Töm’s Tomes

Töm’s Tomes

Sometimes adversity and frustration can get us down. I’ve been holding on to a nagging frustration for more years than is healthy. It festered into being quite annoying recently last moonth. Something had to be done.

So I resigned myself to cosmic forces and gave up pushing water uphill and then idea came along in the hypnopompic space, on the morning the clocks went back giving that other hour.

The idea was so wondrous and sublimely brilliant that I now do not want to give any energy to the events that led to this amazing opportunity, apart from to thank them for their nudge and guidance.

It is one of those ideas that is so obvious that you wonder why you didn’t think of it before.

As shared in this blog, for the last two moonths, I have been working on launching a much revamped version of my course to help authors get their books to flow through them. The first moonth was one of review and trying out a platform that just wasn’t up to the job. The second moonth was one of creation of new assets and a revised structure using the platform I am now running with.

I just love Thinkific.

So it’s with great pleasure and pride that I can announce that from today, this November’s New Moon, my new course Channeling for Authors is ready to accept prospective authors. I am releasing it for a launch price for the foreseeable future, which is even better value now due to the revelation that came my way.

For nearly 20 years now, I have been writing and publishing books, recording audiobooks and generating many assets to go with them, such as interviews, videos, meditations and, most recently, ambient music.

It dawned on me that all of these wondrous creations are spread across many platforms like Amazon, Audible and, most recently, Insight Timer. None of these platforms though allow me to mix and consolidate media types. All the assets associated with each book are hard even for me to find and share. I’ve also created a few innovative ways to share the books in a way I have never done before.

Tom’s TomesSo along with the launch of Channeling for Authors, I am really chuffed to have appended a bonus section called Töm’s Tomes, plus another module on my channelings of the future. This is a single repository, full of esoteric and metaphysical explorations, which forms a considerable and ever expanding archive. It gives new authors loads of examples of how a book can be structured. It’s a celebration too of a creative spark that shows no signs of abating.

So, as well as the channeled books themselves, thanks to Thinkific’s support for multiple media types, you can find associated interviews, explanatory videos and all sorts of other treats and goodies – all in one place. To deepen your appreciation of the course materials, you will be able to see many examples of channeled writing, as well as the ancillary assets we as authors can generate to augment the reader and listener experience … and market our books.

Channeling the Future

Its curation got be out of a fug and inspired me greatly on the run up to this New Moon and my hope and aim is that it collation similarly inspires and ‘edutains’ you as an author and creator. All legacies start with one book and all books start with one word.

p.p.s. I’ve also published a free module for the Adytum which shares some techniques of how to deal with dis-ease.

p.p.s. as mentioned, this whole inspiration arrived in the hypnopompic state last weekend when we had another hour in bed. It was in this state that the whole of the first chapter, and premise, of Time Restored arrived. To similarly inspire you, let me share a meditation called Hypnopompia Extended to help you access the transition consciousness …

… and a guided meditation and co-creation with Ada and Nathan Ketchie (Wakes) called Awaken from the Awakened Dream

Healing Alchemy

Healing Alchemy [free]

Healing is a gift which is inside everyone.
Discover simple alchemical techniques to help soften dis-ease and help you to live weller for longer.

Book Alcchemy

Channeling for Authors

Want to write and publish a book but don’t know how to go about it? Start today at a special launch price for self-study or contact me if you’re interested in 1-2-1 mentoring.

Finding a Way

Finding a Way

While I have been busy creating the Soulwaves book itself, I have consciously done nothing about publishing it, other than to observe what is happening in the industry. So rather than me having to find the way to get it published, I’ve been allowing the paths to publication and marketing to find me.

I had already used Ingram Spark last year for the Big U and am using them again but this time also publishing a hardback version. I wanted something other than just ACX and iTunes for the audiobook though.

Thanks mainly to the wonderful Creative Penn podcast, from the prolific and supremely knowledgeable Joanna Penn, I’m using a new way to distribute the audiobook version.

Findaway Voices not only submit your audiobook to ACX/Audible and iTunes but over 40 other audiobook platforms. Before submitting Soulwaves (at nearly 10 hours long), I tested the system out with the audiobook version of The Germinatrix (at less than 1 hour long).

I had the usual tech issues to fix with ACX, my fault for rushing, but pleased to see the book out on so many places it has never been heard before. Note, I serialised it on Insight Timer over the last two years – well that method worked for Charles Dickens and H.G. Wells!

Listen to Joanna’s podcast with Will Dages of Findaway Voices

Listen to my first audiobook distributed by them – The Germinatrix

Also this month, I had a lovely heart-to-heart with wordsmith, Mariëlle Smith …

 

 

Proofing the Pudding

Usually initial proof read and recording of audiobook catches 99% of errors. As the first sample print books of Soulwaves arrived this month, it was clear I only caught 95% or so!

Thank goodness for print on demand and setting a pre-order date.

Perhaps as this is so big and expansive in plot – over billions of years of time and 150,000 light years in space – I have learned a novel such as this needs an additional proof read after the recording of the audiobook.

So December will be spent ironing out the wrinkles. You can however safely pre-order the book in all good online bookstores and it will be perfect by the 10th Jan 2020.

PRE-ORDER SOULWAVES TODAY

 

15 Books Later

15 Books Later

Fifteen books later, the book I started first has finally been written – and narrated.

It’s now off for typesetting as this blog gets published. The day after the book is done and it’s now kind of out of my hands, it’s almost like missing an old friend and there is a strange sense of loss.

I have been researching genres though and am delighted to zero in on Metaphysical and Visionary Fiction, where you find books like The Alchemist and Five People You Meet in Heaven.

Rather than my usual rush into a new project rapidly, I am treating myself to a breather. New plans kick off on the 1st November when we may be in, or out, of the EU – or more likely, one foot in and one foot out – which mirrors where I am with the book which is written but not published.

On which note, we’ve decided to go for a publication date of 10th Jan 2020, which is the first Full Moon – the timing of which appears often in the book.

Lessons Learned

  • The process cannot be rushed (even for a time bender)
  • The book is much richer in its third draft with intertwining plot lines
  • Audiobook production is the best proofreading process
  • The timing is impeccable with more and more ways to promote a book these days
  • Pre-marketing on the book’s progress and a pre-order date are key to warming up readers (and listeners)

 

What’s Next?

  • Being Soulful – a series of meditations to accompany the book
  • Getting beta readers and listeners
  • Long overdue rationalisation & streamlining of my old online courses
  • Creation and re-creation of said courses (and new ones) for online apps and a new and wider audience
  • Restarting The Zone Show podcast

 

Other News …

  • Being 999 – a meditation I recorded ages ago now up on Insight Timer & making waves
  • An Extended Akashic Journey – elongation of an old favourite also up on the app
  • More short stories from The Germinatrix also up on the app and pending release …
  • … the audiobook version of that book happening by stealth
  • Honoured to lead an 80 minute live guided meditation and awakening in Bristol this month
Taking Hands off the Wheel

Taking Hands off the Wheel

Artwork by Siri Stiklestad Opli


The month of August has become a big handle turning exercise. September augurs more of the same.

The reason being is that 35 of the 100 chapters of Soulwaves are now narrated. I make no bones about it, it is a huge task and big ask, with no shortcuts.

While it might sound like a lot of hard work, it does feel I am taking my hands off the wheel and coasting down hill to a glorious destination. Apart from anything, I am really enjoying reading my own book back and remembering things I’d forgotten I’d wrote.

Reading a book out loud is simply the best and most thorough way to proof read a book. Here’s why:

#1. If I can read it out loud, a reader can’t read it ‘in loud’. It won’t scan well.

#2. I am spotting forward references I set up in earlier chapters I wrote many months ago that I can pick up and develop subtly in later chapters.

#3. You spot errors even the best editor/proof reader may not have spotted. I’ve found loads and suspect there are more.

August also saw two weeks off with some family support commitments. Due to ongoing support commitments, I plan to have the next third of the book narrated by the time I blog next and the final third completed by the end of October.

This will lead to print and ebook production in November which in turn means publication should be early December.

One of the tricks I use, which is also one I use in writing, is to record the very ending words first. This is the poem I wrote many years ago to describe the essence of what a Soulwave is. It wraps up the book but there’s no spoiler alert as it gives nothing away about the actual ending. Merely it describes how Soulwaves are the fabric of the Universe.

You can listen to it free on Insight Timer …

Soulwaves : A Poem on Entanglement


… also, you can listen to two new meditations on the app this month and a new short story from The Germinatrix and a musical mindful podcast.

Take Your Hands Off the Wheel

Count Your Riches

Moderating Your Mindberg

Mindful Beats With Tyson Baird

p.s. if all of this output seems quite a lot in just one month, it’s just an example of what happens when you take your hands off the wheel