front matter it goes in another file. Whatever.

I corrected that and re-submitted the file and then I heard nothing from ACX for a long, long time. I was getting a little antsy but all is good and the book is now out there, poised to earn me fame and fortune. Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. Because, frankly it's not a very good book (even if the narration is stunning). Okay, in fairness, it is not the sort of book I would buy. Or any one I know would buy, though as of this post some soul did actually buy a copy, and since the author and I each get free promotional copies the purchaser is probably not even family. Who knew?

I learned a great deal about producing audio books during all this. Primarily, I learned that it is a lot of tedious work and that every 3rd breathing person is now in the business of producing audio books. Including, it would seem, me.