When I got back from Stonecoast, as I said, I jumped right into recording the audiobook. Despite my podcasting experience, I went to a professional studio locally and recorded. Because of my schedule (childcare after school, etc) I can only record for five hours, and I discovered that my voice pretty much gives out after five hours anyway. It’s grueling to be “on” for that long, hard on the voice and strangely exhausting. Because of the schedule, I had less than a week to get it done, and had to go in on the weekend.
I don’t do voices or accents, frankly I’m afraid of either a) forgetting a specific vocal trait of a character, or b) butchering an accent. I haven’t heard anyone complain about this yet, but now that I’m doing this on a “professional” basis, at least for my own books, I’m feeling a bit behind the curve of narration skill. If I work on another one book, I’ll likely see if I can work on some vocal tics to distinguish characters, if not outright accents.
But for an untrained person, a “slight Irish lilt” as this damnable author wrote, is something that could easily go down in flames.
There of course is the downside of a pro-grade audio setup catching every stomach gurgle, spit bubble pop, and the brush of clothing as I reach up to turn a page. Redoing a take because of those things is just maddening.
So yesterday I did all the requested edits, and hopefully am done now. I will be doing a podcast of this one, too, but unlike the first one, the print book will be coming out first, and the podcast a few months later. But you can purchase the print, the ebook, or just get the whole audiobook at once.
Tomorrow: events of the next 30 days!
Ghost Train to New Orleans – Out March 4
The very first Captain Spaulding recipe test has been recorded by the awesome Scott Sigler (author of new SF/Horror/thriller, PANDEMIC). He was kind enough to post his thought on his blog, along with a picture and audio. So I’m stealing both. HAHAHA SCOTT.
