Self Publishing Archives

How to redeem ACX Promo Codes

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With the audio release of FLICKER WORLD, Brian and I had the idea to give away a copy during one of the game streams. It was all great fun, and we may even do this again on occasion. Authors and narrators can grab these promo codes from the ACX Sales Dashboard, but neither of us …

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Storyist 109: Using the Project Trash

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In this episode I’ll show you how to use the Project Trash option in Storyist. It works just like the trash function in macOS and Windows, with which you never directly delete documents from the system. Instead, they’ll go into the “trash”, which when emptied, will delete a document from the hard drive. Storyist has …

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Storyist 105: Version Control Features

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In this episode I’ll show you how to save your files in Storyist, and how to keep your work safe. Besides “save” and the equivalent of “save as”, Storyist also offers Version Control built in, which means you can save a modified version of your project, similar to how Git projects are controlled. I’ll explain …

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Storyist 103: Creative Writing Tools

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In this episode I’ll explain some of the excellent writing tools Storyist has to offer. In particular, I’ll show you how to create chapters and sections/scenes inside chapters, I’ll explain the outline and index card view, and I’ll show you how you can see the outline view and your actual manuscript side by side. https://www.versluis.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Storyist-3-Writing-Tools.mp3Podcast: …

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My Audiobook Narration Setup for Audible, Amazon and iTunes

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When I decided to narrate my book BROKEN BOWELS for publication through ACX, I had several ideas for the workflow.

In essence, and after many tests as to what would yield the best quality, I did the following:

  • record to my Mac using Quicktime
  • transcode the resulting native AIFC files into Apple Lossless M4A using Finder
  • edit in Adobe Premiere
  • bulk-transcode to MP3 files with ACX specifications using Adobe Media Encoder

I’ve tried various other workflows, but the above seems to work great for me.

Let me share my reasoning and experiment with you here.

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Discovered in July 2018

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Self Publishing Related  Understanding and Working with Print Signatures Why does Storyist add blank pages to Blurb Templates How to avoid KDP File Errors with Blurb Templates from Storyist How to advertise KDP Books Wide Publication with Draft2Digital N. J. Notjohn’s Self-Publishing Guide KDP Manuscript Formatting Guide (includes page count limits and trim sizes) Overview …

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How to create a project for narration on ACX

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I wanted to upload an audio version of my book, narrated by myself, for sale on Amazon, Audible and iTunes. It’s apparently very easy to do using Amazon’ own ACX service. You can even login with your existing Amazon credentials.

When I did that, it all seemed fairly straightforward. There was a Projects Tab at the top, which I assumed is where I’d create a new project and start uploading myself. But that’s not how ACX works. Instead, you search for a book on the ACX homepage, which in turn sifts through Amazon’s catalogue. Only if said book exists can you pick it and start working on it.

That’s fair enough, and it makes sense. If you know how the system works. But even then, in my case, said list only seemed to return books open for auditions on ACX, rather than results from Amazon.com. My own books never came up while I was successfully logged in. They only ever came up while I was logged out. What gives?

As so often in life, there is an explanation for this – but of course it’s not something that’s obvious, nor included in the generous Help Section on ACX.

Eventually I’ve figured it out – and here’s how it works.

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Created in June 2018

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Last month I’ve been flat out writing the last chapters of my book “BROKEN BOWELS – Tales of a Super Survivor“. In total I’ve written a whopping 109.944 words.

Not all of them made it into the final cut mind you, which by the way has an astonishing word count of over 132.000. That’s nearly three times as much as I had originally set out to write.

The Kindle Edition is already available, and now I’m working on creating a paperback version too. All my Patreon supporters get a free copy of the ebook!

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Double-sided printing with the HP 4620

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The other day I had to print out a rather large file to sift through. It was about 20 pages long, and being the economically conscious guy that I am, I wanted to print this document double sided to safe some paper.

Turns out my (relatively cheap) printer, the HP 4620, does not have such an option built in by default. However, the included printer driver does allow for odd or even pages to be printed manually. With a bit of thinking and elbow grease, perhaps this is an adventure worth exploring.

But how do we do it exactly, and what settings do we use? Lucky for us both that I took some notes when I did it last time so we can do it again next time.

Here’s how I did it on macOS 10.14 Sierra, but the same steps work fine under Windows 10.

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LAMP Stack for Humans – available as Paperback and Kindle Edition

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Did I mention that my book LAMP Stack for Humans is also available in paperback format?

Actually it has been for several months now, and it slipped my mind to share this news with you. LIfe’s just too busy I guess. Amazon are kind enough to offer it alongside the Kindle edition, so if you want a printed and nicely bound guide on how to build your own LAMP stack, here you go. 

The printed version is a lovely 6 x 9″ (15 x 23cm) large book with matte finish, about 1″ thick and weighs about a pound (413g to be exact). Printed with love in South Carolina as soon as you order it.

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How to print a PDF File with CreateSpace

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Last month I’ve printed three books I had a (shady) PDF version of. They were all old Commodore computer books full of good knowledge and have sadly been out of print for decades.

My first attempt at getting hard copies from those was at a local copy shop, who were kind enough to print and bind the files onto US Letter paper for me. While the result looks great, the size of such a document is rather huge. Imagine a 500 page book: it consists of 250 pages printed double-sided, comb-bound on the left. The total cost was $60. Yikes!

Amazon’s CreateSpace service on the other hand can print a book of that size for about $5 plus shipping, depending on the amount of pages of course. I’ve used the service successfully for my book LAMP Stack for Humans and thought perhaps the same principle could be used to print a PDF. 

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Did I mention my new book?

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Over the last few weeks I’ve written a book. It’s about how to run web applications in the comfort of your own home. Yesterday it went live on Amazon! I have an author page and everything! Turns out that writing was the easy part: formatting it so that it looks good on Kindle devices was a …

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