Are audiobooks the future of book sales? Do you have your stories on audio?

I am an audiobook fan. I buy at least 4 audiobooks a month and always have one on the go. I as buy audiobooks for Michael and encourage him to listen to them every day. He is my slower reader and audiobooks allow him to read more books than he would manage on his own. It takes Michael about one month to read one of his Rick Riordan books.

Greg, on the other hand, is a fast reader and will read several books during his holidays, galloping through them in a few hours or days, depending on their length and complexity.

So far this year, I’ve listened to Collected Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, The Invisible Man, To the Last Man, A Farewell to Arms, A Gentleman in Moscow, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Sunwielder. I am currently 85% of the way through Gone with the Wind and already have The Divine Comedy lined up as my next read, followed by Why by Daniel Kemp.

I love being read to almost as much as I love reading. I like to listen to classic books, in case you hadn’t noticed, as I listen slower than I read so I enjoy them more. Some more complex modern books are also better appreciated, in my opinion, as audiobooks and if they are available on Audible I buy them.

My own books are not available as audiobooks. This is purely because my publisher does not offer audiobooks and I like her very much so I am prepared to accept her view on this matter. Maybe one day I will have audiobooks as well as ebooks and paperback books.

Now to the question, are audiobooks the future of book sales? I don’t think so. I think audiobooks have their place in the literary world and I know people who also listen to audiobooks while they exercise, do housework, and other mundane tasks including driving. These people are not, however, the majority of the readers I know. Most readers seem to prefer paperbacks and ebooks. This may be a cost thing as audiobooks are a lot more expensive.

Luckily for me, my husband gifts me three Audible credits a month. Sometimes I run out and then I buy three more credits at approximately US$11 each. Most audio books are well over US$20 so it works out quite reasonably.

I gift my mom a lot of audiobooks too. She rests every afternoon and she likes to listen to audiobooks. Sometimes we share books but usually I buy her different books to the ones I like. She likes books like the Wheel of Time series and Game of Thrones, which I will never listen too. They are lovely and long and keep her entertained for a good few weeks.

As for the youth [meaning teenagers], well, they don’t really like any kind of traditional book. They like computer game stories. The games my sons play are very sophisticated and are scripted with complex plots, music, and lots of reading. They are almost like interactive books. I think these sorts of gaming stories will be a large part of the future of books.

There will, however, always be traditional books and readers in my opinion. The readers of the world have always been the minority of the population as reading doesn’t appeal to everyone. Like research, writing, playing a musical instrument, dancing, singing, sports, and acting, reading is not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. It takes all kinds of people to make a world.

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Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

Last week I posted about the town of St Andrews in Scotland. You can read that post here: https://robertawrites235681907.wordpress.com/2021/07/03/thursday-doors-on-saturday-st-andrews-town-and-castle/

This week, I am going to share my pictures of the ruined St Andrews Cathedral.

According to Wikipedia, “[St Andrews Cathedral was built in 1158 and became the centre of the Medieval Catholic Church in Scotland as the seat of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and the Bishops and Archbishops of St Andrews. It fell into disuse and ruin after Catholic mass was outlawed during the 16th-century Scottish Reformation. It is currently a monument in the custody of Historic Environment Scotland. The ruins indicate that the building was approximately 119 m (390 ft) long, and is the largest church to have been built in Scotland.”

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Today I am delighted to host Cendrine Marrouat with her Three-Act Play, In the Silence of Words as part of her WordCrafter book blog tour.

You can read the other posts in the tour here:

Day 1: https://writingtoberead.com/2021/07/05/welcome-to-the-wordcrafter-in-the-silence-of-words-book-blog-tour/

Day 2: https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/2021/07/06/blogtour-day-2-of-the-in-the-silence-of-words-three-act-play-blog-tour/

Day 3: https://writingtoberead.com/2021/07/07/day-3-of-the-wordcrafter-in-the-silence-of-words-book-blog-tour-my-review/

‘In the Silence of Words’: A Behind-the-Scene Look by Cendrine Marrouat

When I started my artistic career in 2005, I knew I wanted to be more than just a poet.

Theatre has always fascinated me. I studied many plays in high school and at university. One of the first things I realized is that theatre is an excellent genre to delve into difficult topics. The best playwrights have mastered the “show, not tell” approach. They sprinkle clues everywhere and force you to pay attention to details, so you can read between the lines and infer the overall meaning when needed.

In 2006, I was in the middle of my very painful depression. Poetry had started helping me heal, but I felt that a play would force me to reach deep within my soul to find the key to full healing. Further, I had never focused on a project for a prolonged period of time. It would be an interesting experiment for sure.

I wanted the play to be (very) loosely based on some major events in my life, including my mother’s suicide, so I could build a meaningful story and inspire those who might be in similar shoes. The storyline, topics, and title were already in my head. All I needed was to get started.

However, I wanted to do everything right. For several months, I read guides on playwriting, re-read several of my favorite plays, and did research into names. In the process, I became interested in using movement as a way to further the plot.

The first draft of In the Silence of Words took me seven months to write. It was an exhilarating experience: I lived every scene as though I was there. It felt like an out-of-body experience, allowing me to fully grasp my own journey and understand how to embrace my depression.

I showed the play to a couple of trusted friends. They too could picture everything in their minds. They could almost touch the characters! Their excellent feedback allowed me to make the story more impactful. A couple of rewrites later, the whole thing looked exactly the way I had envisioned it.

Since 2007, I have read In the Silence of Words once a year. The goal is to remind myself of my journey as a writer and as a depression-free person for more than ten years. I am very proud of this project, which has been instrumental in awaking my interest in other art forms since then.

There is a little of Cassandra Philip, the main character, in most of us. We spend years wondering what the world wants from us. Until one day, a series of events forces us to face our fears in a painful, but liberating way…

I hope you will enjoy In the Silence of Words and cannot wait to read your feedback!

Book details

In the Silence of Words: A Three-Act Play 

• Formats: ebook and paperback
• Release date: 2018 (second edition 2021)
• Availability: Everywhere books are sold, including Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Chapters-Indigo, Barnes & Noble, and FNAC. Readers are encouraged to support independent bookstores: https://creativeramblings.com/books/.
• Website: https://creativeramblings.com/silence-words-play/

Trailer

Blurb

It’s the beginning of September. 30-year-old Cassandra Philip has just lost her mother. The secret she uncovers shortly after the funeral resurrects the ghosts of the past, while threatening the present and shattering her pre-conceived notions of what the future is supposed to hold…

In the Silence of Words is not just a story of loss. It also questions the validity of personal sacrifice in a world that seeks to preserve the status quo over the needs of the soul.

Author bio

Cendrine Marrouat is a French-born Canadian photographer, poet, and the multi-genre author of more than 30 books. In 2019, she founded the PoArtMo Collective and co-founded Auroras & Blossoms with David Ellis. A year later, they launched PoArtMo (Positive Art Month and Positive Art Moves) and created the Kindku and Pareiku, two forms of poetry.

Cendrine is also the creator of the Sixku, the Flashku, and the Reminigram. Cendrine writes both in French and English and has worked in many different fields in her 17-year career, including translation, language instruction, journalism, art reviews, and social media.

Books:  – Songs in Our Paths: Haiku & Photography (Volume 2) (2021)

– Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography (2021) (Co-author)

 – 30 Creative Prompts to Take Your Art to the Next Level (2021) (Co-author)

 – Rhythm Flourishing: A Collection of Kindku and Sixku (2020) (Co-author)

 – The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2020 Edition (Co-editor)

 – The Auroras & Blossoms NaPoWriMo Anthology: 2020 Edition (Co-editor)

 – The Little Big eBook on Social Media Audiences: Build Yours, Keep It, and Win (2014 – Second edition 2020)

 – Blog Your Way to Success: 35+ No-Nonsense Tips for Authors and Writers (2020)

 – Walks: A Collection of Haiku (All the Volumes and More!) (2020)

 – Photography of Life and Living: The Black and White Book (2020) (Co-author)

 – Songs in Our Paths: Haiku & Photography (Volume 1) (2020)

 – Bad. Pitches. Period. 30 Flavors of Spammy Emails (2020)

 – The Heart of Space (2020) – My Twitter Workbook: 20 Tips to Get Noticed and Followed (2020) (Co-author)

  – My Positivity Journal: 100 Action Verbs and Affirmations for Daily Inspiration (2020) (Co-author)

  – My Poetry Workbook: 20 Tips to Write Great Poems (2020) (Co-author)

  – My Creative Journal: 40 Prompts to Take Your Writing to the Next Level! (2020) (Co-author)

  – My Marketing Workbook: Promotional Tips For Poets (2020) (Co-author)

  – Dans le silence des mots: Une pièce en trois actes (2019) – Walks: A Collection of Haiku (Volume 3) (2019)

  – Walks: A Collection of Haiku (Volume 2) (2019)

  – Walks: A Collection of Haiku (Volume 1) (2019)

  – In the Silence of Words: A Three-Act Play (2018)

  – Life’s Little Things: The Quotes (2017)

  – Life’s Little Things – Les petites choses de la vie (2016)

  – When the Mind Travels: A Poetic Journey into Photography (2015)

  – The Little Big eBook on Blogging: 40 Traffic Generation Tips (2012)

  – Five Years and Counting: A Journey into the Mind of Soul Poetry (2010)

  – Project: Heartbeats and Elevation (2009) – Short Poetry for Those Who Fear Death (2006)

  – And They All Rejoiced! Soul-Stirring Poetry (2006)

  – Sortons des chemins battus (2006)

Contact details

Website: https://www.cendrinemedia.com

Blog: https://creativeramblings.com

Books: https://creativeramblings.com/books

Email: cendrine@creativeramblings.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cendrinephotography/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cendrineartist

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/cendrinemarrouat

I listed to the audio book of the Collected Stories & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe. I was drawn to listen to his works for the following reasons:

1. Poe is regarded in literary histories and handbooks as the architect of the modern short story and his story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, is considered to be the first modern detective story;
2. Poe was the principal forerunner of the “art for art’s sake” movement in 19th-century European literature; and
3. Poe wrote tales of mystery and the macabre which is a genre I particularly enjoy.

The stories and poems included in this collection are: “The Raven”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, “The Bells”, The Fall of the House of Usher”, “Manuscript Found in a Bottle”, “The Sleeper”, “The Man of the Crowd”, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, “Annabel Lee”, “The Man That Was Used Up”, “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”, “The Oval Portrait”, “Eleonora”, “The Facts in the Case of Monsieur Valdemar”, “Berenice”, and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”.

In this review, I am going to comment on the stories that I had not heard of before listening to this collection.

The Cask of Amontillado is a story of revenge and secret murder featuring two characters, Montresor and Fortunato. Montresor is the narrator of the story and starts by explaining that a man called Fortunato has wronged him numerous times but that his recent insult is the last straw that has driven him to make a vow of revenge.

Fortunato is a wine connoisseur and Montresor comes across him at a carnival. Fortunato is dressed as a jester and is very drunk. He is also pleased to see Montresor and does not suspect that he is plotting to kill him. Montresor entices Fortunato to come home with him and see a barrel of wine he has acquired. Fortunato agrees to accompany him and they enter the catacombs underneath Montresor’s home where his ancestors are buried.

The story is beautifully plotted and told and full of little details that fill the reader with horror as Montresor’s evil plan becomes more obvious. I enjoyed the auditory descriptions of the bells on Fortunato’s jester costume ringing and the clanking of his chains in the darkness of the crypt.

The Tell-Tale Heart was my favourite story in this collection because of the psychology of the murderer. I am fascinated by what goes on in the minds of serial killers and other murderers and how they justify their actions in their own heads.

The story starts with an unnamed narrator stating that he is nervous, but that he believes he is not mad. He says he is going to tell a story in which he will confess to murder but which will prove his sanity. The narrator is terribly afraid on the pale blue eye of an old man he knows. Every night he spies on the old man while he is sleeping. A week later, the narrator decides to kill the old man and rid himself of the watching eye.

When the narrator arrives to commit the murder, the old man hears him and is very afraid. The narrator fancies he can hear the old man’s heart beating. Fearful that the old man’s neighbour’s can also hear the beating sound, he attacks and kills the old man. He then dismembers him and buries him beneath the floorboards.

A short while later the police arrive after being summonsed by a neighbour who hear the old man cry out before he died. The narrator leads the police all over the house but when he shows them into the old man’s bedroom, where his body lies beneath the floor, the sound of a beating heart fills his ears getting louder and louder.

Poe’s ability to demonstrate the disintegration of the narrator’s mind in such a few number of words is quite incredible and he shows himself to be a master story tale. This story was particularly unnerving and creepy for me.

The system of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether is a darkly satirical tale about a young doctor who chances to pass a famous mental asylum and decides to stop and enquire about the famous ‘soothing system’ implemented by the asylum’s director. In terms of this system, patients are not punished for misconduct and are given extensive freedom to wander the premises. They are also allowed to wear customary clothing and not hospital garb.

The young doctor meets the proprietor of the psychiatric hospital, Monsieur Maillard, and his niece. The narrator initially thinks the young woman might be a patient of the hospital but Monsieur Maillard rectifies his thinking and tells him that the soothing system has been abandoned as a failure. Maillard does not tell him what system has replaced the soothing system but rather invites him to dinner at 6pm. During the dinner, Maillard confides to the narrator that they asylum is now using a system of Tarr and Fether, which is much stricter than the old soothing system.

I enjoyed this story and the use of the extended metaphor relating to Tarr and Fether. As a reader, it quickly became apparent that the narrator was being completely conned by Maillard and the other dinner guests, but he just cannot see it. The ending is not unexpected to the reader the the actions of the narrator are mystifying.

This collection also includes some of Poe’s best poems, including my favourite, The Sleeper.

You can listen to my recital of The Sleeper here:

Purchase Collected Stories & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe from Amazon US

Have you read Poe’s works? Which is your favourite?

If your character wanted to wear a disguise, how would they dress?

This is a bit of a tricky question for my characters as many of them are historical and would not have had the opportunity to change their style of dress.

In A Ghost and His Gold, Pieter the Boer (farmer) and Estelle the Boer Meisie (farm girl) would have dressed in the traditional clothing of the time which would have been made by Marta, Pieter’s wife, and his daughters, including Estelle.

Typical everyday dress for Boer men consisted of flaptrousers of skin or moleskin with a waistband or a pair of braces, a cotton or woolen shirt, a waistcoat of cotton or wool, a neckcloth, a jacket of moleskin, velskoens (skin shoes) without socks and a broad rimmed hat.

Men’s Sunday church outfits comprised of velvet flap-trousers, a shirt of fine white linen, a waistcoat of velvet, brocade, silk or satin, a cloth frock-coat or velvet jacket, bow-tie, socks and velskoens as well as a top hat.

This was the attire everyone wore so the disguise would have been in looking just the same as all the other Boers and fitting in if you were an infiltrator. Of course, a British soldier would have also needed to speak Afrikaans without an English accent…

Women and girls wore dresses with a narrow bodice and wide skirt of flowered, striped or checked chintz, an apron, a neckcloth of silk or silk tafetta, mittens and a linen bonnet. Their shoes, usually worn without socks, were made of goat or sheep skin.

Girls dresses were a little shorter than their mothers.

Women’s Sunday church outfits consisted of a dress of silk, satin or velvet with a cashmir shawl. Older women wore mantlets (a woman’s short, loose sleeveless cloak or shawl). White cotton socks were worn with their shoes and a bonnet or hat of silk, velvet or straw.

Girls often went barefoot.

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2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
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Read what other writers think here: https://fresh.inlinkz.com/party/e09f2785f6e1449286ac4cf178b0bd0b

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

St Andrew’s is a town near Edinburgh in Scotland. The town is famous for the University of St Andrews and is known as the worldwide ‘home of golf’.

Here are a few pictures of the doors around St Andrews town:

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St Andrews Castle

Wikepedia says:

The ruins of St Andrews Castle are situated on a cliff-top to the north of the town. The castle was first erected around 1200 as the residence, prison and fortress of the bishops of the diocese. Several reconstructions occurred in subsequent centuries, most notably due to damage incurred in the Wars of Scottish Independence.

The castle was occupied, besieged and stormed during The Rough Wooing and was severely damaged in the process.

The majority of the castle seen today dates to between 1549 and 1571. The work was commissioned by John Hamilton (archbishop of St Andrews) in a renaissance style which made the building a comfortable, palatial residence while still remaining well-fortified. After the Reformation, the castle passed to several owners, who could not maintain its structure and the building deteriorated into a ruin. The castle is now a scheduled monument administered by Historic Environment Scotland.

You can read more about St Andrews here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Andrews

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Do you use said or asked after a ? or tag your interruptions? Any punctuation that bugs you? What’s the hardest for you to get right?

“Dialogue tags are those short little phrases in dialogue that identify the speaker. Remember the main function of a dialogue tag—to identify who’s speaking.”

When I started writing this is what I was told – stick to said, and that is pretty much what I do if I use a dialogue tag. It does make sense to me that dialogue tags are there for clarification purposes, so that readers know who is speaking, and no other purpose. Drawing attention to them by using other words does not seem necessary.

However, said can also be overused and repetitive. I recently listed to the audio book of Last Man Standing by Jeff Shaara. He used said so often that I began to notice it and it became an irritating distraction in the story. I started counting all the saids. Last Man Standing is a brilliant story but I deduced a star because of the said over usage and how much it irritated me by the end of the book.

Having been told by the very wise Charli Mills to watch for word repetition when I write, I try not to beat said to death in my books. I try to introduce the speaker by showing what they are doing before the speak.

A few examples of how I’ve used this technique in A Ghost and HIs Gold are as follows:

“These sausage rolls are amazing.” Carl stuffs another one into his large mouth.

“You have a Ouija board?” Sue’s eyebrows rise.

Pieter drains his mug. “I need to see to some business and then we must get ready to trek.”

As you can see from the second short quote, I use this same technique for questions.

Other punctuation?

I am a fan of punctuation. Poor punctuation makes a book much more difficult to read and can result in misunderstandings. I try very hard to get punctuation correct in my books and use the services of an editor to help me get it as correct as possible. I have accepted that it is never possible to get everything 100% correct in a book so I am for 95% plus.

How do you feel about the use of dialogue tags. Should writers stick to said or get inventive.

Update on my dad

Thank you to everyone who has sent messages of support or left kind comments. This is a difficult time for my family and the fact we are in the middle of the third wave of Covid and it is the Delta variant is not making life easy.

My dad saw a cardiologist yesterday and we had a serious of tests afterwards – extensive blood work and an x-ray. He has been diagnosed with a pulmonary artery embolism or blood clot in the artery near the lungs. This blockage has damaged his heart, especially on the right hand side. Tomorrow I am taking him to the hospital early for a CT scan so they can assess the size of the clot and extent of the damage. He then sees the cardiologist for a treatment plan. Please hold thumbs for the best possible outcome.

Take care and stay safe.

You can join in the Open Blog Book Hop here: https://fresh.inlinkz.com/party/cf69e5a9da434bb382680e2f68fb50c0

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.

2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.

3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.

4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.

5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

I am late with my post this week. The reason is that my dad is very unwell. He is in heart failure and is currently bed ridden. My mom and I are looking after him and I am also trying to ensure my mom doesn’t overdo it and make herself ill. His condition is stable, but we have to wait for the medicine to bring about improvements, if it is going to work.

Today, my post is about St Augustine’s Abbey. I had said I was going to post about St Andrew’s but I haven’t had a chance this week to find those pictures.

This is what English Heritage has got to say about St Augustine’s Abbey:

“St Augustine’s Abbey was one of the most important monasteries in medieval England. For almost 1,000 years, it was a centre of learning and spirituality. Established as the result of the mission to bring Christianity to England, it was reduced to ruins during Henry VIII’s Suppression of the Monasteries.”

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