…FOR AUTHORS AND READER PALS:
…a wee update on my recently-hinted-at foray into the WURLD of Audio books for my Jack Calder crime thriller series:
…the first bold strides have been taken… Narrator Supreme, Master Chris C. Hogan, has provided the initial voice demos, and we are up and running… for any of yeez thinking of going the audio route with yer wee masterpieces, an interesting coupla initial observations on the process:
1. Jack Calder and the rest of the characters have been living in my head for the past ten years now, populating the narratives of five titles and a sixth, Work-in-Progress… little wonder, then, when I heard Chris’s version of their voices on the demo, they sounded like strangers to my ears, ‘coz I’ve been conversing with them all for a decade, and of course, their voices in my head are already established…
Major Lesson #1 : Instant realization that as many people who’ve kindly downloaded my books (over 100,000 of yeez), will equate to just as many different versions of the characters voices in their respective reading minds…
2. A wee while ago, I tried recording myself the first short chapter of one of my titles (not the one Chris is currently WURKING on), and I thought it sounded okay… but when Chris began speaking on his first demo to me, WOW! a whole new dimension kicked in… his experience in voice recording over forty years instantly brought a new vibrance to the narrative of THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY (we’re gonna start with the first title and see where that takes us)…
Major Lesson #2 : As the author, throw out any preconceived ideas of what yeez think it’s all supposed to sound like… stand back and let the professional get on with his WURK… the modulation, the accent, the tone, the pace, and especially the gritty ‘feel’ to the spoken book is a whole new universe… and I’m excited about it…
3. Most of my writing career for the past ten years has been as a self-publisher, and a good while back I came to realize that is largely down to my desire to have as much ‘control’ as I can muster on the whole ‘business of writing’, sum’thing I expound on quite a lot in my blogs…
Major lesson #3 : Even in these early days of coordination with Chris, that sense of ‘control’ is still absolute… Chris ‘gets’ what I’m looking for in the story… this evening we discussed, for example, that with over forty different speaking characters in the book, of which around five or six are main players, the rest appearing at random, there is no call for forty different speaking voices… most of the non-main voices are just part of the story… the lead voices are part of the drama and action parts… so at least that occurred to me instantly…
Major Lesson #4 : The fun, frisson, and excitement are as much alive in this process as they have been all throughout the ten-year journey so far… the first audio book version should be available before the end of the year… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!
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This is exciting, Seumas, and inspiring. Thanks for the major lessons. One of these days, I’m going to take the audio leap also…
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…I will continue to report on the process as we progress, m’Lady, Pamela …mwaaah 🙂
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Thank you for providing these tips and glimpses as to the new great adventure you’ve embarked upon. Now that I’ve finished experiencing and enjoying The Violin Man’s Legacy, I’m looking forward to doing the same with the audio version.
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…ultimately, when (not if!) it’s all done, I would seek to have all of my titles on audio as well as the current Kindle versions… cheeeeeers, that man, Russ 🙂
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Good luck, Seumas. I’ve had varying experiences with audio. Sometimes it has worked out well and others not so much, but it definitely changes one’s perspective (and even when you know your novel, it sounds so different!) Looking forward to the updates.
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…cheeeeeers , m’Lady, Olga …mwaaah 🙂
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Bravo!!! 😀
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…cheeeeeeers 🙂
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What an exciting development, Seumas – especially as audiobooks is still a growth area. I very much hope the project goes ahead and is successful:)
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…my measure of ‘success’ initially will be merely getting it ‘out there’ as an audio book… lets see what the Literary Gods hold in store thereafter, m’Lady, Sarah 🙂 mwaaah 🙂
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Of course:)). I think that’s all any of us can do…
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
Sage words from Seumas 😀
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…cheeeeeers, that man, Chris 🙂
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Welcome, Seumas 👍😃
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Reblogged this on When Angels Fly.
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…thanks for the reblog, m’Lady, Mary 🙂 mwaaaah 🙂
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Welcome Sir!
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or…. welcome, m’Lord.
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This is really interesting – I’m a big listener of audiobooks, but I never think of it from the perspective of the author, particularly in a book that is older.
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…onward and upward, m’Lady, Sarah 🙂
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This is a great share, Seumus. I can imagine experiencing all three of those discoveries and will remember the lessons when I jump into audio books. 🙂
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…cheeeeeeeers, mLady 🙂 🙂
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Reblogged this on Musings on Life & Experience and commented:
Seumas’s advice on auto publishing.
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Reblogged this on Author Don Massenzio and commented:
Seumas Gallacher is making the leap into audio publishing his work. Get the details from this post from his blog.
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Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
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