Five Weeks To First Launch
I have two major launches planned for 2026.
- January 19: Hell on $5 A Day First Revised Edition
- July 20: Sodom All Over Again First Edition
That means that Monday, December 15, is five weeks from the first launch and I'm still mostly focused on production. Heavier marketing tasks, including building ad units and settling on the final promo for the launch will come soon.
To-do list for this week:
FINISH PRINT AND E-BOOK FORMATTING OF 1ST REVISED EDITION
Once I finish the recordings (where I've edited chapters as I go), a last automated copy-edit, then formatting for final editions. Then I'll order a proof copy to make sure everything is correct. Even with Amazon's holiday delays, I should have time for up to two-fixer runs before launch.
Here's the First Edition cover for comparison. When I launched the First Edition on Amazon, I accepted a free ISBN from Amazon, but now I bought a bunch to ensure I have one for each volume in each of its editions. That ensures I not only own the ISBN and can use it with other outlets, but that Bulmash Media is listed as the publisher in the ISBN record.
If you're interested in AI content. The background images for the First Edition were pre-AI stock photos from Pixabay. For the 1st Revised Edition, I used AI generated photos from a couple of sources.
All font choices and other design/layout were me. I'm colorblind and can only draw a little, but I can do fonts and layout... sometimes.
FINISH RECORDING AND START POSTPRODUCTION OF THE AUDIOBOOK
This one has been delayed by some issues with my microphone and replacing it. Also, although David H. Lawrence XVII was very kind in a comment thread to encourage me to use my own voice, I'm still not loving how I sound in some of the chapters.
I spent some time this weekend creating a "professional voice clone" with Elevenlabs. Then I used their remix option to make it sound more like my best recording. I do not consider it perfect, though. So now the plan is to use the chapters where I like my voice as they are (with a little post processing from Adobe Podcast).
For the chapters where I do not like my voice, it's a 3-step process:
- Try to run some filters on it through Audacity to correct pitch/tone, then a post-production run of the original and filtered versions through Adobe Podcast.
- Run the original and the filtered through the Elevenlabs voice changer (preserving a lot, but not all of my performance).
- Decide which of the four variants fits best with the chapters coming before and after.
Goal for this week is to get the last 6 chapters recorded and start running the process on them.
Don't miss the "Holiday Extravaganza" newsletter on December 26!
The next issue will span the "holidays," meaning I'm doing one edition to cover two weeks approximately midway through.
That will include:
- Examples of the original and AI-enhanced audio
- The chance to vote on my autograph. I don't want to use my legal signature, so these will be candidates.
- The chance to win an autographed copy of the edition of your choice (helping me test a giveaway management service).