The Audiobook (part two)

Part Two of the audiobook chronicles.

I've been waiting to blog further about the audiobook until we had gotten further into the process.

Part One is here: https://ellenwritesdogs.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-audiobook.html

When I last posted about the audiobook, Casey Turner, my chosen narrator went off to read the book's PDF. (At that time, it still wasn't officially published yet and the ARCs were no longer the most recent version). Some time later, we met via a Google Hangouts video conference (highly recommended). Earlier, Casey explained to me how she handled differentiating the voices with a whole bunch of different highlighting over the PDF by using the iAnnotate app on her iPad. 

We spent a long time talking about the main characters voices and how they would be distinguished. (One male character very low, the other average. One female character relatively low and other other one a little higher but not much.) Also, how the dogs might sound and that I didn't want them to sound cutesy (she didn't either). The dogs' lines are very short and telepathic. What's tricky is that the dogs sound like what their person thinks they might sound like. 

We did have to talk about words and places that I had made up, like Choran or what does "pffft" sound like and do I really care about whether the "t" is pronounced. (I didn't. I wanted what works as a performance.) I studied directing in college, so I tend to look for talented people, and give them a lot of latitude. Given that I can't be there, I actually didn't have a lot of choice in that manner. I have to trust her judgement, which is just fine. If you don't trust the work of the people working for you, you will lose your mind. I assure you.

I did have her read to me some sections that were important to me. She kept telling me there was no way she could match what happens in the studio. I got that. I just wanted to get the idea and that was plenty, and I could tell that it was going to work well. 

In a later phone call, we went over one of the dog sections because it there was a lot of back and forth between a dog and his human in a very stressful situation. Listeners are going to be very opinionated about it, so I felt we had to do our best on it.

Then the studio worked out staffing and a schedule for recording. 
I had been referred to Casey and Bill (William Dufris)  the owner of Mind's Eye Productions (MindsEyeProductions.com, contact: wdufris@gmail.com), at the same time.
Bill's name should sound familiar. He was the voice of Bob-the-Builder and has narrated over 400 audiobooks including the marathon 42h43m Cryptonomicron (by Neil Stephenson).

Each audio book has a Producer, Engineer/Director, Narrator, and a Quality Control person.

Producer: William Dufris
Engineer/Director:  Karlyn Daigle
Narrator: Casey Turner
QC: Katie Flood

Big ginormous thanks go to Katie as she found an issue later in the book that two proofreaders and two editors missed.

It took two weeks to record (3 sessions per week, more than that kind-of thrashes the narrator's voice) and then a set of mp3s (one per chapter) was sent to me for review. I then spent a solid weekend listening to the book with the book's PDF in front of me and I got to fill out a proof sheet with any corrections. The reason it's important to work out in advance on what you think a character should sound like is that I don't get to say I don't like a character interpretation. What I get to write down is errors in deviation from the text, or to fix the book's editorial errors/changes, or if I hear something weird (I didn't - it was already proofed), and I've asked for a couple of shouted words to be louder.

Now it will go back in for this last fix-it session and then it will get sent to me again.

The Audiobook (part one)

I'm a huge audiobook fan, so I've always wanted to coordinate creating one.

Audiobooks are not yet a She Writes Press thing, but they were kind enough to put on a presentation by Michele Cobb, who does audiobook marketing for Forte Business Consulting, and Audible narrator Tavia Gilbert.I learned a lot from it and later contacted them both directly. I wound up hiring Michele for some marketing mostly because I needed her advice.

From those contacts, they gave me names of other narrators and I went through their samples on Audible. I came up with a list of four who I wanted to hear more from and contacted them all separately.

I then looked through my book and found a short two page chapter that had five of the main characters talking. While my book does not involve other languages, or different sounding accents, it does have over ten distinct voices, so it is not a beginner narrator book by any standard.

Some basics to keep in mind. 
 - Audiobooks are billed "Per Finished Hour" (PFH).
 - There are aprox. 9300 words per hour. (9000-9500 is the actual range).
 - Every narrator uses a different PFH rate. $250-$500 more than covers the ranges I was quoted.
 - Most narrators these days have their own studios or producers that they work with. For the business nuts and bolts, you will be talking with the producer or the narrator.
 - The roles involved are narrator, producer, sound engineer/director, and Quality Control (QC) person. All of this is covered in the PFH rate.

I contacted my narrators directly through referral email. Your experience may vary. You can also contact audiobook studio instead, but I am more comfortable starting with the narrators.

So the narrators all gave me a short audition of the piece that I chose, which is Chapter 13 where Harris is scolding them for not actually successfully obtaining DNA samples.

Now it was time to agonize. There were pros and cons to all of them and each time I played them, I felt differently. I played them for my copy-editor and she picked two that worked well for her and told me to pick from there. After a lot of debate I went with a narrator who wasn't as well-known on Audible (hence not as immediately recognizable), but has immense talents as an actor and is moving more into voiceover work. She's also really easy for me to work with, and handles the range of voices well, and swears she is not considering a career change any time soon (this is a series, so it's an important question for me.)

Talented narrators can handle all the voices in your book. You are not required to cast multiple voiceover artists though you certainly could if you wished to set a lot of money on fire. If you have a book as all encompassing as "The Help", then certainly consider multiple cast member, but it will cost you.

Now the talking stage begins, as I and the narrator (I'll name her later in the process) hash out what each character sounds like - some of them I have opinions on what they should sound like, others I am leaving up to her. She is off reading the book, and I am coming up with short character sketches of several of the characters for her.

So far, this has been the most enjoyable part of the publishing experience.