Part 2
You can find Part 1 here.
There's a place on the main ACX webpage where you can go searching for producers (narrators). You have to put in information about the book like your genre, region, male, female, young, etc. Then your search will provide you with the names and audio samples that you can go through.At this point, I hadn't yet listened to the book that made me seek out the producer I went after.
Now, if you've never listened to audiobooks yourself, you might not have much experience with them. I think it wouldn't hurt to give some a try. I'll bet your local library has a collection, and I would ask your librarian to make suggestions about good narrators.
What are some things that were important to me?
How the male producer does female voices.
I know there are some ways of reading that I don't like. I love how Jim Dale did the Scholastic version of the Harry Potter series. His Snape and Dumbledore ... amazing. I wasn't a fan of the way he did Hermione. So, I wanted a male producer who wouldn't do the book's women high pitched and irritating.
Can the producer do decent accents?
Can the producer do decent accents?
An audiobook is a performance. It is not turning on the read feature on your Kindle with that horrible, mechanical voice. In my opinion, it should be a way to enhance the story experience and not just be a faster way to get through the book. Torn Canvas has people from different races and parts of the world. I wanted someone who could make listening to the book be more real.
There were other things, but one important one I didn't even think about until I was deep into the process. I'll talk about that next time.
I found one narrator that I thought would work and asked him to audition. Even though he'd come up on my list for my genre, he said didn't think he could do a romance. Well, Torn Canvas isn't a romance but it does have a strong romantic element, so okay.
The good thing is that I'd just listened to a book, and I LOVED the narrator. Seriously, he became my dream narrator for this book.
I contacted to author, and she told me how to send him a request to audition. And he said YES. Proof positive that sometimes an initial no is a good thing.
This was last August. My narrator's only challenge was the he had some other commitments that he had to finish before he could begin mine.
Next week, the process of audiobook production.
There were other things, but one important one I didn't even think about until I was deep into the process. I'll talk about that next time.
The good thing is that I'd just listened to a book, and I LOVED the narrator. Seriously, he became my dream narrator for this book.
I contacted to author, and she told me how to send him a request to audition. And he said YES. Proof positive that sometimes an initial no is a good thing.
This was last August. My narrator's only challenge was the he had some other commitments that he had to finish before he could begin mine.
Next week, the process of audiobook production.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
If you missed out, don't forget there's a huge book promotion going on right now. Great opportunity to stock up on your summer reads. Click here.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What have I been reading? Well, it's actually listening to.
What do I think?
It's a cute and clever story. I'm at the stage where the silly stuff they do to convince the other are making me crazy, but the story's getting even more fun the farther in I get.
What did you do this weekend? I was at a writers retreat.
