The Journey From Book to Audiobook

The journey of a book becoming an audiobook is often as rocky, if not rockier, than getting the book written in the first place. Sometimes you strike it rich, and end up with a narrator you’ll want to hire over and over again. And sometimes you end up with a narrator you wish you’d never hired in the first place. That’s life. That’s the luck of the draw.

But sometimes, when you find a narrator you would love to have do more of your books, you may not be so lucky to re-hire them. There could be any number of factors which prevents that narrator from working with you again.

·       They may be booked up for an extended length of time, perhaps a year or more in advance.

·       They may no longer be doing narrations.

·       Their cost may have become prohibitive.

·       They’re ill/incapacitated, real life has intruded, or you simply can’t reach them.

These are just a few reasons why you as a listener may discover that a series you’ve come to love has a different voice reading it. But know that the person who’s been hired is the closest match to the original narrator that the author could find. Also, keep in mind that the narrator is doing the best s/he can to fill the shoes of their predecessor.

Television shows, and sometimes movies, have been known to change the face of a major character, in lieu of killing off that character. Changing narrators in mid-audio series isn’t that different.

So the next time you’ve discovered there’s been a switch in who’s reading the book aloud, give the narrator a chance, and see if s/he grows on you. You may soon find yourself getting lost in the story to where the main voice no longer matters.

And that’s the mark of a superb narrator.

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Now Available!

HER BATTLE LORD'S DESIRE
Book 2 of The Battle Lord Saga
Sci-Fi/Futuristic/Post-Apocalyptic Romance
Word Count:  90K
$4.99 e / $15.99 p / $24.95 a



Narrated by Daniela Acitelli
Length: 10 hrs.
Hear a Sample

Besieged by Bloods and placed on a hunger watch, the citizens of the mutant compound of Wallis turn to the one person they pray will help, the Battle Lord of Alta Novis.  Despite the fact that they took away the woman the man risked his life to love, they hope he will show mercy and lend aid.  They never expected to find Atrilan Ferran alive and thriving as the wife of Yulen D'Jacques.   

Yulen sees this as the perfect opportunity to show the citizens of Atty's home compound the power and status his wife wields.  But first he, Atty, and his soldiers have to risk the journey against the oncoming horde of blood-thirsty crazies to get there. 

Atty is eager to return to Wallis, but one small detail stands in the way of her and Yulen's happiness.  He desires an heir, and she is terrified at the thought of becoming pregnant.  Worse, the dangerous trek has increased his ardor, and she is running out of excuses why they can't make love.

Warning:  Contains a near massacre, renewed friendships, shocking revelations, birth control 300 years in the future, a trip down memory lane, and a deepest desire finally fulfilled.

Here Be News

New Release

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE

 Games We Play, Book 3

Releases Tuesday March 14th

Brenda's relationship with Max is a sexy sham designed to keep her cousins from learning of her plans to sell their family's inn. Falling in love for real? That was not supposed to happen. 

Loose Id: http://www.loose-id.com/games-we-play-3-two-truths-and-a-lie.html

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Two-Truths-Games-Play-Book-ebook/dp/B06XKHJPDX

Other News

Now Available as an Audio Book!

POSSESSION
Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance 
by Linda Mooney
Narrated by Guy Veryzer
Length: 7 hrs, 4 min.

Hear a Sample 

If you were murdered by a stranger, wouldn’t you want the chance to be able to come back and find out who killed you? And why?

J was born blind, but she could "see" things. Her gift has always helped the police find such things as missing persons, serial killers... a ghost or two.

Detective Kiel Stark has worked homicide for eight years, but he has never met this mysterious Seer his fellow officers claim could almost perform miracles. Not until a gruesome triple homicide has his superiors calling in the reserved woman to help with the case.

Now Stark is faced with a double threat. Not only is he finding himself dangerously attracted to the enigmatic beauty, but she could very well discover his own carefully guarded secret—a secret that could bring an end to his career, his way of life, and any future he had hoped to have.


Warning!  Contains disturbing images, the living dead, revenge gone wrong, drug deals gone bad, and two people facing an impossible love without any chance for a future. 

Excerpt and buy links.

EPIC eBOOK Award Finalist!

Veronica Scott's Lady of the Star Wind has been chosen as a Finalist in the EPIC eBook Awards for the scifi romance category. On sale now for $.99 to celebrate the award!

The story: 

Are they merely luckless lovers … or a legend come back to life?

Mark Denaltieri, ex-Sector Special Forces, has been hired by the Outlier Empress to rescue her granddaughter, Princess Alessandra, from kidnappers. Since the Empress once had him tortured and banished, she’s the last person Mark wants to work for. But he takes the job. He’ll save Alessandra, his first love, and discover why she didn’t speak for him when he desperately needed her. Then he’ll be on his way, finally free of his past.

Alessandra would rather her rescuer was anyone but Mark–after all, he let her believe he was dead all this time. But when the couple are forced to flee her captors by Traveling via a strange crystal globe, they find themselves in a lovely Oasis on a desert planet, the old attraction sizzling between them again.

They soon discover they are far from alone. The Oasis holds the entrance to another world, one in which the inhabitants are convinced Sandy and Mark are the Lady of the Star Wind and her Warrior, come to free them from an evil Queen.

Mark and Sandy must work together to unearth an ancient mirror, and crown the true king of this land.  Can they fulfill the prophecy of the Lady and her Warrior … and this time, will their love survive the test?

Buy Links:  iBooks     Amazon    KOBO     Barnes & Noble

There's More Than One Way to Enjoy Your Favorite Book

At some point, we all love to reread our favorite books. They're intellectual comfort food. We love to retreat back to the world the author created, and revisit the characters we connected with.

But there are times when picking up the book or ebook isn't convenient. Maybe you need to rest your eyes, but you want to be soothed, and de-stress. Something you know that tome has always helped you do.

Why not listen to the book?

An audio version of the book is almost as good as seeing your favorite become a movie. You can "hear" the characters come to life. You can live vicariously in the romance and adventure through the narrator. 

In a car, the miles will roll away. On a beach, you can escape the real world. In bed, in a comfortable chair, in the tub - slip on the headphones and let the words wash over you.

Oh, you say your favorite isn't available in audio book format? Contact the author and let them know!

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Now available as an audio book!

Beast of the Bayou
Sensuous Paranormal Romance
Narrated by Todd Van Linda
Length: 3 hrs. 58 min.

Click here for blurb, excerpt, and buy links.
Check out other audio books now available!

(Electro Voice - Vintage Microphone, found on Pinterest)

Can you hear me now?

So, that last novel you enjoyed - what did the characters sound like?

No, really - sit back and think about them for a moment. I don’t mean what did the author say they sounded like, i.e. the descriptions of the person’s pitch, tone or some special quality that made them stand out. What did the characters sound like to you?

Did you go by what the author said, imagining every defined nuance? Or did you defy the written word, and throw on a voice you preferred, instead - maybe a brogue, or some New York swagger? Did the characters default to stereotypical voices according to their assigned roles, heritage, or attitudes? Or maybe your favorite actors unwittingly stepped in to narrate your tale?

Speaking of narrators (huh! Ok, that was a horrible pun and segue), maybe you prefer audio books to print. Do you mentally assign a new voice to each character as they’re read, or do you allow the voice actor to do the lion’s share of the imaginative work? Do you find it hard to find a unique voice for each character once you’ve listened to the actor’s choice of accent, dialect or inflection?

Writers - how often do the voices of your characters shift while you're writing a book (if at all)? Would you be able to pick your characters out of a crowd if all you had to go on was a phrase, a shout, or a random musing? Have you ever disliked a character’s voice (and what happened when you tried to change it)? And if someone other than you recorded the audio book version of your novel, how did you feel about the choices the actor made for your characters? Would you have made different choices, had you been behind the mic?

Do tell!

 

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Natasha is the author of the Lost Souls Series - available at Carina Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes and Audible.

She tweets about her writing and related interests at http://twitter.com/natgreyangel, posts occasional videos at http://youtube.com/user/natashagreyangel, blogs at http://natashahoar.wordpress.com and last, but not least, can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AuthorNatashaHoar.

The Magic of the Audio Book: The Narrator

Lately, I’ve been sharing some thoughts and insights from the recording and release process for the audio book of my 2013 SFR Galaxy Award winning novel WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM. The wonderful actor who narrated the book for me – Michael Riffle – has been kind enough to be interviewed for my blog last week, and also provided a few new followup comments for Here Be Magic today about the audition process.

Authors and actors have a lot in common, I think – as writers we’re always risking rejection and bad reviews and so are they. We write the words, set the scene, create the characters and the actors breathe life into all of it. The first time I listened to Michael reading MY words, portraying Captain Nicholas “Nick” Jameson, I was literally spellbound. I’ve said before, I received many auditions for the book but no one was quite right until I heard Michael’s audition. From the first word, I knew the character was speaking to me.

During the two month recording process, we did e mail and tweet about some aspects of the book, and especially the pronunciations – the book is the book, we couldn’t revise what was published a year ago. But there were moments when I sure wanted to! Listening to the action as Michael brought it to life, I heard a few things my Editor and I both missed. Having all the characters and all the action made so vividly real as he narrated just did wonders for my creativity on the new book I was writing during this time frame too! A nice side effect.

So I asked Michael to share some insight into the audition process today and what led him to select WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM:

M: Well, I narrowed down my search for books to what would fit my abilities, and I thought to myself "What kind of genre am I feeling.... SciFi.  I love scifi, so lets see what we've got available".  Wreck was the first on the list, so I read the synopsis and two things really enticed me.  1 - Titanic in space.  There was a game I played with my sister when we were young called Starship Titanic which was (I think) written by Douglas Adams who is one of my favorites, so I made that connection and was already sold. (VS sez: I’d never heard of this game till now but it’s fascinating.) 2 - My mother's name is Veronica.  I thought 'It must be a sign!'.

The thing that I love most about auditioning for things from my own studio is that I can do as many takes as I want.  My usual preparation for a VO audition is to read the material once or twice for content, and then I just start recording on the off chance that I nail it on the first read.  With Wreck I think I did four full reads before I felt I'd gotten the right pacing.  Pacing is, I think, one of the hardest things when recording an audiobook.  It's very easy to fall into the trap of reading too quickly because I want to get to what happens next.  I get too into the story and start speeding up, so finding the right pace is really key.

For all the voice-over work I've done I always had the pages in advance and could record the audition at my own pace.  I get to read through it as many times as I want before submitting, but that can actually cause problems because of audition fatigue.  If I read the same page 15 times it's going to stop getting better after about the fourth read and start getting worse.  I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to voice-over which can become a huge problem when I listen to what I did and think "Hmm...  Not _quite_ right.  I'll do just _one_ more read".  I've done some auditions where (looking back on them) I'm pretty sure I could've booked them if I'd sent in my third take instead of my twenty-third.

If you’d like to hear more about the audition process from my point of view as the author, here’s my blog from yesterday. If you’d like to hear Michael read the sample at Audible.com (“Listen > Play Sample”  right below the cover art)….

WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM is available for kindle, as an audio book or a paperback at Amazon.