Summer Series #3: Chapter One!

Hello, everyone!

Alright, here we go. My voice is fully recovered, I have even more towels in my closet, and we are really cooking with gas now! xD

Today I’m sharing Chapter One with you so you can see how it sounds so far (especially in comparison to the Prologue a few weeks ago). My little studio is pretty well set, I think, but now I’ve run into a new problem: me.

I actually really love reading out loud. This is something that would have been unthinkable to me just a few years ago! But when I write, I have a definite voice in my head, so doing inflections is no problem. The problem I’ve run into is, how much “character voice” do I want to do aside from the basic grammatical stuff?

My informal little survey on the subject was pretty clear:

(Bonus points if you can guess which of the rogue responses came from my scholarly husband “helping,” haha.)

My previous experience of listening to audiobooks is almost exclusively from a romance podcast (shout out Read Me Romance!) so I’m very familiar with the idea that, when you have one narrator and two points of view, the narrator pitches their voice higher or lower as needed. In my experimental indie way, I figured I’d give it a try, and it’s been interesting so far . . .

. . . I’m sort of proud of my efforts, honestly, but the unexpected trouble is making sure I keep the voices consistent.

This strikes me as something that a professional actor/narrator would have down pat. But as an incorrigible amateur, I hadn’t even considered that problem!

In any case, that’s why you’re getting Chapter One today, from Mel’s point of view (also because it, you know, comes first!). I’m still working on the male part, Ryuko. I’ve recorded the first six chapters, but I have a feeling the best thing to do will be to push forward, get in the practice, and then go back and re-record as needed. It’s not in any way efficient, but hey, the point of this was to learn. ;)

I have to say, sharing these recordings is activating my internal “stage fright,” a little bit—but also, I’ve been writing this now as I give Chapter One a final listen, and I am pleased to realize how much I really enjoy listening to the story. <3

I promised to share the books I’ve been using as guides! All three of these books are slim little volumes, very practical, and available on bookshop.org. In no particular order:

• How to Make an Audiobook (for Amazon, Audible, and iTunes), by Stephanie J. Hale. This one’s from 2021 (the dates are always important to consider!) and the author is UK-based, but the advice has been very useful (this is where the garden umbrella idea came from, haha).

• The Audiobook Book: An audiobook production guide for indie authors & narrators, by Renea Mason, Noah Michael Levine, and Erin deWard, 2016. This one’s a little older, but it’s full of really honest personal experiences from the three authors.

• The Independent Author’s Guide to Successful Audiobook Production: A professional narrator’s secrets for ACX success, by Michael Burnette, 2016. This is the slimmest of the three and written with a very no-nonsense bit of humor.

Honestly all three books cover pretty much the same stuff (which is all the basics—great!) and don’t seem to disagree too much with each other (yet), so I could recommend any one of them. I got all three because they were little, not too expensive, I like research, and I was nervous so I wanted to be really sure I did things right. ;)