Hans G. Schantz, aka AetherCzar, is once again hosting a massive quarterly book sale for authors who care more about entertaining their audiences than preaching to the choir. He has graciously agreed to include Dragon’s Teeth, the third book in the Hunter Healer King Trilogy. Check it out and a ton more books to keep you amused over Memorial Weekend.
Category: Cool Websites
So, Raptor Write…
This all started when I still had my old computer, and my openrouter credits were running low, so I bought more. Then the old computer died, I decided I didn’t want to mess around with n8n again, recreating all my old automations. On the new computer I started experimenting with python+LM Studio to handle those automations, with Claude doing most of the coding. My openrouter credits were just sitting there not doing anything, so I decided to take Raptor Write, one of the cloud-based AI writing apps, for a spin. Raptor Write is a product of the Future Fiction Academy, which is probably the largest and most ambitious center of the AI first draft movement. (Not affiliated, this is not an endorsement, count your pennies before throwing money at them, etc. Any and all disclaimers may apply.) Raptor Write has a cute mascot, and is free to use except for the “bring your own API key” part. (You do need to create a Teachable account but that is also free). I had been brainstorming a very ridiculous and gothic JAFF concept set in the early 1900s with Claude, and decided generating it in Raptor Write might be a fun way to burn off some of those open router credits.
Continue reading “So, Raptor Write…”AI as Writer’s Assistant: Marketing with AI
To the extent that I have a philosophy of AI use, it comes to this: I want AI to handle the tasks I don’t enjoy. Falling in love with a set of characters, following them through their adventures, figuring out how the world around them works…to me, those are the fun parts. If I care enough about a story to want to see it on Amazon with a proper cover and a nonzero chance of someone besides me reading it and caring about it, I want to draft it myself. Hunting for typos and logic fails and things I did wrong? Not the fun parts, which is why I have been using AI more in the revision process. Writing a fanfic nobody but me wants to read? Fun but not as fun as it might be, plus it takes mental energy away from writing things that I might be able to sell. Hence, the Fanficcing with Claude label that turns up in this blog. And then there’s marketing.
Marketing does not come easily to some writers, and I am one of them. When I’m happy with my writing, my opinion of it sounds too egotistical to share. When I’m unhappy with it, my opinion is too depressing for words. As for keywords, blurbs, covers, search engine optimization, noun phrase optimization, my brain tends to lock up or go down unhelpful rabbit holes. So, I turned to AI, first for cover art and blurb help and then for other marketing tasks. So, a quick rundown on what I’ve done:
Continue reading “AI as Writer’s Assistant: Marketing with AI “Cedar Sanderson Reviews The Jaiya Series! Yay!
I’ve known Cedar for a while on Discord, and she has very kindly offered feedback on some of my book covers, but I woke up this morning, sore from moving furniture and number crunching for a replacement computer, to find that she had written a very positive review of my first series on her substack: https://cedarlila.substack.com/p/book-review-the-jaiya-series?publication_id=1528321&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=3l7wwi&utm_medium=email
Thank you so much, Cedar! This really made my day! I am including your Tomato Wyrm in a post of capsule reviews coming soon to this blog.
🎬Hang On, A #JustStabMeNowMOVIE ??? 🎬
https://youtube.com/shorts/DR8SzQQWeg0?si=Co7AlP5vNLSDQVwP
Okay, I had to laugh when watching this video, because my fondness for El Cid, Horror Express, and The Texican told me exactly where this was going the moment Jill Bearup said “Spanish film company”. But I enjoyed the Just Stab Me videos when they came out, bought the ebook when that came out and the print book as a Christmas present for someone, so congratulations Jill!
In terms of fancasting, the only actresses I can think of who fit my idea of Rosamund are Morfydd Clark (slightly young at 37), Rosamund Pike (on the high end of the age range at 47), and Emily Blunt (right age at 43, but very aggressively botoxed when I last saw her in Fall Guy). My mental image of Captain Collins somewhat resembles Clive Owen or Lloyd Owen, both Welsh men in their sixties. Luke Evans is 47, and also maybe a good fit for Collins. He showed a certain dry humor as Aramis in Three Musketeers that would work for the more absurd situations Collins finds himself on. Rosamund’s childhood friend struck me as kind of a Tom Hiddleston/JJ Feild type, for what that’s worth.
I don’t have strong visual feeling about the mundane characters, but have the impression they were in their thirties or late twenties, so I don’t know how convincing any role doubling would be.
Spring Book Sale
It’s time for the latest Book Sale hosted by Hans G. Schantz, where indie authors from across genres join together to offer great stories at great prices.
I’m glad to be participating once again. This event has always been a great opportunity for readers and writers to connect through their shared love of good books, without all the noise.
My contribution this quarter is Undead Flight, the second book in my Hunter Hunter Trilogy. It’s a gaslamp fantasy where our horse-loving heroine faces vampires and zombies ON AN AIRSHIP, while sorting out her feelings for a certain sharp-dressed monster hunter. It continues on from the first book in the trilogy in terms of the setting and the leads’ dynamic, but stands on its own as a story.
You can find it, and many others, at the sale here.
As always, I’m thankful for everyone who stops by, whether to browse, buy, or spread the word. Every bit of attention helps keep indie pub going.
Happy reading!
Blurbing With Claude AI: Slaying a Tyrant
(Disclaimer: some of my past “blurbing with LLMs” posts have been very TL;DR because I included a lot of unnecessary fluff that the LLMs churned up and that I didn’t use. This prompt below helps cut down on the fat, so, although this is several paragraphs long, it is much shorter than those previous posts.)
First off, I prompted Claude in this manner: You are a book marketing expert trying to help a fantasy writer. Please help her improve her blurbs. The first novel in her fantasy series is Slaying a Tyrant by Mel Dunay, which may be part of your training data, if so, please feel free to refer to your training data. The problem is that the Empire mentioned in the blurb is mostly a background issue throughout the series [then I spelled out what role the Empire plays throughout the series, and fed Claude the existing blurb for Slaying a Tyrant].
Continue reading “Blurbing With Claude AI: Slaying a Tyrant”Happy Valentine’s Day…And A Book Sale!
Hans G. Schantz has graciously included Undead Flight in his quarterly book sale, covering over 200 books! Undead Flight, the second book in the Hunter Healer King series, is just 99 cents USD, like many of the books in the sale. The rest of the books in the sale are free. With so many books from so many different authors, I’m sure there’s something for everyone in there, so please be sure and check it out!
Instead of Weird Wednesday, Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale
Hans G. Schantz is once again hosting the Based Book Sale on his substack and has graciously agreed to include Wolf’s Trail, currently listed at 99 cents. Click here to check out a wiiiide selection of discounted books!
If you’ve already read Wolf’s Trail, here’s a quick reminder that its sequel, Undead Flight, just released, and is free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
How to Use Claude.ai for Cleaning Up Transcriptions
This article is primarily about the Claude.ai feature called “projects,” but Dibakar Ghosh’s example project is about using Claude to cleanup the nasty, incoherent speech-to-text output that Word and similar programs spit out. I’ve tested the commands involved in the free version of Claude, and they work reasonably well. I still went back and reworded and expanded a bunch of stuff after I used it, but it was nice having something that would reliably cut out the nonsense words and repetitions and add some kind of punctuation. Here are the commands; just copy and paste into Claude’s chat window, and upload a short document with your latest chunk of dictation. As always with AI, check the company’s privacy and training policies before feeding it anything of a personal or sensitive nature.
Continue reading “How to Use Claude.ai for Cleaning Up Transcriptions”
Jaglion Press 