I’ve got good news and not so great news
| Let’s get the not-so-great news out of the way. There’s been a delay with The Solstice Countdown audiobook. This is totally my fault, and I’m so sorry. To give you the best listening experience, we want to offer Whispersync for Voice with our audiobooks. This enables you to seamlessly switch between Audible and Kindle, to either listen or read–or both. To do that, the narration must EXACTLY match the print/ebook. (This is where my fault comes in.) While narrating The Solstice Countdown, I would occasionally delete or add a word. I didn’t know that was a problem until we’d finished recording. This is when Derek discovered the requirements for Whispersync. Yep, I made a boo-boo. Multiple boo-boos. In fact, only two chapters were without boo-boos. So, Derek the Ever Patient, went through the recording while following along in the print book, marked the differences, then highlighted them on my tablet I use to record (I have to use an e-reader because the mic picks up everything, so page turning is a no-no.) Long story at least shorter, we’ve finished re-recording the problem areas, and Derek is now flowing the replacement sections into the existing files, while tweaking the sound levels so the replacements are identical to the original. Just one smoothly flowing, perfect narration. Let’s give a round of applause to Derek, that man is amazing! He’s able to knock out a couple of chapters a day. When we submit it to Audible, I’ll let you know. Immediately. If not sooner. The good part about all this is we will have gotten past the learning curve, and subsequent books will go MUCH, MUCH faster. Next to be recorded is The Gorgon Agenda, then the first Aurora Donati book, The Entity Game, followed by the Raine Benares books not picked up by Audible. Update on The Fear Syndrome — I’m at 30K words now. When I reach 50K, that’s when I start putting everything together, flesh on the bones, so to speak. I’m shooting for release next summer. Now for the good and really cool news! I’ve hit the story idea motherlode for new Raine Benares books! Big shoutout to Naomi here. She asked if I still had the snippet I published way back when on my blog where Raine meets Markus. I couldn’t find that, but I did find about 50 pages of unused dialog from the series, a file of short story ideas, and a couple of other files with ideas for three new Raine books, AND three new books in a spinoff series (The Young Guardian Chronicles), which would still feature the cast from the original series and would pick up where the Raine series and three Tam books left off. And that doesn’t even include the ideas I’m sure I’ll get when I read through all the Raine books prior to starting. When will I be starting, you ask? As soon as I put The Fear Syndrome to bed. So, I will be going back to Raine’s world around the middle of next year! And after the Raine book will be the next SPI Files with Mac and Rake’s wedding! A three-series rotation. SPI Files, Aurora Donati, Raine Benares. In my next newsletter (before December 25), I’ll give you a holiday sneak peek present at that spinoff series. I’m excited about it, and I think you will be too! Take care and happy holidays! Lisa |