If I have an idea, I write it down, although I usually carry a little dictation machine with me because I'm too lazy to write.
- Tommy Shaw
210
A Tale of Two Dragons
As a writer, there's always the part of every story or sales letter that I'm the most excited to work on. In this book, we have arrived at that chapter. There is something exciting about dictating a chapter about dictating.
There are a couple of real key reasons why you should consider adding dictation to your repertoire. The first and the most important reason is that the technology has finally arrived. I have been interested in dictation software for more than twenty years. When I was in high school, my parents gave me the first edition of Dragon Dictate for Christmas. I was so excited never to use a keyboard again!
All I could think about was writing all of my high school and college papers with my voice. But that software was not ready for primetime. As soon as you opened it up, you had to plug in this garbage headset that felt like it was made out of tin and read an entire Edgar Allen Poe story to your computer. That initial calibration took me several hours. Even after that nightmare, the software was still pretty much unusable.
211
Living in the Future
But that is all in the past.
Now the technology exists to dictate without the need for a secretary or a transcriptionist. The latest version of Dragon can transcribe batches of files all in one go. I love that new feature.
Each little section of this book is a different audio file, and by the end of my dictation, there will be over one hundred of these little audio files. I can drop all of them into the software at once and just push the transcribe button. Dragon creates a new document for each section, so they are easy to organize. In the previous edition, I had to manually add each new file as the previous was completed. It was a real drag.
Every single episode of my podcast comes with an unedited transcript from Dragon. I just put the audio from the podcast into Dragon Dictate and create a dropdown at the bottom of the episode notes for people who like reading transcripts. It’s not perfect, but not very many people ever look at them. It's somewhere between ninety to ninety-five percent accurate.
212
Two Paths
There are two ways you can use this software. First, you can dictate directly to your computer, which I've experimented with in the past. It’s slower than my current experiment of recording on my dock, and you have to be near your computer.
When speaking directly into your computer, you can add in all your grammar on the fly. You can add in your periods, commas, and quotation marks. You just say specific command words to your computer to signify when you want punctuation.
Second, you just freestyle record and then transcribe. That's how I'm recording this book right now. Unfortunately, you end up with a giant block of text with no punctuation or breaks between your paragraphs. No periods, no commas, and no spaces of any kind between sections.
The trade-off is between speed and formatting. You can also record your entire book and pay someone to transcribe it for you. After dictating this entire book, I ran it through Dragon, and trying to edit it myself was driving me crazy. The raw transcription was close to one hundred thousand words, and there were too many sections where I struggled to interpret the transcription.
I tried to hire someone online to convert the files into something a little more manageable, but after a week, the lady quit and refunded my money. Then I hired a transcriptionist, and she quit after another week and refunded my money. Considering that I like to release a book every eight weeks, this pushed me massively behind schedule.
I can also admit that I slacked off on looking for help to convert my audio into something a little more manageable. I finally found a third lady online to transcribe the entire book for just eighty bucks. That’s a pretty sweet deal, but you do get what you pay for. I am pretty sure that she just used similar software and went through to clean it up.
I could have spent some time training Dragon to transcribe my recordings better, but I didn’t want to invest any more time. It was possible to edit the book from the original output, but it was stressing me out, and I was dreading my editing sessions. I tried for a few days, and then I decided to use a different method for generating my transcription.
I just want to be totally honest with you right here before you jump out and spend a few hundred bucks on dictation software.
When deciding which path to use for transcription, money is, of course, a major factor. If you can’t afford a transcriptionist or software, you can always get your kids to do it. They can just listen to the audio and type along. Most kids can do a great job for you!
213
Dictation Delays
The world is changing, and technology is changing so fast that I'm already starting to feel like a dinosaur. Every book I've ever written, I wrote by hand. I’m just an old-school keyboard kind of guy. Even though I'm transcribing this book, when I go back to my office to write about each day's sessions, I write those blog posts by hand.
Writing with a keyboard is just very natural for me. I have experimented with using Dragon Dictate right on the computer, and while it's cool to say words and watch them appear on the screen, I find it frustrating to try and correct mistakes this way.
For a long time, my biggest complaint was the delay between speaking and my words appearing on the screen. It takes time for the computer to hear my words, interpret them and convert them into text on the screen. This frustrating delay could be as long as two full seconds. You never realize how long that is until you are trying to dictate a book.
During my last trip to America, I bought a new laptop. My last one was over three years old. Something amazing happened. That big delay that I've always hated about Dragon disappeared. For years I've been blaming the software when the real culprit was my aging computer.
If you are looking at dictation software, the power of your computer will make a big difference. With my new laptop, I have started dictating a new book for a ghostwriting client. It's not as fast as dictating this book on my dock, but it's certainly faster than writing with my hands.
214
The Mouth is Faster than the Hand
Now is a great time to start using this technology. It's finally working the way I envisioned way back in high school. One of my business associates dictates his work directly into the computer and consistently generates eight thousand words per hour. Even on my best day, my hands can't type that fast. The keyboard would start smoking!
If he dictates into a recording and uses a human transcriptionist, he hits around twelve thousand words per hour. He's a big believer in Dragon, and he’s the one who convinced me to try it again. Dictating doesn’t really change my words per day, but it does dramatically lessen the number of hours it takes me to get there. I only have to spend two hours a day working on this book. Writing the same amount of content by hand would take me four to six hours a day. Unfortunately, cleaning up and editing this book took far longer than anything I've worked on in the past. The trade-off is a tough one and I do think that for a book this long, it's better to have a human transcriptionist. Using software to transcribe a long recording with background noise still has too many errors.
The pleasure of dictating outside is unbelievable. Sitting on my beautiful dock is far better than being chained to the computer all day. I will probably switch to dictating many of my books from here on out because it's so much more pleasant.
215
Health
One of the big values in learning the skill of dictation and being able to use it this way is that it protects you from medical ailments. I've had a lot of problems in my wrist, elbow, and knee from sitting at my desk writing too long. Even though I have all these cushions in place to create the perfect ergonomic experience, my body just gets worn out in the chair.
I am looking at experimenting with standing desks, but I haven't had a chance
to test that setup. Living so remotely, I'll have to find a local carpenter to make a high desk. I don't have access to those desks that rise up and down out here on my island.
I still sometimes get hurt, and it's very weird. I don't have any problems in my fingers, fortunately, but I have had crippling pain in my elbow, and that's the worst. Sometimes my elbow hurts so bad that I can't work for three days. I can't do anything when I’m hurt. Writing without having to minimize my body movement all chained up to a keyboard is very nice and protects from getting injured from sitting at a computer for too many hours.
Additionally, if you are sick, in the hospital, or just in a different location, you can still dictate. You don't have to sit at your desk to work. You are no longer chained to your laptop; it's very freeing. I'm a big believer in redundancy and backup plans. If my wrist hurts, I can dictate. If I get a sore throat, I can type.
I try to remove as many single points of failure from my business as possible. If you only dictate and then you get sick and lose your voice, you're toast. Master writing fast by hand and dictating. This will ensure that you can always stay in business, even if you get sick.
216
The Remote Office
Even without dictating, you can easily hit twenty thousand words per day. It's very achievable; it just takes time training your mind and body.
I love dictating books sitting here in paradise. Recently I've felt like I spend too much time inside the house working on stuff. I've been working very hard. I spent five weeks rebuilding my entire website from the ground up. I work on a lot of projects because I'm always trying to achieve amazing things, and sometimes I forget that I live in paradise.
I'm excited by how much time I'm spending outside working on this book. I'm excited by the freedom. You can dictate anywhere, and now the cost of the technology is so low that giving it a try is an easy decision.
It’s freeing. It's very amazing and wonderful, and you can do other things at the same time. You can dictate in the car, on the way to work, or while you’re riding a bicycle for a little exercise. Bang out a new chapter while you’re waiting to pick up the kids at school. Anytime you have twenty minutes alone, you can crank out a little chapter.
You can even dictate when you're on the toilet. If that's your favorite place to relax, then why not get some work done? Turn one of your favorite places to read into one of your favorite places to write. Wherever you go, you are always in your office.
217
Unique Challenges
Dictation is not the ultimate panacea that will solve every problem for budding writers. So many of the places writers prefer to work will become off limits. You can't work anywhere crowded or noisy. You can't dictate in a coffee shop, on the subway, or in a crowded bar. You have to remain conscious of other workers and background noise.
The trade-off in freedom of movement is worth it for me. If I were a little more confident, I would be out in my kayak recording this. I'm a little bit too nervous to take my phone and my microphone out onto the high seas; mainly because I have a tendency to flip my boat.
I get excited when I get out on the water, and I just can’t resist trying to catch those big waves. I live on a surfing island, and everyone here surfs. Those waves are singing my name right now. I don't know if I'd be able to resist that temptation even with my phone there.
So until we get to the point where there's a completely waterproof setup, I probably won't dictate from my boat. One of my dreams, before I moved here, was to take a boat to one of the neighboring uninhabited islands to record podcast episodes.
Unfortunately, those remote islands are extremely loud. There might not be any people, but the wildlife and crashing waves more than make up for it. It’s hard to record a podcast with epic waves drowning out my voice. But with transcription, a little background noise isn’t such a problem.
218
Distraction-Free Writing
We all have our favorite distractions that we struggle with daily. Working from home leaves one especially vulnerable to temptation. Whether you are sitting at your desk, in front of the computer, or on the couch, temptation is only seconds away.
Originally, computers were so expensive that we only used them for work. Thirty years ago entertainment options on a computer were few and far between. You could do some drawing, use a word processor or take a typing tutorial.
In the decades since, everything has changed, and computers have become many people’s primary entertainment source.
You are trying to work with that same tool you use for entertainment. Of course, it’s hard to focus! There are so many distractions - from hopping around the internet to looking at pictures, to reading email or just playing games. Social media alone can make your entire day disappear. There are a million different ways your computer can distract you.
When you're dictating, you move away from all of that. There's no digital distraction for me when I'm sitting on the dock; it's just far enough away that no Internet signals can reach me. I'm about thirty feet past the edge of the Wi-Fi's range, which is wonderful. There's no possibility of distraction.
I am recording on my phone, but the good news is that nobody ever calls me. I live in the middle of nowhere, so anyone who wants to reach me will call me using the Internet rather than pay international charges to call my phone directly. If I had that problem with people calling me or alerts from apps, I would put the phone in airplane mode.
Working away from temptation is so much easier.
I'm human, and just like you, I get distracted. I get very distracted by news websites, movies, and television programs. But sitting out here on the dock, those problems disappear. I'm not one click away from distraction.
Dictation removes you from all of those temptations, and you get to enjoy the beauty of Mother Nature. There is not spellcheck or grammar check to underline words in red or start flashing in my face. Both layers of temptation disappear out on the dock.
The temptation to edit is also eliminated because it's impossible to edit on the fly. I can't edit anything that I write until I get to the editing phase. It's scary, but it's also very freeing. I'm so fast now. I’m dictating this book way faster than I've ever written before and my words per hour are through the roof.
I can generate so much content, but a part of me wonders how much of the content is usable. I have to wait until I edit everything to decide if this was the right decision. Will this book sound too impersonal or too unprofessional when I dictate rather than write?
I'm not going to worry about that until we get there, but editing is one of the things that isn't fun to me, so we're going to learn together as we experiment. The more you separate the creative and the technical processes, the more you separate your writing from your editing, the easier it will be for you to achieve success. And dictation allows you to do that.
219
The Oral Tradition
Initially, stories were told orally. Classic stories, like The Odyssey and The Iliad, were repeated verbally. They weren't written down for a very long time. We have in our history and our culture the oral historical tradition of telling stories. There is something about telling a story verbally that's very compelling. I speak differently than I write. I have a different tone and a different rhythm. If you have read Serve No Master or Breaking Orbit, you may be able to discern the difference in style.
I'm willing to go out on a limb with you and experiment together because I want to see what's on the other side. I want to see whether I can create magic when I dictate. By the time we get to the end of this book, we're going to find out exactly what's possible. We will discover if telling a story out loud is a lot easier than writing it down.
Have you ever been working on a chapter in your book, and you just can't seem to get it right, but if you tell your friend what you want to happen, it suddenly becomes easy?
There's something about telling a story out loud that's a little bit more natural for us. You might find that it's a lot eas
ier for you to tell stories and that they flow better when you speak them out loud.
220
Action Steps
Take a look at different dictation software and apps on the 20K page.
Experiment with some free tools.
Find your perfect recording location.
Look at using software versus paying people to transcribe for you.
Do you have a family member you can get to do it for you?
Experiment with a tough chapter and see if speaking is easier than writing.
Part XXIII
Will Dictation Work for Me?
When you write, you hear the characters speaking to you as you take dictation from what they say. And obviously, they had particular personalities when you hear them.
- Robert Rankin
221
I Sound Strange
The biggest challenge with dictation is the technology of converting the words that you speak into the words that people can read. The two hurdles are punctuation and consistency.
20K a Day: How to Launch More Books and Make More Money Page 24