So, I’ve been cooking up a little something with the guidance of my fellow author Martin Wilsey. I’m in the process of getting all my published works available as audiobooks, an endeavor I hope to have complete by the end of the year. Of course, everything sounds better if it has a cool codename, so this is…Operation Soundstorm.
I’m calling this Phase 1, which will cover all the books I currently have in print except for the anthologies I’ve produced. Upcoming audiobooks include:
- Bitter Days – A Fantasy/Mystery in my Thousand Kingdoms series.
- An Unlikely Hero – A Fantasy/Inspirational story.
- The Whispering Voice – A Fantasy/Crime story.
- Clash by Night – An SF heist novel set in my Inflection Point universe.
- Road Trip – My twisted, humorous take on an urban fantasy.
- The Rooftop Game – A Fantasy/Bodyguard thriller set in my Thousand Kingdoms series.
Phase 2 will occur in 2024 and will include at least the following stories (and probably more):
- Death Comes to Town – An SF/Crime story set in my Thousand Kingdoms series.
- Dustbowl Detective – An SF/Mystery set in my Inflection Point universe.
- Invisible – A sequel to Jonelle Crosse, set in my Thousand Kingdoms series.
- The Jakarta Breach – A Mystery/Thriller set in my Inflection Point universe.
- Jonelle Crosse – A Fantasy/Mystery set in my Thousand Kingdoms series.
I’m really excited at the prospect of being able to roll out my stories as audiobooks. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.
In discussion with several of my fellow writers, I decided what the first audio projects out of the 6 stories for 2023 will be. For a male narrator, it will be “Clash by Night.” And for a female narrator, it will be “Bitter Days.” I will be proceeding with the narrator interviewing process next on ACX. Wish me luck!
Well, the next step turned out to be getting set up on ACX, the audio platform owned by Amazon. At this point, I’ve created my account, claimed my books from the Amazon ecosystem, and set up the usual banking details required by the site.
Next up, I’m creating sample scripts for “Clash by Night” and “Bitter Days.” They’ll be representative of the stories, including difficult details like Section headings, chapter quotes, etc. Interviewees will record these samples as an example of their skills and send them to me through the ACX interface.
I’m starting off with “Bitter Days.” I’ve created an audition script, which is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of the story. It’s slightly modified from the actual content to showcase the following elements: 1) A chapter title, 2) An epigraph, which is a quote that starts the chapter, 3) Dialogue between two characters, an adult and the 10-year-old protagonist, and 4) emotional content. As advised by Martin Wilsey, it’s a sample that illustrates the range that a narrator must accomplish in order to successfully do the book.
Next challenge. I need a cover image for the audiobook. Minimum size is 2400×2400. Format can be JPG, PNG, or TIFF. 72 dpi or better. Must include the title and author(s). And the name should be the condensed title of the book, i.e. – no spaces, dashes, underscores, etc.
Right. Thanks to the above comments, I noticed that the timezone wasn’t set properly for this site. I just went into the Dashboard to fix this.
All right, as of today, I have two square cover images for the first two books that will be done as audiobooks. I’ll start off with “Bitter Days,” which will have a female narrator. As soon as that is fully rolling, i.e. – the narrator is selected and has started work on the production, I’ll start the selection process for the narrator of the second book. That will, of course, be “Clash by Night,” with a male narrator. It’s also the longest, and possibly the hardest, of the six stories planned for my initial batch of audiobooks.
In an interesting twist, I’m looking at recording the Author’s Afterward for each of my books myself. At Martin Wilsey’s advice, I’ve downloaded and am currently experimenting with Audacity, an open source audio editing tool