Shakespeare talks about sleep knitting up the ravelled sleeve of care, and my sleep-sleeve is currently completely unravelled. Last night was something of an example. I actually managed to fall asleep just before 1am, which was a miracle. I woke up around 4am, which is when I usually fall asleep, tried to sleep until 5am, got up, found out some of my stories had been pirated on an audio site, tried to go back to sleep at 7am, got up again 7.30am, was nodding off at 11am but as soon as I tried to sleep properly I was wide awake. I managed two hours in the middle of the afternoon, I've accomplished very little and I feel like something that the cat would refuse to drag in.
There is still a certain amount of squelch in the dining room but it's reducing. I'm not sure if it's because of the dehumidifiers or because it's stopped raining, but I'll take what I can get. When I wandered down around 6am this morning there was a slug in the middle of the carpet that looked like it wished it had brought water wings. It didn't help my mood. I suppose it's getting closer to this.
One thing that I have managed is to get thoroughly depressed about audio books. Good narrators will make a story come alive in ways that the page can't manage, but they are rightly expensive. On one of the main platforms for authors to convert their ebooks into audiobooks, prices start at 2p per word. Out of the London Mist comes in at around 60,000 words, or £1,200 at the minimum. I don't have that sort of money, though I'm sure that they earn it.
A lot of authors are using AI, which makes me uncomfortable. Partly I don't like the idea of putting people out of work. There is also the whole worry that it wouldn't sound right. I've had enough problems with spellchecker. I don't want the AI butchering pronounciation and syntax in audible form as well, and I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't have the concentration to properly listen to an AI recording to pick up all the bits that were missed.
I'm not doing anything to take it down at the moment. Apart from not being able to get the dratted thing to work, it's not costing me anything and may possibly get me leads that will get me a few pennies. The site has all the stories from Royal Road but nothing from Amazon. I've always known that the stuff on Royal Road was vulnerable, but I've been treating it as a sort of gym to get me writing and to get another place to have my writing name on the internet. I don't put anything on there that I'm planning on charging for, although I can imagine me taking some stuff down, tidying it up, getting a halfway decent cover and then bunging it on somewhere like Smashwords. Not everyone takes that view, however, and some authors on Royal Road make money from their writing there, and it's taking income from them.
Bear is coming home tomorrow. I think I will be feeling a lot better.
Hugs and good health to all.
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