Bookcast Episode 112: Why Would You Do That?

Welcome to Epi 112 of the Bookcast, my space for short fiction, updates on writing and publishing and all the bookish and authorly goodness. I’m talking about my latest release, Grumpy Valentine, and how I took on the challenge of narrating my own audiobook. Was it worth it? You’ll have to listen to find out!

In This Episode

📚 The Book Report – What I Read This Week

• Not Our Daughter – Chad Zunker
• Who’s Loving You – Lula White (Metamorphosis Series, Book 1)
• Kill Her – Chris Patchell (Detective Lacey James Series, Book 7)
• Justice for All – Chris Patchell (Short Story)

📚 Books on My Current Reading List

• You Could Do Damage – KC Mills (ARC)
• The Quiet Wife – Diane Saxon (ARC)
• Rise and Betrayal – Justine Hill Edwards (Heritage Savings & Trust Series)
• Junie – Erin Crosby Eckstein

📺 TV & Movies I’m Watching

 Wil Trent, Elsbeth, The Equalizer, The Irrational, Matlock, The Pitt, Papa’s House, Scamanda, Land Man, Save My Skin

Streaming & Subscription Thoughts

• Netflix price increases and managing streaming costs.
• Using JustWatch to track new episodes.
• The Wayans Family being inducted into the NAACP Hall of Fame (so exciting!).

🖊 Writing & Publishing Updates

• Grumpy Valentine is out now! It’s exclusive to my website, and I narrated my own audiobook for the first time.
• Sales breakdown and how my direct sales strategy is shaping up.
• Upcoming projects: Ruby’s Ten, Calculated Risk, Missing Persons, and Still I Rise.

🎙 Main Topic: Narrating My Own Audiobook

• Why I decided to self-narrate Grumpy Valentine and how I made it happen.
• The equipment I used, the learning curve, and the behind-the-scenes process.
• Thoughts on expanding my backlist into audio and what this could mean for my author business.

🔥 Final Thoughts
Narrating your own audiobook isn’t for everyone, but it’s something I’m excited to explore further. If you’ve ever thought about doing it, start small, be patient, and remember—it gets easier with practice.

Links & Resources

🔗 Grumpy Valentine (Ebook & Audiobook): booksbydlwhite.com/grumpyvalentine
🔗 My books: booksbydlwhite.com/shop
🔗 Pick up a few free or severely reduced priced books (including some of mine!) in these bookfunnel special events! 

• Celebrate Black History with stories from a variety of authors: https://books.bookfunnel.com/blackhistorymonth2025/mvxkx4mekl
•  Small town first in series contemporary romanc

Transcript

DL White [00:00:15]:
Well, hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Whatever time you have found this podcast, I hope that you are well as I am. Welcome to episode one twelve of the book cast. This is a space where I share short fiction. So I haven't shared much short fiction lately.

DL White [00:00:34]:
I'm a fix that. I'm a fix that soon. I also share updates on writing and publishing and basically my life as a self published author of romantic fiction that celebrates black love. I am your host. I'm DL White. I am an Atlanta based writer of novels, short stories, fan fiction, but above all, I'm a reader. I always say I'm a reader first. If I'm gonna do anything, I'm a read a book.

DL White [00:00:58]:
So that's why we start with the book report for that that that I'm not even cutting that out. That's why we start with the book report before we dive into writing, publishing, and topics of the day. Let's get our housekeeping out of the way. If you love this podcast, I mean, just love it to pieces and you want to show your support, for keeping it going. It's so, so easy. There's multiple ways to do that. Easiest is to follow me wherever I am. Just, just follow me, just get right behind me and just walk with me along this journey of life.

DL White [00:01:37]:
I am on, Instagram, Facebook as an account and as a page, and I am on blue sky, not so much TikTok anymore. I'm there, but mostly to watch cat videos and baby goats, you know, as you do. Not so much posting there anymore. In fact, my account there is private. Don't follow me there. I don't I don't be doing nothing on TikTok. And I am no longer on the website formerly known as Twitter. But everywhere else, you can find me.

DL White [00:02:09]:
Oh, I'm also not on threads. I was on threads for about three days, and I said, you know what? I don't wanna be on threads. And so now I'm not on threads. End of story. So follow me. That would be a great thing. You can also join the newsletter and you can throw some folding dollars, African American dollars, or whatever sort of dollars you may be offering into the plate, or you can buy and wear the merge. So many opportunities.

DL White [00:02:41]:
You can find links to everything you will need at booksbydlwhite.com/linkinbio. So you get a link to buy my books, to support the podcast, to buy merch, to read the blog, to find my Substacks, all the good stuff. If you can't find a link, then you should reach out to me in one of those places and say, hey, I can't find thing I want that I know you do. Where is it? And I will direct you because I am happy to do that. So last week was a really sportsy day in The US, and I did not watch a single second of the game or the halftime show. I almost never watched the Super Bowl. I think I've seen it maybe twice in my entire life. I don't even watch for the commercials.

DL White [00:03:31]:
I will I will see the commercials eventually on YouTube somewhere or because somebody will do a little roundup of the best commercials. I will see the halftime show ad nauseam at any given moment of the day. And so, no, I don't take time out to really watch it. I have been having a ball rolling through all of the reaction posts. People had such a great time. Kendrick Lamar is an entertainer. He he did his thing. People had a really great time.

DL White [00:04:06]:
It brought them joy in a really difficult season, and they want to keep that rolling. And I am all about that. It's so important to be able to laugh, to smile, to find joy in things. A friend of mine texted me earlier today to tell me she will be in Atlanta later, in the summer. And I texted her back, I have found a reason to live. And she was like, exactly. So, if you if you if you let them take your joy, they win. Right? Right.

DL White [00:04:37]:
So let's get this thing going. I have a few things I wanna chat about. We'll do our book report and the reading, writing, publishing update. I'll talk about grumpy Valentine because it's out now. I'm so excited about it, and I did something a little different with this release. So we'll talk about it. And, my topic of the day, I think, is going to be related to the different thing that I did with grumpy Valentine's. So let's roll.

DL White [00:05:05]:
Today is Sunday, 02/16/2025. It's 04:36PM. A little bit of a late start because we had a huge storm blow through here, Atlanta. It woke me up at 4AM, and I looked out the window, and I literally could not see outside. The wind was, like, furiously, furious. I thought I was in a tornado. I it was like it was loud. It sounded like a freight train.

DL White [00:05:28]:
I don't know. Maybe it was a tornado. I don't know. But, like severe, severe windstorm at the very least. And if you've read grumpy Valentine, I was like, no, I don't know if, like, this is a really severe storm. Like, I don't know if this is realistic for Atlanta. And now I feel like I made it come true. Editor Kai was like I said I posted on blue sky that I foretold the storm in my story.

DL White [00:05:55]:
She's like, you need to start writing beach scenes if they're gonna start coming true. Okay? I hear you. I hear you. Yes. So I, I have a totally late start today, but join me for a short beverage break. I'm going to, swallow the last bit of my coffee, and then we will get this podcast on the road. Alright friends, let's kick it. We begin as always with the book report because if I'm gonna do anything, what? I'm gonna read a book.

DL White [00:06:58]:
I have hit 36 of 100 or 36 books of my challenge to read 100 books in 2025. I'm 24 books ahead of my challenge. Can't stop. Won't stop. This is normal for me. At some point, I will hit a wall, and then I will have the leeway to take a week or so off of reading without falling behind. It's very, very normal. I got in four books this week.

DL White [00:07:25]:
Not Our Daughter by Chad Zunker. This book was like it was good, but it wasn't. Like, it moved really fast, which I appreciated. And it had me on the edge of my seat, which I appreciated, but there were, like, plot points that really ticked me off, like, really bad, like like, nonsensical type things. Like, these two people are running from the FBI. They have a child that is not theirs. You gotta figure out through the story how they got this child and why they're raising this child and why they're running from the FBI. People are dying and things are blowing up and cars are being stolen.

DL White [00:08:04]:
And, I mean, it's a lot so much is happening, but they they they wait so long to tell their daughter what's happening. And she's a teenager, and so she's upset and she's rebelling. And I'm gonna say she gets them into quite a bit of trouble. I was just like, what? I'm so frustrated. At one point, I almost put the book down, but I had an audio arc, and I was like, no. Gotta see it through my boy. So, saw it through. I think I gave it three stars.

DL White [00:08:38]:
I can't remember, but, that was a really, really frustrating read. On the other end of that spectrum is who's loving you by Lula White. This is her it's a it's book one of the Metamorphosis series. This is a really great, great novel. You have got to really just give it time to build and bloom and develop. It is a very it's a lush it is a sprawling novel set in New York in the seventies. She really does such a great job in in in, laying out the setting and really making the setting and the time period a character in the story. It's the the authentic restaurants like Sylvia's, a restaurant I have eaten at.

DL White [00:09:21]:
I have eaten at Sylvia's in Harlem. It is, the dawn of hip hop with, DJ Cool Herc and African Bambaataa and, so much happening in the scene at that time. It is the language. Like, I'm not quite sure they said copacetic as much in real life as they said it in this book, but, you know, it really grounds you in the time period. You know what I'm saying? Lula does such a great job as always, with her romance and the, like the dialogue and building the drama between these two families. And, it is actually just, I love when I read a story that's sort of out, it's sort of out of turn, like, Vanessa Riley writes black Regency romance. And, this book is about your your upper crust black families in, you know, like the I don't know. I I'm guessing Upper East Side New York and how scandalized they are about possibly having an event at a Harlem Black church.

DL White [00:10:28]:
And then that church being like, well, you people are snooty, and, you know, we're so thankful that you saw fit to, you know, come down from wherever you are to come to our little church down here and have your event. So it's a good read. It's a fun read. Snatch it up. Lulawhitebooks.com. Take your time with it. There's a lot of history in there. There's some I didn't really understand.

DL White [00:10:53]:
There's a connection between the two families that I'm not absolutely clear on, but, like, the effect on both families is obvious, so obvious. So I'm gonna need Lula to explain that to me like I'm five. I don't really get it, but looking forward to it. Then I read Kill Her by Chris Patchell. This is just the next installment in the detective Lacey James series. I started this, like, last month or whatever, blew through all the rest of the books in the series. Book seven is a brand new release. I wish I could've waited for audio, but I could not because it looked really good, and I wanted to read it.

DL White [00:11:29]:
So I finished that off actually earlier today while the power was out. My Kindle was a % charged, and I said, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna lay here in this bed, and I'm gonna read until the power comes on. So that is what I did. I got this book read, and I also listened to Justice for All by Chris Patchell. This was, like, a really short, like, two hour audiobook. It was okay. It was it was okay. But, I'm making my way through Chris's back list, and, that's just a thing I do.

DL White [00:11:58]:
This week, I have four books on my reading list. I have three that have been on my list all month because they are audio arcs, and I have some I really have to get to. Two, actually, that are arcs I really have to get to, this week or next, because they are coming up. You could do damage by Casey Mills, quiet wife by Diane Saxon. Both of those, I need to get it read probably this week, because I think they come up, here as savings and trust. Rise and betrayal by, Justine Hill Edwards. I need to get that read before the March 1 event with resist booksellers. I wanna be able to know what the author is talking about, and I'm really looking forward to that.

DL White [00:12:44]:
And then today, I picked up Junie by Aaron Crosby Eckstein Eckstein. I have heard about this book. I saw it, on Instagram, and someone said, this is really good. Is this really a debut? Because it's really, really good. And I was like, hey. If it's a really, really good book, I wanna be all about it. And so I'm I the power was still out, and I had audible credits. So I went ahead and snatched it up.

DL White [00:13:08]:
I am already 30% in. It's really good. It is a really good book. Now the thing is that not reading blurbs, kinda hits me in the behind, because there's a ghost in this book, and I don't do I don't do horror. I don't do speculative fiction. I don't do sci fi. I don't be doing ghosts. And so I'm I'm hoping that this book is not gonna, like, go all weird.

DL White [00:13:34]:
But so far, it's not it's not too bad. As far as my TV and movie list, have I opened my planner to check off any of the shows that I wrote out that I wanted to watch? No. Have I found a bunch of different things I need to watch, plus, like, all my regular shows? Of course, I have. So The Irrational, Wil Trent, Elsbeth, Matlock, The Pitt, those are my regulars. I'm caught up on all of those. Papa's House, I'm still holding out. I still I might wanna wait, like, one more week before I catch up with Papa's House. As I said last week, it's a thirty minute comedy.

DL White [00:14:18]:
It just goes way too fast, and then I have to wait so long for a new episode. I mean, it comes on every week, but so it I mean, a week without Damon Wayans senior and junior is a long time. I mean, I just I feel like they're family. I wish it was a Wayans. Also, on that note, did you see that the WANs the WANs are gonna be entered into the inducted into, I think, the NAACP hall of fame or something? They're gonna be inducted into something that they fully well deserve, and I'm very excited for them like I'm related to them. That's that's super cool. I'm really proud. Like, I know them.

DL White [00:14:56]:
I think we get a new episode of Equalizer tonight. I, I might look that up, super quick because it's my podcast. I'm gonna go over to JustWatch, which is my new app that I use to track the shows I'm watching, and it'll tell me if there's a new episode because I found myself, Googling when the next episode of something was gonna be on. And now I can just the app will tell me, hey. The new episode of Matlock is on. So I'm looking for The Equalizer. We're on season five. I don't know.

DL White [00:15:32]:
I can't really tell, but I heard that anyway, I heard the new episode airs tonight, February 16, I believe is a new episode of The Equalizer. So I'm very excited about that. It's supposed to send me an alert. It's sending me to Netflix. I don't wanna be on Netflix. Netflix is also increasing their prices, and I pay I pay for me and I pay for an extra login for my parents so that when they log in under my account, they don't get kicked out because we don't live in the same state. So that's how you work that. If you have to have somebody else on your account, you'd you have to pay for an additional login.

DL White [00:16:17]:
And so now, you know, we're heading to about $30 a month just for Netflix, plus I pay for Hulu, plus I have all these other streaming accounts. Some I pay for for me so I can watch, like, different things that are proprietary to a certain streamer. And then I give my mom access to everything I have because they're on a fixed income. So, you know, they hook it up in their Roku at their house. So they watch all the stuff I have access to. Like BritBox, I don't ever watch BritBox, but I have access to it for my mom, Acorn, etcetera. So I I just spend a lot on TV, but you know, it, it could be drugs is a thing I tell myself. It could be, it could be, it could be drugs.

DL White [00:17:03]:
So I think we get a new episode of equalizer. If not, I will look forward to seeing Queen Latifah's gorgeous face when I see it. I then started to watch, the first three episodes of Scamanda. Even though I listened to the podcast and I already know what happened, for some reason, all of the people faking cancer are finding me and seeing them get their just desserts, put it into my face. It's delicious, because that's cruel to bilk people out of money because people are so sympathetic to those who are fighting cancer. I know, my my roommate is a cancer survivor. My dad is a cancer survivor. I there's cancer riddled all up and through both sides of my family, as yours, I'm sure.

DL White [00:17:50]:
And so, yeah, let's get that let's get that out of here. And then, I watched the first episode of land man. I think it's on Paramount with Billy Bob Thornton. I'll tell you that man could not ever hide from me. I can always recognize his voice. Like, for the first ten minutes of the episode, his head is covered with, like, a a burlap sack. I knew it was Billy Bob Thornton because I I know that voice. I can always always recognize his voice.

DL White [00:18:20]:
So, might catch up on that. There's about eight episodes of season one. It looks pretty gritty. And, that's that's right up my alley. That's it's about the oil, I guess, about the oil business. So, kinda might dig into that. I watched a couple episodes of a show called save my skin on TLC. Now I can see me popping in and out of this show.

DL White [00:18:45]:
It was fascinating, but, a, there's a lot of commercials which are not my thing. I can't stand the commercials. That's why I don't like watching live TV. I will, on occasion, like, Will Trent night on Thursdays. With Tuesdays, I watch Will Trent live with the people on Blue Sky. But for the most part, I will just pick a night and catch up on all my shows. Typically, a Friday night, catch up on all my shows because I can fast forward through the commercials. It was pretty graphic, so I would not recommend, being anywhere near food while you're watching it.

DL White [00:19:19]:
But I was fascinated because, first of all, she seems so it's a it's, a dermatologist in The UK, and she takes some of, like, the really weird cases. Like, if you have a growth in your head, if you have a, like, a a keloid that's growing out of control, if there's one girl that, is recovering from topical steroid cream addiction, and her skin was just wigging out, It looked so painful and uncomfortable and the doctor, ended up treating her for it. And I like, she seems so concerned about people's health and wanting to help. That's a thing I'm totally into. I love a medical show. I actually love a medical show. That's why I'm so into the pit. And so I I might, like, dip in and out of that one if I can handle the commercials.

DL White [00:20:05]:
I can if I could get it without commercials, that would be my preference. Like, you can't even fast forward through them. It's t l c TLC on demand. So I gotta figure out how to how to get that show without the commercials. And then, like, if you like the pimple popper guy, which I don't, you might like this show, but a lot of it, I just I turn away. I just wanna see the end result. So, again, I'm using the JustWatch app to track all my new shows. This is not sponsored or anything.

DL White [00:20:32]:
I just really like new things. So, there's that. The sales writing and publishing update, super quick numbers. Again, I'll do February sales and earnings at the end of the month, particularly because I just dropped a new book, and so sales are gonna be kind of all over the place for a hot second. So I wanna get a chance to get over, like, the the big hump of the first week of sales, and we'll talk about that. But, grumpy Valentine, I keep saying grumpy sunshine, and that's the trope. Grumpy Valentine is out. It is done.

DL White [00:21:08]:
I ended up getting through chapters eight, nine, 10, and the epilogue, mostly because my boss was out of town. And, like, two days, I was like, I'm just gonna work from home because there's not much on my calendar, and I can bang out some chapters. And I've if I know where I'm going, I can do a quick sketch, just bang, bang, bang it out, and then I can give it a break, step away, go watch something, and then I can come back, and I know where to plug in. Plus, it's a a novella, so it's not like it's a full length novel and I have to layer in so much detail and backstory and, character development. It's just it's a quick shot a quick shot story. It ended up being under 40,000 words, which made me very happy. We have 10 chapters and an epilogue. I think it turned out really super fantastic, and there are intimate scenes in it.

DL White [00:21:57]:
There are three intimate scenes in a 40,000 word novel, which, you know, if you're writing sex, it can take up a lot of space. A book, it takes up a lot of word count. A lot of times, writers are writing a hundred thousand, a 19,000 word novels because their sex scenes are taking up an entire chapter. And I was looking at mine last night, and I think mine are maybe a page. And so I want I want the bulk of the book to be the story, and I want the sex to accent the relationship between my main characters. I don't want the story to be the sex, although I think it was good. So that's out this week. I moved to 780 units.

DL White [00:22:41]:
A large amount of those units is Leslie's curl and die. That is currently still free. I did a fussy librarian promotion to sort of move that. I've also been promoting it a lot. So a lot of those are, curl and dye, grabs from all over, from my website, from all the retail sites. It's free everywhere. So snatch it up if you have not read it. It is book one in the Potter Lake small town romance series.

DL White [00:23:12]:
19.3% of my revenue this week. My iPad thought I was talking to her. I am not. 19.3% of my revenue was Amazon, and a whopping 80.8% of my revenue this week was wide. So anything outside of Amazon, and a large part of that is book funnel, which is stuff that I sell from my website, ebook and audio delivered through book funnel. Total game changer. Love it a lot. Because I'm real I'm very happy with those numbers, and I should look and see where I'm at for the month since it's open.

DL White [00:23:51]:
For the month, I am at 77.2% wide and 22.8% Amazon. And I think that's awesome. I will do like a full a full breakdown at the end of the month, but I would say, honestly, the majority of what I'm moving right now are free books, which is why I so rarely set books free because it just seems like people just want the free book and then they move on. Do they shop? You know, what what is the read through rate? Is it too soon to see that? Like, I don't really I don't really know how to figure that. There is a way to look at sell through rate on here. I'm using scribe count, but it doesn't it doesn't really tell me anything. There's no data. I don't know.

DL White [00:24:42]:
I can't I can't figure it out. And it's not Anyway, I'm gonna figure out see if I can figure out if I'm really getting, sell through. But if I'm looking at what I'm selling, like, the top books this month are, of course, grumpy Valentine because that's new, beach thing, dinner at Sam's, brunch at Ruby's, never list. And then I have, multiple copies of my books from the Potter Lake series. So, home for the holidays, The Guy Next Door, Second Time Around, those are all those are all books in the Powder Lake series, so I may be getting a little bit of sell through. People are at least buying book two, which is second time around, and that's a holiday short. So 16 sales of that book in February is a lot 16 sales of Home for the Holidays in February, but only three sales of The Guy Next Door, which is book three in that series. So interesting puts and takes.

DL White [00:25:45]:
There's some stuff to dig into. I do like numbers. Currently, like I said, curl and die is free. I have a couple of book funnel events that are free or severely reduced priced books through the February. There's a small town heart promotion going, and there's a Black History Month promotion going. I will link to both of those in the show notes, and I also posted about both of those on my Substack as well as my Blue Sky. And, this will be in in the on my website under book cast. These links will also be in my show notes.

DL White [00:26:27]:
It'll be books by g l white Com / book cast / 1 1 two. So these links will be also on my website. Alright. Project updates. So Ruby's ten, I did absolutely nothing on this book this week. I do have the cover art, working. I do have a cover. I need to, this week, figure out how to do a hardback edition and try to get that going, figure out where I'm gonna print that.

DL White [00:26:55]:
I have to figure out how to do a, dust jacket. So, I love a project, so I'm gonna be working on that. This coming week, my boss is out of town, like, Wednesday through Friday, so I have a lot of downtime. In the February, my boss is actually out of the country, and so I will have some time on my hands. I don't wanna make it sound like I don't do anything when when my boss is out of town, but when she is in the office, she creates work. Like, there are set things that I do that I take care of, but it's not a concentrated forty hours of work. My my workday is often is often filled with things she produces for me to do, set this meeting, do this project, check this out, research this, look this up, take care of this, set this up. If she is not in the office, there's so much less of that that she's having me do.

DL White [00:27:52]:
And so there's so much work when she is in town or when we have these two to three day meetings that I no longer feel guilty on these times when I'm not doing a whole lot for a few days because I am working forty plus hours on a week when I have a big meeting coming up. So I will have some time to kinda dig into that process and figure that out. So before the February, I have to get that taken care of. Also before the February, I have to submit, calculated risk with completed edit completed edits and, completed, edits. I just got got a YouTube notification. I did turn my phone over because I'm I'm distracted. Cole and Charisma from roll with Cole YouTube channel, they moved. So I'm gonna figure out what that's about.

DL White [00:28:45]:
YouTube is also a thing I really get into. Wow. I'm rambling. So calculated risk is the next thing that's coming. Some time in the spring, it's gonna be a project through Prolific Works, which used to be called InstaFreebie. It's me and a whole bunch of other authors that will have books available. I'm totes excited. I have been waiting for this moment since last fall.

DL White [00:29:09]:
Let me tell you, here's a reason I could not ever be a trad author because I finished that book last year. And, it is not coming out until this year, and I don't like waiting. I like finishing a book and then publishing it a week later. So or as soon as I get it back from my editor. This whole waiting thing, I'm not made for it. Grumpy Valentine is out. It's out. It's out.

DL White [00:29:37]:
It's out. It's great. Really happy with it. I think it turned out super cute. It is exclusively available at my website store, booksbyd0y.com/grumpyvalentine. It is Valentine's Day set, but not too heavy, not too much on Valentine's day. There's a there's there's like a whole half of the book that happens after Valentine's day. It's, you know, a little bit of, you know, a little bit of, healing hearts and some cute funny things.

DL White [00:30:09]:
It's a grumpy sunshine trope. It's a workplace romance trope. I love, I love a great friendship. I write a couple of great friendships in this book. I love a great brother relationship. And so it's fun. It's $2.99 in ebook. Just grab it and, snatch it up, put it in your face, really enjoy it.

DL White [00:30:31]:
I also did something a little bit different with this book, which I'll talk about when we talk about the topic of the day, but I recorded my own audio for this title. And, so I'm excited to get to that. But first, music of my heart is the fan fiction story that I am working on that's really fun. I did get an email from the reader that reads me like, hey. Just, you know, looking for a chapter. And I said, yay. I finished my book, and it's out. And, so now I can concentrate on this story.

DL White [00:31:04]:
So I have a few weeks where I don't really have to write anything, and so I can get a little further. I do have another, update on that. And, this chapter is kind of juicy. It's a little it was a little bit juicy. So if you are at all interested in fan fiction, jump on it. It's, music of my heart. I'm updating it on my short fiction substack at shortfictionbyDLwhite.substack.com. If you are a member of the instant fiction archive, you can also find it there.

DL White [00:31:36]:
You can also read it if you're not a member. You just can't like comment or rate any stories there. But, it's there. I had it was fun. It's kind of short, like 2,700 words. Maybe that's short for me, A really juicy update. Like, not sex juicy, but, like, there's some tension in the house. So the story is that, my character gets a chance to go on a, a coveted retreat run by one JC Chasse, who is kind of a recluse.

DL White [00:32:05]:
Like, if you would know the lore about JC, he doesn't he leaves the house, but we joke that he doesn't leave the house. He's really very much a homebody. He is he likes being at home. He's at home, he's working on his, his plays and his music and he keeps to himself. And so the only way to really get in close to him is to like participate in a thing that he is running. And so in the story, he runs this music retreat and she's there with, like, four other songwriters. And, she got feedback from a record label that she was just good, not amazing. So she's at the retreat to become amazing, and she and JC, of course, find themselves attracted to each other.

DL White [00:32:49]:
She's the only she's closest in age to him, and so they have a bit of a kinship in being like a fully grown adult. She's done some singing, some backup work, and she's just kinda trying to break into being a lead and a solo artist. And, he's helping her. And this week, she got an opportunity, and now she gets to go be on TV. And the other writers are like, that's not fair. And, I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun writing that chapter. I do like writing conflict.

DL White [00:33:20]:
So Yammer Yammer Yammer. So that's updated. And then, I think, like, I'm already thinking about March, January, April, March, April, May, June. What am I doing next quarter? Because I'm really trying to keep it, like, keep things siloed to quarter. What am I doing next quarter? Probably working on missing persons. There there's a guy that I work with that used to be a homicide detective, used to be on the police force in, Michigan in Detroit, And, he has agreed to sit with me and kinda go over the story. And here's here's what makes sense. Here's what doesn't make sense.

DL White [00:34:00]:
And in his role at beverage giant, he works with private investigators. It's his job to find product that's outside of its territory and determine who is harmed by that and make sure that they are made whole. And, so he kind of is the lead of the investigators. Kind of a fun job, kind of a stressful job. But in that role, he would know, I guess, some methods. And so he's agreed to sit with me in the spring to sort of go through the manuscript and, like, tighten it up as far as police procedures and, when you're working with an attorney, because he does work with attorneys, like, what would be like, what would make sense in this situation? It doesn't have to be exact, like, some things I have to take liberty with just to make them more interesting to read, but, like, I don't wanna be all the way wrong. Like, when when I write the nursing profession, I gotta have my nurses read it and be like, am I all the way wrong about this? When I write the law profession, I had an attorney read it, and she was like, oh, girl. No.

DL White [00:35:07]:
It it's not like that at all. So she's like, watch so much less law and order. That's not how it happens. So, yes, so I'm excited about missing persons, and I want to have that out in the summer, like, maybe before Labor Day, way before Labor Day, probably, like, August, I'm thinking. And I want to dig into still I rise, which I hope to have out in the fall, like, possibly October, November ish. That would be fine. And I also need to get going on the Berkeley sisters trilogy. I have a prequel that I want to drop, at the end of the year instead of doing a maybe, work my holiday short work the prequel into a little holiday short to introduce the series.

DL White [00:35:54]:
But I like, I have it planned out, but I haven't re I haven't really started writing it. I haven't finished the prequel. I have, like, three three two ish chapters of the prequel and, like, three chapters of book one. I haven't really planned out the other books. And then I have a, follow-up book that I wanted to, like, throw in there, like, an epilogue, extended epilogue. So it's all happening in my head. It's been in my head for years, and I'm it's time to get it out. It's time to get it out of my head.

DL White [00:36:25]:
And, this is all gonna keep me super, super busy. The other thing that's gonna keep me busy moving into my main topic is self narration of audiobooks. So after releasing Grumpy Valentine, we're working on Grumpy Valentine. I'm driving to work, and I was listening to an audiobook. And I was like, it's only it's 10 chapters in an epilogue. It's less than 40,000 words. What if I figured out how to record this book as an audiobook. And, I had a super slow day at work, and so I got on YouTube.

DL White [00:37:01]:
And I'm in a Facebook group that discusses authors narrating their own books. It just looked like such a production, and I didn't I don't have money to, like, build a studio, and I I'm not gonna get in my closet with my laptop and a microphone. There's no room in there. And so I was like, I don't, like, I don't at this point, I don't know if I can do that. And I said, you know what? I'm just gonna do the best I can with what I got, you know, and just record it. It'll I'll just keep it super cheap and be like, this isn't professional narration. This is just me doing a thing because I just I wanna have this available in another format, and I think audio would be fun. Like, audio is booming, but I don't have $5,000 for Wesley Choballen to read this.

DL White [00:37:46]:
So way, way back in the day when I first started this podcast, I say in my intro, this is my platform for sharing short fiction and updates because I was stealing an idea from, I think, Sylvia Hubbard, from Christina c Jones. And there was a point where we were reading our books for an audio audience, and I had time and I had a microphone. And so that is why I initially started the that was was the initial, thing for me to even have a podcast. I wasn't even talking about writing books. I wasn't talking about publishing. I didn't start even really talking about publishing until, like, 2023. That's when I revamped this into an actual podcast to talk about author life. So, when I started this podcast, it was me, Zencastr, and a microphone.

DL White [00:38:43]:
And I was reading, my shorts for the podcast in preparation for reading the Never List for the podcast. So if you had any interest in listening to a super amateur reading of the Never List, it is available on the book cast. I don't know what number it is, but it's it's there. You can listen to the entire book. I did it, like, the chunk of three chapters at a time. And so I started reading the shorts. I had three at the time in preparation for reading the podcast and, reading the book on the podcast. I released that book in September of twenty twenty, and I finished reading the book for the podcast in, like, October of twenty twenty.

DL White [00:39:28]:
So, that was fun, but it was a lot of work. And I said I would never do that again, unless I was being paid for it. And so bringing it back around five years later, like, I'll do it, but I can't do, you know, a 30 chapter book in two weeks like I was doing before. And I'm also not doing it for free. And so I decided after writing grumpy Valentine and getting it to a point where I felt like I could record it on Wednesday morning. I was like, I'm I'm just gonna do this. And so I actually took off early that day because my boss is out of town. I could leave we let me be clear.

DL White [00:40:08]:
I can leave anytime I please. She's not a clock watcher. I'd be like, at 02:00, I'm done. I'm going home. Ping me if you need me. Alright, Dom. See you tomorrow. So I but she wasn't there, and I was like, I'm not sitting here till 05:00.

DL White [00:40:22]:
I'm going home because I can do things. So on Wednesday, I left early. I was back at my desk by 03:00, plugged in my microphone. I'm watching my work phone for anything that's rolling in. It's a super quiet day. And then I decided on Thursday, I'm just gonna work from home because I don't have anything I need to be in the office for, and I'm just gonna bang this out. So Wednesday, I I opened up the document and I figured out what I was gonna record, my intro. Hey.

DL White [00:40:51]:
This is a book. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, so I know, you know, right after this is audible, what you're supposed to hear. And then I read the blurb and then the author's note, and then I did a little narrator note like, hey. This is new for me. I am not a professional. That's why this is gonna be super cheap. And so this is what you're getting because this is a new thing that I wanna do. And I just plugged in the mic chapter one, Sterling, go.

DL White [00:41:18]:
Chapter two, Opal, go. And, so I have had people, I guess, try to give me advice and ask about the process. So today, I wanna pull back the curtain a little bit on what it's like to narrate your own work. What's the process? Why would you do that? First of all, you would do that because it's way less expensive, especially if you already have a microphone and you know how to use Audacity and, other programs and how to how to configure the settings to make it pass an ACX check. An ACX is gonna be your most stringent. And so so let's talk about how I did that. So I wanted to have really control over character voices, over the story interpretation, and how much it would cost to actually record it, talking about, the cost comparison. You know, a cheap audiobook is about $3, 30 5 hundred.

DL White [00:42:19]:
If you're trying to I've never even reached out to them, but if you are trying to book, Jacoby Diem, Sean Christen, Wesley Choban, a general a Ojo, Robin Miles. You're talking dollars. 5 grand. The floor is probably $5. Again, I've never reached out to them. They could be super much much less costly than that, but that's my estimation because I had I had, a relatively inexpensive narrator, and it cost me almost $4,000 to record Leslie's curl and die. So just saying, a DIY investment. I already have a mic.

DL White [00:42:58]:
I already have Audacity. I already have a computer. I kind of already have what I need, except I mean, I don't have a studio, so I just do the best I can with what I got. Time commitment, I did 10 chapters plus an epilogue. So 11 chapters. But, I mean, I can just say 11 chapters because the epilogue was short. It was just a couple of pages from about 04:00 when I got home until about 10:00 that night. And I would record and then do my editing and then do my balancing with the ACX check has to pass, like, all three checkpoints.

DL White [00:43:37]:
And then I would export it, save it, do the next chapter, export it, save it, do the next chapter. I did that chapter by chapter, because I knew I was not going to feel like doing 11 chapters all at once. So I just did it while it was open. And then I got up the next morning at 05:30 and recorded, eight, nine, ten, and the epilogue doing the same thing for about four hours. And so I got through all those in about four hours, and then I sent them all all of the audio through a chapter by chapter from the intro to the outro through a program called Auphonic, a u p h o n I c, which will balance out the it'll boost the voice. It will cut out mouth sounds. It will balance out your, your, noise floor, like the quiet sounds. Your microphone will pick up a lot of stuff.

DL White [00:44:41]:
Like, something going on outside, your microphone will pick up on that. And so it will balance, all that out. There's also some settings in Audacity that you can you can apply that will strip some of that out. And, so I sent every chapter through Ophonic. That is not a free program, but it's so, so, so, so valuable. And then once I got those done, I sent them back through Audacity because I had to base the, like, the megahertz or something like that because BookFunnel requires the chapters to be at a certain bit rate speed, some I don't know. Technology. You know what I'm saying? But I sent them back through ACX to just boost that, and then I was able to just upload them to BookFunnel, and then I did a really, cursory review of the chapters.

DL White [00:45:32]:
It ended up being about three hours in length. And, I went I just did a quick listen through each chapter. I had two chapters I had to edit and reupload because I had my, I have a little, indicator when I have made a mistake. It's like a little tick, like a when I make that sound that tells me that there's something there I need to fix when I go back to edit it. So I just look for the spike in volume, and that's when I know. And I have a couple that I've missed, because I didn't indicate myself, and so I heard them when I went back to listen to it. So I had two chapters I had to reupload, compile everything, send it through to BookFunnel, then BookFunnel sends you an email that says, hey. Your audiobook is ready.

DL White [00:46:17]:
I did my own cover for grumpy Valentine, and, so I just had to resize that for audio. I had, you know, my blurb already, because it was already set up in BookFunnel to deliver ebook because it it's already set up in PayHook PayHip so I could sell books direct. There's, like, a little webhook that will grab a sale from Payhip and send it to BookFunnel. And when that person buys that book, BookFunnel sends them the book. It works the same way with Audiobook. Isn't technology neat? So ebook and audio, I deliver through BookFunnel, and I do that because it's easier than trying to teach people how to side load, ebooks. It will then you can send it to your your Apple ebook reading program. You can send it to Google books.

DL White [00:47:13]:
You can send it to your Kindle, or you can, you know, just read it, I guess, on your device. However it will open, you can read it. And so, BookFunnel was invented to make it easier for authors to send their books out to their readers. You can handle your arcs through, BookFunnel. You can handle, you know, all kinds of stuff. I could do giveaways through BookFunnel. If people want a, you know, a gift copy, I just send I just generate it and send them a link, and they pick it up, and then they can send it to themselves to read or listen through some other device, what have you. So so then once it was ready, I just, you know, went through my ebook, make sure everything is all set up, went to my website, make sure everything's set up, went to Payhip, make sure everything's set up.

DL White [00:48:07]:
So once I had my links, I was ready to take those links and put them in my newsletter, which I had already written. I was just waiting on the links and then schedule that to go out at midnight because then I would have the ebook and the audio simultaneously ready to go at midnight, which is hard for authors to do. It's hard to have a simultaneous, ebook print audio release. I probably could have done a print release, but I did not want to upload that book to Draft2Digital. I wanted this book to be exclusive to my website, and I don't have any way of creating a a print book outside of Amazon or a Draft2Digital. So I kinda I skipped the print. It's a short. It's probably not gonna be in print.

DL White [00:48:56]:
I'm like, I might put it in, like, a little anthology of my holiday shorts. But as of now, I don't plan on putting that book in print. I might have to do one for my mother, but if I do one for my mom, I'll do one for me. But I generally don't have my shorts in in print. That's a lie. All my shorts are actually in print. I just don't. I just I just don't have them around.

DL White [00:49:23]:
So maybe, maybe. Anyway, so equipment is basically your microphone Audacity. I have a USB microphone that I use for this podcast. I just used the same microphone. There's a windscreen on it, and then I use Audacity. And, it and a couple of websites like YouTube. There's a Facebook group for authors that narrate their own books. They will tell you where your levels need to be set in order for it to pass a check with ACX, which is Audiobook Creation Exchange, which is how indie authors submit their books to Amazon, for Audible.

DL White [00:50:06]:
A lot of people just start there and then just take those files and distribute them everywhere. I just have my books in Audacity. Boom. Boom. Boom. The files with the ACX check, it'll tell you what needs to be it'll tell you what needs to be changed so that it will pass. Once it's passed, like I said, then I send it over to book funnel. I don't have a private studio.

DL White [00:50:28]:
I don't have a booth. I don't have anything that was recommended in that authors who narrate their own books channel. But if you got a copy of that audiobook, and aside from my voice and how amateur I sound, if it sounded good to you, like, I kinda wanna see if it passes an ACX check because if it does, if it genuinely does pass an ACX check, it passed it, passed a book funnel. And if it does, we might be cooking with gas people. We might be cooking with gas because I kind of want to go back and record my shorts in audio. I mean, I have read them for the book cast, so you can get them for free if you read them if you listen to them on the book cast, but then you have to listen to, like, the whole book cast episode before I get to the part of the book, especially with Neverlist. You have to listen to, like, actual book cast episodes, which is fine. Or I could record my shorts.

DL White [00:51:34]:
I could rerecord the Neverlist in audio. And then I have this glut of books that don't have audiobooks on them that I could actually be able to offer audio. So I know, Katie Cross, who's kind of my self not self published, but, like, direct selling guru. If Katie Cross is on a podcast, I am listening to it. She's starting to record all of her books herself, like, not even hiring a narrator just because her readers actually prefer her to read them. And I know, like, I would listen to Terry McMillan books, and she usually voices her own books. And I'd be like, why doesn't Terry hire a narrator? There's something about doing it yourself or something about hearing yourself say the words you wrote. Like I just, I like, while I was doing it, I was like tired and mad at myself because my tongue was getting tired and it's a lot.

DL White [00:52:34]:
Like, reading aloud is it seems like it should be easy, but it's it's a lot of work. So, I'm actually thinking about, you know, something that could keep me busy throughout the rest of this year is working through my backlist and getting my books recorded by me and, and processed for audio. Not even to really have on the platforms. It would be neat if it would pass. But I am not really here for people writing reviews, talking about my voice or the low quality, anything like that. Like, if I offer it just on my website, it'd be like, you get what you get. This is just what I do. So my books are in audio for people that want to listen to them.

DL White [00:53:30]:
Like, I don't know that I want to sell them on the retail websites, at least not until I feel like I'm much better at voice acting. I feel like I did a much better job with grumpy Valentine than I did with Neverlist. That was like my first full length. So, you know, it this is a just a thing where you don't know how well you're gonna do at something until you do it, and you don't improve at something unless you do it and do it and do it and do it. And I won't get better at this until I do it and do it and do it and do it. And so it's also a thing that could just keep me from concentrating on all the stuff going on because I have to be busy. I need something that's gonna keep me busy. And I feel like that's a thing that could, that could keep me busy.

DL White [00:54:17]:
So, that's sort of what I've got going on. If you have any questions, I'm not so much. I'm I'm serious. I'm gonna be serious here. I'm not looking for notes because I have listened to these recordings multiple times. I know what's working. I know where I flubbed. I know where it sounds like I'm just reading it.

DL White [00:54:42]:
I already know I'm not looking for notes, but if you did enjoy it and you want to encourage me, I'll take your comments and your praise. I'm just, just being honest. So in a couple of weeks, I'll, when I am ready to do another one, maybe I'll think about what worked well, what didn't work well. I think, late nights work better for me than early mornings because my voice is not quite awake yet, in the morning. I have to wait until I'm up for an hour, and, you know, all that kind of thing. And so I I probably wanna follow some narrators and get their tips and tricks. But, also, I don't wanna get too technical about it because then that takes, like, all the fun out of it. I'm not trying to upload these for retail, but I do want them to sound good.

DL White [00:55:29]:
I want them to sound like an audiobook. And so I think Grumpy Valentine turned out really well for the level I'm at. I'm not trying to I'm not I'm not trying to charge $12.99. I think $5 is probably the most I'm gonna be charging for audio, but then you would have these books and audio, and that's a whole other revenue stream that I can offer offer for readers, especially for people who are heavy in audio, and they would just get it and have, you know, have their device read it to them. Anyway, I'm so used to the electronic voice. I sometimes prefer it because it doesn't give inflection. It doesn't, like, it doesn't lead me through the story by modulating the emotion through the voice. Like, I sometimes don't really need voice acting.

DL White [00:56:15]:
I just need the words. And so, so there we go. So narrating your audio your own audiobook isn't for everyone, for sure. But it I think it's gonna become an important part of my author toolkit, a whole other other revenue stream, something that will keep me, occupied, a number of projects that I could have going, always something I could be doing. So we'll see. If you are considering it, start small. Be super patient with yourself because it can be very frustrating when your tongue will not say the words it needs to say. And just remember that you like your writing.

DL White [00:56:55]:
It's a skill that improves with practice. Mhmm. So, friends, I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. And I've been talking for an hour. So we have reached a point in our chat where I'm gonna let you go. But before I do, I will remind you that everything I talked about today, including links, resources, a full transcript will be waiting for you at booksbydlwhite.com/bookcast/11two. I also will upload this episode to my Substack.

DL White [00:57:30]:
It's author d l white dot substack dot com. Again, you can find everything you ever needed from me on my links page, booksbydlwhite.com/linkin bio. If you are enjoying these weekly chats about books and publishing and Goodreads and what I'm watching and what I'm doing and stuff going on in my neighborhood, and my device is talking to me when I am not talking to them. The best compliment you can give me is to share this show with other readers and writers, especially if you're on listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or if you are listening on Substack. I covet your good comments, your good remarks, and your ratings. Ratings on Apple Podcasts and Spotify really do make a difference in helping people find me. So if you wanna support the show, so many ways to do that. Again, you browse my books at booksbydy.com/shop.

DL White [00:58:27]:
You can hit merch and books on that link. Join my community through my newsletter at booksbydlwhite.com/newsletter or either of my Substacks. Treat me to a virtual coffee at buymeacoffee.com/booksbydlwhite. You can support this show directly with your coins at bookcast.buzzsprout.com. I do wanna thank my monthly supporters over there at, bookcast.buzzsprout.com. You are the reason I can keep this show going every week. You cover my subscription, and I'm ever, ever so grateful. Thank you so much for really being in the show, for standing behind me, and pushing me forward.

DL White [00:59:09]:
The Bookcast is written, produced, and edited by me, D. L. White, with music and sound effects from Pixabay. So next week, I'll be back with my usual updates on reading, writing, publishing, interesting ways to, occupy your time, so that you are not scrolling. I encourage you to join me in watching all these shows I'm watching. If you got a really, really, really good show you think I would love, hit me up on all the social media sites. Again, that's, Blue Sky, Instagram, Facebook account, Facebook page. I'm not on TikTok, and I turned off the ability to message me there.

DL White [00:59:48]:
Don't message me there, and I'm also not on threads. But hit me up. You can also shoot me an email as authordl@booksbydlwhite.com. I will do my best to answer you. Have a great day. Have a superlative week. We will talk again next week. Bye bye.