Audio books

El Guapo!

I thought this may be of interest to some people in here if you enjoy listening to audiobooks or are interested in giving them a try.
I recently signed up to Audible.com
It's an Amazon company and is actually a bit pricey in my opinion but there's a way to get free books if you sign up.

If you join through the Audible website, you get 1 free audiobook of your choice. Don't do this.
Go to Amazon.com and search for a book you want. Then select the audio version and sign up to Audible through that link. This way you'll get 2 free audiobooks of your choice. Then download the (free) Audible app.
That's what I did and you can cancel at any time and still keep the two books.

As I said, I think the service is pricey. If you decide to keep the membership they charge you at the end of the first month. It's around $15 a month. For this fee you get membership which gives you a discount on audiobooks but they can still be expensive.

If you do like the service, however, and would like to keep the membership, you should go ahead and try to cancel anyway. They immediately offer you half price membership for 6 months.
And if you refuse that and click on "Continue Cancelling" they then offer you a 12 month membership for just $9.95. (I think you lose benefits like discounts and such with this plan though.)

Anyway, I just thought I'd give you guys a heads up about it.

As one of my two free books I chose Stephen Kings "On Writing". It's narrated by the man himself and I'd highly recommend it.

Manach

I use Audible and the books are worth listening too. Just as an addition to OP's mail if one does go the route of cancelling after 3 months, then they might offer a membership freeze. This is were the membership is frozen, ie no monthly credits, but still can buy discounted books and shop in sales.

Livvie

If you buy a paperback or an ebook you can upgrade to audible for around £3.49. I'm not sure if you can get it onto an iPod but I just downloaded the audible app. on to my phone, and then downloaded the book of my choice.

Antilles

Unrelated to the audible comment, but in relation to "On Writing":

I love King's fiction, but reading On Writing, I got the distinct impression that he was ignoring the fact that he was an established writer of many decades.

He talks a lot about what I'd call "seat of the pants" writing, but he has been doing this for decades. I think he's forgotten what its like to be a new writer and just assumes that everybody has story ideas come to them as they do to him, fully formed and in need of just a little polishing.

In my opinion, King has internalised the "secrets" of great storytelling, so when he comes to a new story, his brain automatically formats it in a way that makes a bestseller. The rest of us need to plot and plan our way through the thing because our brains have't had the experience of dozens of hit novels to guide us.

To me, that was the core message of On Writing: if you succeed, your future stories will be more likely to succeed because you'll have a base to build on.

Lyaiera

I really don't get the love for On Writing. Sure he was enthusiastic about writing in it, but apart from that... He seems to say be a natural who can word good.

echo beach

Antilles wrote: »

In my opinion, King has internalised the "secrets" of great storytelling, so when he comes to a new story, his brain automatically formats it in a way that makes a bestseller. The rest of us need to plot and plan our way through the thing because our brains have't had the experience of dozens of hit novels to guide us.

I disagree. He has the same brain as the rest of us but has trained it by practice and lots of practice. Of course once you are success it is easier, and he admits this pointing out how work that was rejected when he was an unknown was later published. But it isn't easy to stay a success for decades. Many authors have two or three hits then disappear. He admits that his early work is considered his best. Those books were written without that experience.

The message I took from On Writing is that you have to work very hard, absolutely slog at it. His description of reading and writing for 6 - 8 hours a day, while working full time, doesn't lay out an easy path. He had set backs, he felt like giving up, felt he wasn't good enough. He remembers very well what it was like to be a penniless, struggling unknown writer and I feel he conveys it very well.

There are hundreds of books on writing but his is the only one written by an author that anybody who reads will have heard of. The others are written by people who don't make a living, much less a fortune, out of writing fiction. That is what makes it the stand out one.

Das Kitty

My problem with it, is that it's so lauded that a lot of new and improving writers treat it as gospel. I've encountered the devout in writing groups and you can tell they've read it by the feedback they give.

I think new writers may have some quirk that if it was allowed to develop with practice could become something new and original. I think this spark gets stubbed out quite often by people applying the "rules" they have read to their prose.

I'm guilty of it too. I sanitised sections of my novel after feedback. I regret not standing up for my own madness. Luckily Scrivener has a rollback function.