Announcement!
Hel’s online shop opens today, October 26th!
Today, I am opening up my shop accessible via my website. I’ve had the pleasure of partnering with author S.M. Campbell to directly sell the Eldritch Depths series audiobooks directly from here.
This opening is compounded with a bundle deal! You can get the first 3 audiobooks in the Eldritch Depths series for 40% off the first week of the shop launch (October 26 - November 1st):
Corrupted Tides
Tainted Seas
Defiled Oceans
If you want to hear more of our reasoning jump to “Shop Backstory” towards the bottom.
New Releases!
Book 3 of the Eldritch Depths series
Book 3 is out! Continue on Vila and Narrio’s journey through the Swell and meet a new POV character, Tari Khan! Tari is a pirate who has a run-in with a god!
In celebration of the release of Defiled Oceans, we are doing a bundle sale where you can get the first 3 audiobooks at a 40% discount at my store!
Immersive audiobook novella perfect for the holidays!
I am so excited to share Tasting Her Cookies by Katie Rose, duet narrated by myself (Suara) and Zack (aka Malakhi) . This book will also be available in my store! This was the first book I’ve every done with sound effects so it gets really steamy for the smut.
Tasting Her Cookies is part of the Cascade Falls world of Katie Rose and you can see these characters again in her upcoming book Lighting Up Christmas. If you listen to it and want more, definitely check out her book at authorkatierose.com.
Signed copies of the book can be purchased from Katie’s website. Unsigned copies can be pre-ordered from Amazon and e-books can also be pre-ordered from Amazon.
Lighting Up Christmas Blurb:
Twelve years ago, Brennan Morgan left me standing in my prom dress.
Now he's back in Cascade Falls with his rockstar swagger and dangerous smile. The worst part? We have to work together on the Christmas festival entertainment committee. Which means hours of planning, picking trees, and stringing lights, while I pretend my heart doesn't still beat for him.
He says he's changed. Maybe he has. But trusting him again? It will take more than gingerbread lattes, Christmas cheer, and those seductive smiles to convince me.
What’s Hel Up To Next?
I cannot tell you how excited I was when Rocio approached me to do this audiobook with Zack! I read this and fell in love with it! You know me and how much I love femme rage and magic, so if you’re like me you definitely have to check out her book.
If nothing else, Rocio is an absolutely lovely person! Her tenacity and business sense is inspirational. Alright I’ll stop fangirling now.
Duet narration with Zack
This one is a long time coming. I was the happiest person alive when THE Andrea Jenelle asked us to narrate No Excuses. This story is a small town romance with a grumpy/sunshine dynamic. Spoiler alert: I get to be the grumpy one!
This story was just so wholesome and had infertility representation. Andrea is so great at writing green flag men and it’s hard to not fall in love with everyone in her books.
Harem LitRPG with Zack Rosenfeld
Short Leash is book 2 of the Leasher series by Charles Bannerman. We are doing this project with Royal Guard Publishing. Follow Jaime’s story as he is shoved into a competition where he has to fight for his life by acquiring and partnering with leashes.
I have the pleasure of voicing an elf, 2 humans, 2 sorceress, a fey creature, a goblin, a gargoyle, and a villain.
So Hel, Why the Shop?
There have been a lot of news around ACX’s new offering: Audible Plus and what this means to authors, narrators, and readers. If this is news to you, I highly recommend checking out Daniel Greene’s videos.
The TLDR version is even if authors opt out of the Audible Plus program, there is a chance that the royalties they would get from their audiobook would still be split with other titles within Audible Plus. What does that mean for narrators and authors?
We will get less royalties likely from being split with AI narrated books.
S.M. Campbell and I were just not liking what we were seeing and the trajectory. Audible already take 60% of royalties (if you’re exclusive, more if you’re not exclusive) and now they are trying to take more of the cut behind our backs through this program.
So what can we do?
Paige Reisenfeld was already starting to pilot and draft a new way of working specifically for Royalty Share (RS) or RS+ projects.
Side note: She is brilliant and does a great job of keeping a pulse and fact checking all of the new terms and policies being applied to audiobook marketplaces like ACX.
After meeting her at Sinful Signings and fangirling at her, I decided to dig deeper into this as well and got her help to figure out how she is doing this for herself, and part of that solution is to go wide.
In comes S.M. Campbell! I shared my concerns with him and pitched this alternative way of working and distribution for his RS Eldritch Depths audiobooks. He was kind enough to partner with me and we are in the works of piloting this out for ourselves in hopes to do our part in fighting the machine while also generating more revenue long term vs just relying on ACX’s increasingly eroding royalties.
My goal is to create a success story that will inspire other creators to take matters into their own hands. Audible is a necessary evil for now but it is not the only solution.
We hope you will join us and support us in this journey by continuing to support small businesses.
Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding Copy-Cat
Ingredients
A box of Nilla wafers or a generic brand
(I prefer the local Krogers generic brand because it doesn’t stay as crispy)
1 pint of heavy cream
1-2 ripe bananas
For vanilla pudding
(If you don’t want to make your own vanilla pudding, I think Magnolia Bakery just uses a box mix of vanilla pudding. If you want the challenge, read ahead.)
3 cups whole milk, divided (2% milk works too)
3 tablespoon (tbsp) cornstarch
Pinch of salt
1/2-3/4 cups of sugar (depending on how sweet you like it to be)
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon (tbsp) unsalted butter
1 teaspoon (tsp) vanilla extract
Instructions
In a small bowl, whisk ¼ cup of milk with cornstarch.
In a medium saucepan, whisk together the salt, sugar, and rest of the milk (2 ¾ cup) and put it under low heat until it is just steaming, not simmering or boiling.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Slowly stream ½ cup of hot milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly.
If your milk is too hot, you may need to wait on doing this until the milk has cooled off more. You want it warm but not hot. Pouring it while it’s hot will just curdle and cook the eggs making for not very smooth pudding.
Slowly pour the egg mix back with the rest of the milk in the saucepan along with the cornstarch mixture. Whisk constantly.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture starts to simmer and has thickened.
I like to cook it until it’s just before it becomes a gloopy texture. If it did get gloopy, it’s still probably fine so long as it didn’t curdle.
Remove from heat and whisk in the butter and vanilla extract.
Put a lid on top of the pot and let it sit until cool enough to be able to transfer to the fridge to chill for about 3 hours.
Putting a lid on it will prevent it from developing a skin.
While you wait, pour the heavy cream into a large bowl and mix it until you get stiff peaks
Other instructions say soft peaks. I personally love stiff peaks for more of that cloudy texture.
Once the vanilla pudding has cooled, take it out of the fridge and incrementally fold in the pudding into the whipped cream.
I usually start at bout 1/3 of the pudding, folding it in until you don’t see streaks of the pudding anymore, then add more according to your taste and how sweet you want the mix to be.
I don’t like mine too sweet so I’m usually left with a little bit of vanilla pudding.
Slice bananas to about 1/3 in thick slices.
I like mine to be a bit more on the thinner side. If you want more banana flavor then do it a bit thicker.
Take a container that you have a lid to and begin assembling.
I use ones that are about 3.34 x 3.15 x 2.16 inch( 8.5 x 8 x 5.5 cm), but any container that is deeper rather than shallow will do.
Lay down a layer of the wafers, then put some whipped pudding mix on top to at least cover the cookies, then gently place bananas on top, put more of the whipped pudding mix until at least it covers the banana.
Tap the container once in a while so that the pudding will fill in any air pockets.
Repeat step 12 until the container is full. Put the lid on and place it back in the fridge.
I like to wait another couple of hours to let the cookies soften so it becomes adopts more of a cakey texture. You’re free to enjoy it right after if you prefer the wafers to stay crispy.
Enjoy!