 Jason Wheeler controlling the process |  Tom Gauthier Narrating Audio Book We are in the middle of producing our second audio book—“we” being my audio producer, Jason Wheeler, and me, the author/narrator. While the experience of making an audio book is new ground to plow for me, I’m drawing on years of public speaking, occasional radio and television appearances, stage work, and my nearly three years as a blog-talk-radio co-host. But doing the book raised the bar to meet the technical requirements for a commercially produced quality product that are well above my pay grade. I rely completely on my friend and venture partner, Jason Wheeler, to keep me legal and viable as a “performer.” Doing my own narration was encouraged by our production/marketing “big brother,” ACX Productions—an Amazon Company. They told us that author/narrator is sought after by buyers of audio books. Okay, if Bill O’Reilly can pull it off, why not me? Well, for one reason, my voice. Too many years of using it hard, and the impact of the last five years of “extreme medications” (which successfully worked to beat back a nasty disease!) has left me with a gravely, gritty, voice—recognizable on air for all the wrong reasons. But there is a good side for me—when I was asked to co-host Military Author Radio (after being a guest) I said that nobody would want to listen to this voice. To my surprise, the opposite proved true and folks called it unique, easy to listen to, and authentic. The latter adjective gave me the confidence to proceed with the audio book narration gig. Feedback on our first book, MEAD’S TREK, supported the proposition when folks called the voice just right for telling a soldier’s story. So, I’m guessing narrating a romance novel is not in my future. Our audio books, MEAD’S TREK, and soon-to-be-there, Code Name: ORION’S EYE are available on Amazon.com, Audible.com and iTunes.com. (Check out the sample recording on this site—home page.) For you authors out there who are encouraged to give it a try with your books, check out the tutorials on ACX.com—they’re informative and very helpful to clear up a lot of the fuzzy stuff for you. Give me a shout back on this blog about your experiences with audio books. |
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Finally, after way too many months, AMOS MEAD and his brilliant bride Dr. BRIGIT O’HARE MEAD, are getting back in the game. The new novel, FORCE THREE RISES, takes them on a twisting path of intrigue from Washington, DC to Moscow, and from China to war-torn Korea in search of their missing CIA friend—and a stolen atomic bomb. That’s right—and atomic bomb! The story around the bomb is historical fact—and very scary.
It’ll be a few more weeks until FORCE THREE RISES hits Amazon and Kindle—and you won’t want to miss it when it does. Here are a few excerpts for you: The moonlight failed to penetrate the deeper woods as Harmon Wetmore groped his way through the trees, oak branches clawing at his flight suit, moving away from the direction of the noise of the excited Chinese. A deadfall grabbed his foot and sent him headlong into the tangle of dense undergrowth. In seeming slow motion he scrambled back to a low crouching run, suddenly breaking into the silvery light, stepping into a small rushing stream. He stopped, dropped to a knee and peered up and down the streambed’s opening to the sky. Leaning back into the underbrush, he listened. Nothing. Nothing but the usual night sounds of the woods—the sharp chic-chic of reed-warblers and the scurry of rodents sounding far too loud to his adrenaline pumped ears. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lying there in the night-cooling earth Wetmore let the adrenalin drain out of his aching body, his breathing slowing, the realization of his utter exhaustion coming fully aware. Still prone he crossed his arms under his face and let his eyes close, his body relax. In an instant he tensed from … and just as he became aware of a slight sound nearby he felt the cold, hard barrel of a gun rest against his neck. Wetmore felt himself go numb at the realization of what was about to happen. A rough whisper delivered through clenched teeth accompanied the cold shock of the deadly gun barrel, “Dobryĭ vecher, gospodin amerikanskiĭ. Dobro pozhalovatʹ v Manʹchzhurii (Good evening, American. Welcome to Manchuria).” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Director moved behind Brigit. “Okay, make your call much like you used to do at Pearl. Pearl Harbor is already monitoring the channels we are using into mainland China.” Brigit nodded and turned her head to smile at Amos Mead. “Your show, Brigit,” the Director said as he stepped back and took a seat nearby. Dr. Brigit Mead took a deep breath and keyed her microphone as memories flooded back to 1944 and a similarly hard chair in an office in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. She remembered that Yang Kuisong’s code name was shandian yun—lightning cloud. “Calling shandian yun, calling shandian yun. This is Glinda, repeat, Glinda, in the clear. Over.” Brigit looked down at the ledge in front of her, intent on the tiny sounds coming from the headset. Once more she broadcasted, “Shandian yun, this is Glinda calling in the clear.” The crackling static in her ears increased, then a voice, “Glinda, this is Pearl Harbor. We have a reply and are translating for you--Shandian yun requests that you provide the countersign confirmation code. But he asked that it not be the last one you used, but the one from the first contact you made with him at the beginning of Operation Ichigo. Over.” “Roger your request, Pearl Harbor,” Brigit replied. She sat back in her chair staring at the Navy gray ceiling … thinking. Quickly she straightened up and leaned into her microphone, “Glinda calling shandian yun. Countersign Gung Ho. Repeat, countersign is Gung Ho. Over.” After an interminable moment Brigit heard her reply—not from Pearl Harbor, but in broken, but understandable English, “Glinda, this is shandian yun. I verify Gung Ho. It has been a long time, my friend, and many changes in circumstance, as I’m sure you know. Over.” “Indeed it has, my friend. I’m glad we are able to make this contact and I know how much risk you may be taking to talk with me. Over.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The truck looked right, the uniforms were right, and the subdued lighting at this point in the fence drew no notice as the man in the back of the rig jumped out and approached the gate. He quickly cut the chain free and swung open the gate, returning to his place in the truck. The leader turned and peered back into the bed of the truck and whispered, “Is all in order? Everything ready?” His partner, sitting among an array of explosive ordinance he had prepared answered in the positive. The truck pulled onto the edge of the tarmac and proceeded around the perimeter fence until it was even with the soaring tail of their target. Then it turned and with increasing speed drove directly toward the nearest American B-52 bomber. The man in the rear opened the canvas flap he had rigged that would allow him to do his work. The giant bomber was bathed in the brightness of the mechanics’ work lights so the truck seemed to loom from the darkness. At first no notice was taken of the truck, then as it continued to approach at an unsafe speed for on-field vehicles airmen began to watch, and then draw away from its seeming aim point. The truck swerved beneath the tail of the behemoth aircraft, the driver marveling at the actual size of the plane. Forty-three feet above them the tail soared skyward. As the truck reached the tail and lined up with the aircraft the first explosive charge was thrown from the back of the truck. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FORCE THREE RISES is the fourth book in the AMOS MEAD Adventure series. It continues the escapades of the Mead’s from: Code Name: ORION’S EYE MEAD’S TREK DIE LISTE: Revenge on the Black Sun. That’s it for now …. A lot more coming! My blog today is not mine at all—but a passing on of what I see as a great, and simple to do, idea for authors who are working hard to improve their product. The following is from Vikram Narayan, the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies, and one who surely knows this part of our “business.”
Narayan advises, “rather than put your book out there and see what the market thinks, you test to see the market reaction at a much lower cost.” Here’s how: Find three people who you think constitute your target readers. These three people could be your friends, family members or just acquaintances. Give them only the first thirty pages (or first 10%) of your book to read. Wait for about a week. Do any of these three people get back to you and ask for the rest of the book? Dig deeper to find out if they don’t ask for the next chapters. Your goal is to have all three readers ask for the full book. A poor response means that either you’re getting the target audience wrong or that you need to rework your book. Figure out which may be the case for your particular book. Then repeat the test with three new readers. Keep iterating with sets of new readers until all three of your readers ask for the full book. The main goal behind this kind of reader testing is to ensure that the opening of your book (where most read / abandon decisions are made) is up to par. But why should you enlist only three readers? It’s much less daunting to find three readers than to find ten readers. The quality of actionable information that you get from three readers is not going to increase exponentially if you increase the number of readers to five or ten. You are more likely to do multiple rounds of reader testing if you need to keep finding only three readers at a time. And it is better to stay focused on the biggest problems with your writing or your reader targeting than to focus on the trivial issues. Of course, this concept can be extended to the whole book and you can simply hand out only one chapter at a time to your test readers. But in that case you’d probably be better off just hiring an editor or enlisting the help of beta readers. As an author, you don’t know if your book is ready for prime time which is what a listing on Amazon means. And you don’t want to treat your paying readers as beta testers. The consequences could be the loss of reputation, poor Amazon reviews and lost sales for your future books. By doing reader testing you will improve your chances of putting up the right book to the right target audience with the right opening. Great idea. Thanks Vikram. I am working this afternoon to follow his advice with my completed (if ever they are) manuscript for FORCE THREE RISES. I’ve got three readers in mind for the test. But if anyone reading this would like to be part of another group of three, contact me from the contact info on the website. Have a great week! Everybody likes free stuff! The 8 1/2 hour audio book edition of MEAD'S TREK is available free if you go to Audible .com and sign up for a TRIAL subscription. So if you've got a long commute--or a long road trip coming up--let my dulcet tones and a really good yarn accompany you--for free!
I’ve just begun a project that breaks with all the books I‘ve written so far. REALLY breaks, as it is aimed at YA—or those who have found it impossible to grow past YA. It is a shot at answering their questions about why do I feel this way? What’s the use? And the like. This blog is a brain-dump of some of what is buzzing around in my old head.
So tell me, what in your life makes you feel angry? An editor’s rejection? A teacher yelling at you? Your parents ridiculing the stupid stunt you pulled? What is it that pisses you off? Let’s get right to the point I want you to consider: That teacher, the editor, your parents—or your wife or neighbor or the “stupid” clerk at the store—did not, in no way, make you angry. Are you nodding “yes,” or thinking, “They sure as h—l DID tick me off.” Settle down and let me explain. I just gave you a list of “events”—rejection, yelling, ridiculing, etc. What you added was your belief about those events. “He shouldn’t have rejected my best writing! She shouldn’t have yelled at me! They have no right to ridicule me! That clerk is stupid! So when we add the event to your belief about the event we get your feeling of anger, frustration and embarrassment. And of course how we feel drives how we behave. And behavior gets you in more trouble—or gets you on the right to feeling better—your choice. How much control do you have over the events that “make you mad?” Not much if any. Can you see now that if we have no control over events, and events cause our feelings—we’d be stuck. We would have no choice about how we feel. And we’d be correct in saying, “He made me feel bad … or mad.” But that’s not the way it is—we do have a choice of how we will feel. Thus, how we will behave. So we touched cause and effect for feelings. Specifically, what we believe affects how we feel and behave. So where do those beliefs come from? When we were kids we did things that parents, teachers, and friends both liked and disliked. What would that list look like? Cussed, lied, played hooky, got dirty, didn’t listen, daydreamed—or obeyed elders, stayed clean, got good grades, was polite, paid attention, and smiled a lot. Now that we know how we bugged or pleased our parents, teachers and friends, let’s ask another question: “What names were we called as a kid? I’ll go with the bad ones: liar, lazy, stupid, or dumb. And better: good girl, neat, proper, fun. Looking at what we did, then at what we were called, can we draw a couple of assumptions, even conclusions about ourselves? We are what we do. We are what others think of us. Come on now—intellectually most of you can agree that we are not what we do, or what others think of us—but the fact is almost everyone behaves as if it were true. Here’s a tough little exercise. Write a list of things that answers, “Why do you like yourself?” Got a few … okay. I’ll bet that most of what we listed reflects the same way we were “rated” as kids. Look closer: The moment you wrote a reason for liking yourself as “I like myself because …” you began to rate yourself much like you were rated as a child. You make your self-acceptance contingent upon something. There are only three ways we can feel about anything: good, bad, or indifferent. If you’re beginning to see that if we feel bad, or good, it is because we believe that whatever happened triggered our belief about what should have happened. Keeping it super simple, let’s look at a few of the most common beliefs people hold:
Try this: Did your coach ever tell you, “It’s okay to lose this game … you tried.” Or did your teacher say, “It’s okay to flunk this test. After all it is hard.” Did your mother say, “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll take care of you.” My point is that you can alter those beliefs and thus alter how you feel about them. As a speaker I told myself, “Only about 80% of the folks in the audience are going to like my presentation.” With that self-talk I did not feel bad when 100% of the folks failed to cheer. I know I’ve been rambling, and that there is still a lot to tie together with these thoughts. But if you’ve only begun to see how you can regain comfort and peace in your life, a stronger sense of control of your life, by giving serious though to what you believe—and making some constructive changes to those beliefs—then we’re on a positive path together. Guest: Louise Esola, Author
American Boys: The True Story of the Lost 74 of the Vietnam War paste the link below into your browser http://www.blogtalkradio.com/patriot-media-broadcasting/2014/06/18/military-author-radio This is the file to listen to my interview of Louise Estola about her incredibly moving book about the sailors who died in the Vietnam conflict--and are still not on the "WALL." Am working on some new book projects.
Besides two new AMOS MEAD ADVENTURE novels that continue the misadventures of Amos and Brigit Mead and Harmon Wetmore, I’m working on a unit history from WWII of the 1st Fighter Control Squadron. This specialized unit was a central figure in my first Amos Mead novel, Code Name: ORION’S EYE. Now I can tell their actual story of combat and lifesaving services in the New Guinea Campaigns. Two other projects are a different bend for me: 1) A book aimed at teens and young adults that is a guide to discovering what may be driving any uneasiness, sadness, or impatience with life they are struggling with—working title: HELLO ME, Nice To Know You. 1) And the second, working title: The Sound of Children Sleeping, is a tale of Civil War soldier who experienced battle in the killing formations of inept generals and decided there must be a better way to fight, win—and survive. He ends up in a situation of defending his own home using tactics and materials he’s created for a small band of friends. So that’s what is going on in my little head! Stay Tuned. Once again I will fall back on my “psych hat” to address something that seems to inflict a lot of first-time writers—and even a few pros along the way. A feeling of vulnerability.
Let’s start with a very basic concept: if you’re not sold on yourself, nobody else will be either. So the first chore to attack a sense of vulnerability is to sell yourself—on yourself, to be motivated have confidence, or whatever else you choose to call it. In an earlier blog I spoke of things being simple—but not easy. This is a good example. Simple to understand, not at all easy to do. Now we will dive into it and see if anything might make it a bit easier—or at least not as scary. Professionally I have been a student of social cognitive theory. What? Simply put—the study of people’s behavior during interactions with other people. Especially looking at people who have succeeded, demonstrated self-confidence, self-motivation, and admit to feeling a sense of fulfillment with their lives. A note of caution here: While these attributes are what we’d love to have, they are not “attainable” per se—that is they are targets that we are moving toward, hitting or missing, but always keeping in sight. One does not get there and stop. Many of us—both writers and saner folks—tend to approach life from a position of insecurity. I’ve seen this often rooted in a fear of rejection. Sadly this creates a reluctance to act because we have this fear that we will fail, we will be rejected—or (quite often with youngsters) that other people won’t like us. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we believe these fears that lurk in the back of our mind, we feel vulnerable—and we freeze up and don’t do what we want to do. Like write that book. A very long time ago I began to learn another belief. When I make a mistake (rarely to be sure), fail at something, or get a dose of disapproval for what I did—I believe myself to be INVULNERABLE. Poppycock? (Your word for the day). Not poppycock—what I believe is that my value as a person cannot be affected one way or the other by what I do or by what others say or do. With this belief it is much easier to survive the fall, get yourself up and dusted off, and move on toward your next great dream. You see, your sense of being vulnerable, of fearing rejection and embarrassment, are coming from YOU. Ergo, they are under YOUR CONTROL. Remember your first book signing event, or your first cocktail party with strangers present, or a similar event that you’re thinking about now? Did you have a flash of: “What will they think of me?” “What should I talk about?” “Will they think I’m stupid?” “Will I bore them?” Be honest with yourself. Unless you’re one of those people who can leap on stage, grab the microphone and wow the screaming audience with your brilliance—without shedding a drop of sweat—then you need to read a little more. Us regular folks start to feel that our self-worth is up for grabs—that if we say a certain thing, those people will think it’s stupid—and then they’ll think I’m stupid—and then I’ll think I’m stupid. And my diminished self-worth becomes for me a reality. Reality check. This doesn’t happen! What you had built in your mind as a pending catastrophe didn’t happen. You actually enjoyed the party, the book signing. You actually enjoyed those people, you met new friends, and you got to tell a little of your own story to them. So what at first looked terrible (in your mind) turned out to be good for you and others. Bottom line, folks: How many opportunities in our lives—how many books—do we not even begin because we feel uncomfortable? And how many of these might actually have turned out to be positive if only we had gone ahead? We always heard, “Seeing is believing.” WRONG. It is first BELIEVING that allows us to see. Am I invulnerable? Damn right I am. I tell myself who I am—Believe it! Who among us has had a growth opportunity thrust upon us through no fault or choice of our own? I can safely say—all of us.
A threat of getting fired? Given a task we don’t know how to do? Given a deadline we don’t see as possible? Getting the rejection slip from the publisher? You may add your own here. The question is, how did you handle it? Did you CHOOSE to GROW? You quit the job, faced an uncertain future, and began to assess possibilities you never thought of before. You heard the task, took a deep breath and began to break it down into bites you could figure out. You even asked some questions and elicited other’s opinions, then dug in and accomplished it. You looked at the deadline, then looked for the best sequence to follow to move the task toward it. You read the comments of the publisher, pulled out the positive elements and shrugged at the rejection—then sat down and started writing again, being more critical of yourself at every step than that @%&!! publisher could ever hope to be. The point is, you chose to rise to the experience and chose to learn from it and grow a bit more. Growth can come to us, or we can come to it. But however we get to that point, what do we feel? It’s important to understand what we feel because feelings drive our life. Not facts. But how we feel about the facts is the magic. So this growth opportunity jumps up in front of us. Do we feel exhilaration? Fear? Anticipation? Joy? Uptight? Discomfort? The answer (you tell me) is yes to all of the above—at any given time, in any given shape. The common denominator to experiences of growth is discomfort—aka Growing Pains. So now I’ve given you two growth themes--Choice and Discomfort. If we can get a handle on those two, we can rescue the idea of growth from the clutches of generalization and make it into something we can understand and use. When you looked at my first question about your first reaction to an unwelcome growth choice how did you feel. The all-too-common initial reaction to a growth opportunity is the urge to say, “No.” Even, “Hell No!” And to run away to a place more comfortable and recognizable. But whenever we give in to our urges, we tend to deny our ability to choose. It’s as if we had no ability to choose. Self-imposed helplessness. Okay, school is in. Here is your assignment: Sit down in front of a mirror, hands in your lap. Control your giggling. Now recite to yourself, out loud, a list of things you know you can’t do. Keep at it for about thirty seconds or more: “I can’t get up early in the morning …” “I can’t spell …” “I can’t cook …” “I can’t lose weight …” “I can’t quit smoking …” “I can’t save money …” “I can’t—you fill it in …” You may take a breath here. Long list? My question for you is, while you were doing this, was there a realization nagging at you with every? A realization that what I should be saying is not, “I can’t …” but rather, “I choose not to …” “I choose not to get up early in the morning …” “I choose not to learn to spell …” “I choose not to learn to cook …” “I choose not to lose weight …” “I choose not to quit smoking …” “I choose not to save money …” “I choose not to —you fill it in …” Obviously there is a lot more to learn about turning our experiences into growth. But for now, keep exploring how you feel each time you say “I can’t”—usually feeling the victim. And how you feel if you say, “I choose to”—usually feeling empowered and responsible for the next step to my personal growth. My books and stories are laced with mental images garnered from myriad real-life experiences. I am blessed to have had a career that took me to corners of the earth—close to home and half a world away—that placed me with people, circumstances, and scenery that are now a rich grist for my writing mill. Add the fact that I’m blessed (or cursed some would say) with an eidetic memory and a full spectrum of images awaits me. In this blog I will expand on the story and tell you which experiences ended up where or who in my stories.
First, a word about “eidetic” memory, sometimes erroneously referred to as “photographic” memory. Otherwise termed “visual” memory, it describes the relationship between perceptual processing and the encoding, storage and retrieval of the resulting neural representations, and is a form of memory which preserves some characteristics of our senses pertaining to visual experience. We are able to place in memory visual information which resembles objects, places, animals or people in a mental image. Now to the stories. I’ll use two for this blog to keep it reasonable in length. My award winning book, A Voyage Beyond Reason, was written in collaboration with the main character, “Coach” Ben Wade. We took his journals from his kayak trip and built a fictional story around them with the purpose of turning it into a page burner mystery (and readers tell us we succeeded). The “experience” connection comes from the descriptions of places. Ben’s views, delivered through the journal quotes, are mostly from the kayak and the sea. They are definitely his personal experiences and the core of the story. Most of the descriptions of shore, jungles, cities, and beaches are from my experience working in Mexico and Central America. It’s a simple as that. We simply merged the memories to flesh out the story. The first novel of the Amos Mead Adventure Series, Code Name: ORION’S EYE, draws heavily from old friends and family. The scenes are a combination of my childhood memories, my own and those related to me by my parents. See, I’m literally the four year old in the book, set in 1943. As an example, the description of the ride on the Red Line streetcar to the San Pedro waterfront, boarding the ship Avalon and sailing to Catalina through the ant-submarine nets is my own memory. My father was 2d Mate on the ship, we lived on Catalina, and I made many voyages with him—even at four years old. So you can dig deep for material. The OSS safe house in LA is a description of the home of a current dear friend. I lived with him during a consulting assignment I was doing for one of his companies and the descriptions of “B.J.’s quarters” are mine. The main house, a Spanish revival, and the patios, always impressed me and were a natural for the scene. “B.J.” herself was a high school sweetheart of mine never forgotten. The “Donovan Gochais” and his family are mine. If you can pronounce French then you’ll recognize my name, Gauthier, as Gochais. Next week I’ll dive in to MEAD’S TREK and DIE LISTE: Revenge on the Black Sun. both are rich in imagery from my troubled mind. Look for experiences like: Working in an 1865 Bavarian village—in Brazil. Working in El Salvador during the insurgency war. Working in a country under military junta rule. And being stopped at gun point by militia in the mountains of Guatemala late on a dark night. All grist for the stories I now can write. |
AuthorRetired Business Exec who made a career in organizational development and personal improvement counseling and teaching around the world. Now, for the past ten years, I write novels. I've had great teachers and role models and I want to share what I've learned with you. Archives
November 2018
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