Coming This Fall from This Creative Life...
New podcast series ramping up, and all about the TCL audiobook! 🎙️
First, a welcome to new subscribers! Whether you came here because you were forced to so you could get a free book, or you’re here of your own free will, WELCOME. No matter how you got here, you can always unsubscribe and it will not hurt my feelings, I promise. Follow the relevant links at the bottom.
Over on The Inbox Variations, I wrote about not liking summer, feelings it’s a huge disruption, and being excited about moving from this baggy season into post-Labor Day order. Fall routines are going to be so tight, you’ll be able to bounce a quarter off them.
Which is good, because I have a lot to do!
Writing with any real intent has been more or less on pause this summer, but I’m ready for that magical period after Labor Day, when I can ride the atmospheric swell of back-to-school energy until it alllll crashes around Thanksgiving.
🎧 This Creative Life - the Audiobook!
The main thing I have gotten done in the past month is a biggie, though, and that’s the This Creative Life audiobook. This has been on my to-do list all year, and I haven’t been sure how I’d get it done, for a couple of reasons:
As longtime listeners of the podcast know, audio production is not always the strong suit we all wish it was for me! But whereas any old bozo can record some files in a windstorm and upload as a podcast, the distribution platforms for audiobooks have much more rigorous quality standards.
To meet those standards, I needed a recording space that was not my condo. I also needed it to be free!
To deal with 1, I read multiple technical documents and watched a bunch of YouTube videos until I felt relatively solid with what I needed to do. (What would I do without YouTube?? People who take the time to explain something they know how to do and edit it into a helpful video are angels.)
The solution to 2 came unexpectedly while I was away at a teaching residency. It occurred to me the university’s library might have podcasting or studio space, so I asked, and they did, and I spent a couple of days in a hot, dim room laying down the audio.
When I got home, I engineered and edited, and used the Findaway platform for distribution, and when I got the following pair of emails…RELIEF!
By the way, editing the audio was like spending quality time with a past version of myself who is better and wiser than the me of right now, and she had some things to say. Like:
How dare she!
In my ongoing journey of learning indie authoring alongside my career in traditional publishing, there are some things about audiobook sales and distribution I’m learning. Like:
I don’t totally control the pricing. Some platforms set their own pricing based on the length of the audio or on their particular subscription model, for example.
I don’t totally control the publication date. I can set the publication date, but that’s not a guarantee it will be through all platforms’ distro systems when that date arrives.
Rather than set the publication date way into the future to ensure every single platform will have it by then, I went ahead and set the date for 9/1/22 (tomorrow!). Some places will have it!
May I especially recommend Libro.fm? They’re like the Bookshop.org of audiobooks. They have an app and subscription model just like you-know-who, or you can buy one book at a time. And you can associate your favorite local book store with your account so they get a piece of the action.
Listen to a sample:
(Podcast listeners will notice I use a slower, more deliberate voice to meet standards, but if you prefer fast-talking Sara, you can always bump up the playback speed in your app!)
I’ll continue to update this newsletter with retailer links as they go live, but eventually it should be everywhere you can get audiobooks around the world.
🎙️ Fall Podcast Season
As for new eps of the podcast, I’m going to try something I’ve never done before—a themed season. Where The Launch Box was a series of connected episodes with one cohost, the themed season will be regular interview episodes with guests selected around a theme.
And the theme shall be… 🥁
Pivots, Comebacks, and Reinventions
Now that I’ve been in this business for over fifteen years, I’ve seen lots of people come and go, disappear and rise up, change course, re-invent, re-imagine, re-vision their writing life and career. And I want to talk about it.
I rarely have repeat guests on the pod, but I’ll be bringing back some people from the first iteration (2012-2015) of TCL, as well as new folks, and hopefully some true outliers to throw in more out-of-the-box perspectives.
Make sure you’re subscribed on your favorite podcast app or platform, such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, PodBean, Spotify, Amazon, or your app of choice. You can also listen online or download episodes at our hosting site, Libsyn. Let me know if you have trouble finding it.
Look for the new season in later September, and stay subscribed to this newsletter if you like to have all the show notes and be alerted of new episodes!
This Creative Life is a book, a newsletter, and a podcast from me, Sara Zarr, about reading between the lines of a writing life. The newsletter and podcast are free; buying the book helps support them and me. You can also make one-time contributions if you like. Check out the options under Support at thiscreative.life. Sharing the newsletter is also a great way to keep it going!
Counting down the hours til I can order the audiobook of This Creative Life!