16 Comments
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Libbie Grant's avatar

I had such a great time doing our Live and I’m thrilled that you’ll be hosting Reid Faylor, too!! I’ll definitely tune in. I hope to host live discussions as well once I no longer have a menacing deadline hanging over my head (end of this month!)

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Walter Rhein's avatar

Sometimes the lives are a good source of inspiration. If you find yourself banging your head against the wall, reach out and we can discuss the problem over live :) It's sort of like how Dickens used to go on 15 mile walks to figure out his plot issues... but it's better because we get to record it!

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Libbie Grant's avatar

I do 5-mile walks daily to think about my writing. I’m 33% Dickens!

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Walter Rhein's avatar

I've been doing that a lot too. I use the voice notes feature on my phone and dictate articles. Then I use Restream to generate a transcript (it does a great job) and I write the article/chapter off that transcript. It's a lot more efficient. https://restream.io/tools/transcribe-audio-to-text

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Bill Gerace's avatar

Walter, I love these videos that you make. I've seen people do these nifty makeovers like you did, making themselves look like a baby. Where I work, we use Teams, and there is a feature that allows you to change your face into something else, like a chicken. It is pretty cool; you can talk and be animated as the character. I think it's pretty cool. I also agree that the Lives does help a lot with growth. I know that I'm not some big name here, I'm just a small pea, but I have noticed that when I do them, I always get people to come, but they never talk, so I don't know if that is a good sign or not. However, I do get a few subscribers. Yesterday I did a live, I had 3 folks show up, they didn't talk. They stayed for the whole video. I did message them to thank them for coming, so not sure if that was good or not. Plus, they did not subscribe, which is fine. So I guess yesterday was a flop. I am still learning all this stuff. One day I'll get it down. Lol. At any rate, I admire your writing, Walter. You rock, friend. Blessings. :) :)

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Walter Rhein's avatar

It's not a flop! I've done a lot of book events where I had only 1 or 2 people show up. That's a big deal. Just keep at it, more people will come. Also, this gives you the opportunity to practice and that's important. I still feel like it's practicing and I've been doing this for years. Thanks for the kind words!

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Bill Gerace's avatar

Oh you are so kind Mr. Walter. You have given me hope. Last night when I went to bed I was seriously thinking of quitting this. See I get overwhelmed and anxious real easy unfortuantely thanks to my high anxiety condition. This is especially true when I feel I’m putting in long hours which I dont mind but don’t see any progress that’s different. :( I have not had my meds in nearly three weeks due to a mix up at the pharmacy. I’m getting them today I hope that keeps me aligned so I can continue with this project. Thanks for all your amazing support. Blessings. :) :)

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Cindy May's avatar

Don't quit! I just looked at your Substack and you are offering great advice and help to other writers of spookiness. I'm not in that target audience and that's why I didn't subscribe. You gotta keep your line out in the water if you want to catch any fish. Best wishes!

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Bill Gerace's avatar

Thanks, Ms. Cindy. I sure appreciate it. I guess I'm on the right path, maybe. Blessings to you, my friend. :) :)

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Arturo Dominguez's avatar

I haven't seen numbers like that on Medium in at least two years. Makes me want to flee from there.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

These days Substack has become my main platform. However, whenever I load something onto Substack, I create a draft in Medium too. That way it only takes about 5 more minutes. I made over 2k on Medium last month, but it looks like I'll be under 1k this month. Medium is still useful of you manage to get a Boost, but they're looking for something so specific, it's hard to meet that requirement. I do still enjoy producing a couple articles a month with the hope of getting a Boost. They're still quality articles, even if they're not taken. Two months from now, Medium might be totally different again, so I'll keep putting drafts up over there.

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Arturo Dominguez's avatar

I made $12 last month on Medium and published at least a dozen articles there. I've read about how they use AI to detect articles that are written with AI and often get tons of false positives. It makes me wonder if I'm being affected by something like that. If so, that would upset me because I work my ass off. Either way, I'm giving them until the end of the year. If no improvement, I'm out. I know a ton of people that already stopped paying Medium because of the same things I'm going through. It sucks. I'v been there since 2018. While it was never a big money maker for me, $12 is far too little for the effort.

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Walter Rhein's avatar

Yes, that's a frustrating number. I get the sense that there are some internal changes they haven't told us about. I hope they don't end up closing up shop. It's been a great resource for writers throughout the years. But if people aren't getting paid, there's not much incentive to publish there. They need to come up with some new monetization strategies I think.

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Arturo Dominguez's avatar

Agreed. It's gotten really bad for a lot of longtime contributors.

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Peter William Murphy's avatar

Do you upload directly from that app to Notes?

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Walter Rhein's avatar

I download the recording and then upload it to notes from my computer. I work off my desktop to create and upload those videos.

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