Are audio a course in miracles Well, it’s a tough question. What kind of audio books – downloaded audio books, audio books on CD, or books on tape, which titles? And compared to what – the old fashioned book or to other audio titles? Let us examine the prices and then take a look at the factors that affect the price of audio books. Then, we will try to answer the question: Are audio books expensive?
The prices of audio books vary from free of charge to up to 100$. In most cases, comparing the same audio books titles we got the following results: books on tape (or audio books on cassettes) were the most expensive ones, Audio books on cd had a similar price to the original old fashioned book and MP3 audio books or the cheapest ones.
When a project looms before us, it’s like this big elephant — huge, overwhelming and ready to stomp us flat any minute. There’s an old saying: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” The same is true for writing. You finish a book, one step at a time. But to create these steps, you first have to break down your book into manageable, bite-size pieces. This can be accomplished by creating a TOC (table of contents) that can guide you through the book. My reasoning behind this is as follows:
You’d never think of driving from California to New York without a map, right? Well, how can you expect to finish your book without one? Your TOC is your roadmap, guiding you through your book. If your chapters don’t have individual headings, then write a 2-3 sentence description of what the chapter encompasses. Don’t get too elaborate on this. Remember, it’s not going in your book; it’s just a brief descriptor. Once the TOC is outlined, you’ll have a vision of your book from start to finish.
A few things that creating this TOC will do for you: It will show you any gaps in your story that might need to be fleshed out, and it will give you a sense of completion, of seeing the book or project actually done, and this is a serious psychological turn-on for most authors, because we often live in a world of half-completed projects. Sometimes this step alone can propel an author enough to get their book done, or at the very least give it a darned good kick-start.
Once you’ve developed your TOC, you’ll want to go through it and create a “to do” list. Regardless of what genre your book is, you will always have a to-do list. Whether it’s getting endorsements, doing research, or getting approvals for quotes or excerpts for your book, this to-do list will become yet another item that will help propel your book toward completion.
Once the to-do list is done, set it aside. Now you should have your completed TOC with a vision of the entire book and a growing list of items that will need to be handled for the book to get done. Now the real fun begins.
Some books on writing will tell you to set aside a day or two a week, or an evening here and there to get your book completed. I disagree with this theory, and here’s why: You need to stay dialed into your topic. When I was working on an upcoming book, I would often put the project aside for days or weeks at a time, promising myself to schedule time “as soon as I could.” Well, that rarely happened. What I found is that if I set aside some time every day to do something on the book, I got it completed a lot quicker.
The more you keep your hands in your project, the more it will stay at the front of your mind and on your radar screen, and the more energy you will invest to finish it. I won’t tell you to set aside hours of your time each day — in fact, you don’t even have to set aside an hour. Take 15 minutes, or even five — whatever your schedule permits. If this seems like a ridiculously short amount of time, consider this: You now have your to-do list and your outlined TOC! .
If you are short on time one day, pick a quickie item from your to-do list and get it done. If you have more time, then pound out a chapter or two. The idea behind creating the to-do lists and a TOC is to not only give your project a structure, but to also eliminate any and all excuses for getting it done. Don’t feel like writing today? No problem. There’s probably a mountain of research just waiting to be traversed. Get the picture?
