Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Narrators

Digitizing My Journals With Evernote

Updated 2/17/26

Inspired by this article about how John Steinbeck used his diary while writing The Grapes of Wrath, I’ve been documenting my progress in researching and writing my non-fiction book in my daily journals. My journals are much more interesting as a result!

I then photograph my journal entries related to my book and use Evernote to transcribe them. Longtime readers know I’m an Evernote evangelist and use it for everything. I love it even more since Evernote actually transcribes my handwriting!

Authors who write in longhand could use this technique to quickly generate editable text rather than having someone laboriously type it.

I store these transcriptions in the Evernote notebook I created to house my book’s 1900+ (and counting!) research notes.

I tag the journal entries to be able to easily find them later. Once I launch the web site for the book, I’ll re-purpose all my journal entries into a new blog devoted to the book! The blog will certainly improve my SEO ranking for my book’s topic.

Since I was already doing that, I thought, “Why not transcribe the entire journal entry?”

 

4-shelf bookcase with most shelves full of journals, with some small pictures and personal items sharing the space. Some Statue of Liberty pictures and Lego kits sit on the top shelf.
26+ years of my journals (a few volumes temporarily are elsewhere), plus a minor NYC/Statue of Liberty collection that includes 3 Lego kits and a framed print of James Cook’s incredible typewriter art

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Change Starts With Your Thoughts and Words

I can vividly remember feeling discouraged, angry, and upset about things — especially career objectives — that didn’t happen when or how I hoped they would, or even at all. I know I wasted incredible time and energy during my IRS years of desperately wanting the life I now have and feeling extremely frustrated about not having it.

Rather than making New Year’s resolutions that were quickly abandoned, I’ve absorbed and applied a few guiding principles and actions over many years. Changing my thoughts and words have made a dramatic positive difference in my overall happiness and throughout my life.

 


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PANAcon Panel and Q&A on Self-Producing Your Work

Updated 1/3/26

 

I’ve been a proud member of the Professional Audiobook Narrators Association (PANA) since its inception. The organization offered its first convention PANAcon last month.

 

PANAcon Virtual Conference is text against the multi-colored PANA logo, which looks like abstract people behind the image of a gold microphone.

When I was asked earlier this year to speak at the first PANAcon on a panel about self-producing your work, I couldn’t say “yes!” fast enough!

If you attended, you should have received an email with links to the videos from all of the sessions. Download all the videos now because they won’t be available after 1 September.

This article and its resources should benefit attendees and non-attendees alike.

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Planning Your Trip to Public Domain World

Updated 1/30/26

 

I receive a lot of questions in general and especially about Public Domain (PD) books since I’ve written a boatload of articles about them. I realize the process can be overwhelming and/or confusing!

Therefore, I wanted to write this article to provide a clear set of repeatable actions which you can use as a checklist in creating your public domain audiobook.

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