Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Audiobooks

How I Started My Audiobook Publishing Company

During the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, I started seeing this wonderful ad from Dell, titled “Beginnings”:

Perhaps it caught my attention because I have my own story about the quiet beginnings for a new business:

Date: 10/6/06
Time: 10:10am
Place: 10634, the cabin number of a cruise ship docked in Mykonos, Greece

Becoming an audiobook publisher has been a rough road, full of potholes, downed trees, and diverging paths that didn’t necessarily lead me in the direction I wanted to go. Only by trudging forward and refusing to give up was I able to eventually reach the destination.

I offer this post as a road map for becoming an audiobook publisher on ACX with a public domain book. If you want to publish a book still under copyright, you may want to skip down to the end for more information.

Initial Obstacles

I recently wrote about how ideas love speed. I did take several immediate actions 7.5 years ago when I had the idea to create an audiobook publishing company. I read several books that hadn’t been made into audiobooks and contacted the authors about obtaining the audio rights.

One author was interested, but the idea seemed to be squelched by her agent’s lawyers, who were reluctant to be involved with a start-up. Another author wanted to narrate her book. It took her several more years, but I see on Audible that she did narrate her audiobook. A third author was someone rather famous. I didn’t receive a response to my inquiries, but I see that her book is now on Audible, too. Perhaps I gave her the idea.

Life intervened. With the loss of my mother and changes on my day job, I put my dream of becoming an audiobook publisher on the shelf. While ideas love speed, some ideas can’t be implemented immediately and often take years to develop.

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

— Victor Hugo

With the advent of ACX, I knew that I could finally see this idea through to fruition!

Rather than start with a book from a contemporary author as I originally envisioned, I decided to start Jewel Audiobooks with what I thought would be a simpler project:  a book from the public domain (PD).

On 1 January 2013, I decided to publish the audiobook of The Heart of the New Thought by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, originally published in 1903. I wanted to produce a shorter work that would be new to audio and had a message I want to share. I often find myself in conversations about the power of our thoughts and words, so this little volume seemed perfect.

[Read more…] about How I Started My Audiobook Publishing Company

Fall 2013 Audiobook Releases

Kitty Kitty Bang Bang. the third audiobook in Sparkle Abbey’s Pampered Pets series, is now available!

If you like fun, cozy mysteries and/or light-hearted stories about pets, you will really enjoy this book!

Caro Lamont is a pet therapist in Laguna Beach, CA. Her next-door neighbor Kitty Bardot is the publicist to the stars and owner of 2 Bengal cats who paint. Yes, you read it right!

When Kitty Bardot is killed on the way home from the cats’ art exhibition, Caro is left to follow the clues. Meanwhile, one of Carol’s clients is also found dead, and Caro is trying to figure out the cause of both murders.

This was a fun book to read, and I’m looking forward to recording book 4, Yip/Tuck.


 
I also want to announce an audiobook I directed: Plague by Buzz Bernard, narrated by Drew Commins.

This gripping thriller is about a lone-wolf terrorist who plans to unleash the Ebola virus in Atlanta. The horrific descriptions of how the virus ravages its victims are definitely NOT what you want to hear at bedtime!

CDC virologist Dr. Dwight Butler finds instances of the virus at local hospitals and begins a frantic search to find the source before a terrible pandemic can occur.

Meanwhile, Richard Wainwright, interim CEO of BioDawn, learns that the plane crash that killed all of the company’s executives may be tied to the threat. He is stalked by a hit woman and becomes the main suspect in the murder of his assistant.

Buzz Bernard is a former weather forecaster who lives nearby, and we particularly enjoyed his unique and clever metaphors to weather terms throughout the story. Also, since we’re both Atlanta natives, we appreciated the accuracy of his references to the places around town.

While this is Drew’s first solo narration, he is no stranger to audiobooks! He has directed all of my audiobooks and voiced the male characters in our super fun Blue Suede Memphis cozy mysteries. Switching roles for this book gave us a great appreciation for the different skills required in our normal capacities!

This audiobook is 9 hours and 41 minutes and is sure to make you break out in a sweat (and start looking over your shoulder) on these cold days!


 
My latest release id Dirty Harriet by Miriam Auerbach, the first book in a funny chick lit series.

Former Boca Babe Harriet “Dirty Harriet” Horowitz is now a Biker Babe. Go ahead. Make her day.

“Dirty Harriet” had it all. Money. Plastic Surgery. Servants. Then her husband raised his fist one time too many, and she shot and killed him.

Now, she lives in the South Florida swamps, rides a Harley, and owns a private eye agency to investigate scams. When the Countess von Phul asks her to solve a murder, will Harriet escape with her life?

I had a great time narrating this book and was delighted to receive a lovely note from the author, quoted here with her permission:

Just recently had the chance to finish listening to your narration of my book and would like to give you a big THANK YOU!  I am so delighted with your voices!  I will say that Lana the alligator was my favorite voice.  Pitch-perfect, as they say.  You really captured that gator’s attitude!


 

Advice to the Love-Shorn Recorded for Going Public Project

Advice to the Love Shorn, where celebrity characters dish about their relationships!

Today’s topic: How a Heroine Can Beat Up Thugs Without Emasculating Her Man

Author Melissa F. Miller, who writes the Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller series for which I narrate the audiobooks, recently posted this blurb on Facebook:
The always-entertaining Barbara Silkstone invites Sasha, of all people, to give relationship advice on her blog: 

http://barbswire-ebooksandmore.blogspot.com/p/advice-to-love-shorn.html

Luckily, the recipient of said advice is also a fictional character. 🙂

When I read this delightful interview between 2 heroines, I thought the audiobook narrators of these 2 series should get in on the fun and bring our characters to life!

Meiissa loved the idea and gave me permission to narrate her words, so I contacted Nicole Colburn, narrator of the Wendy Darlin Tomb Raider series. Nicole and author Barbara Silkstone also were very enthusiastic about Nicole voicing Wendy’s parts. My husband, director, and fellow narrator Drew Commins plays the emcee, Kraft Masterson.

The Wendy Darlin Tomb Raider series written by Barbara Silkstone and narrated by Nicole Colburn is available at Audible at this link.

The Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller series written by Melissa F. Miller and narrated by Karen Commins is available on Audible at this link.


 

The Ole Miss Hotty Toddy Cheer

A friend’s daughter has recently started college. She’s living on campus, which is something I didn’t do. In fact, she traveled around to universities in several states to pick the right campus for her.

 

I only applied to one college and commuted here in Atlanta. While I got a great education and never regretted my choice, hearing about this girl’s experiences both in picking and living at college have made me think about things I may have missed in my college years.

 

One thing I missed was going to football games. My college didn’t have a football team. I had played piccolo in high school marching band and would have enjoyed playing in the band on college football Saturdays.

 

A big advantage to being an audiobook narrator is that I can vicariously live through other people, even when they are fictional characters. For instance, in the fun, cozy Dixie Diva mysteries,  Trinket Truevine, the first person narrator, and her cousin/best friend Bitty Hollandale went to Ole Miss. In fact, the latest book in the series Divas and Dead Rebels revolves around a dead professor on campus.

 

In one scene, the ladies attend a tailgating party at The Grove. I decided to make a video of that scene for an audiobook trailer and was thrilled to do the Hotty Toddy cheer for Ole Miss right along with some students!

 

 

FAMILY LIMITATION Recorded for Banned Book Week 2013

Earlier this week, Xe Sands, fellow audiobook narrator and founder of the Going Public Project, posted about Banned Books Week, which this year is 22-28 September. She said that Going Public would have a special posting tomorrow, 27 September, of banned books.

 

Excited by this idea, I spent a few hours searching through lists of banned books on numerous web sites to find something I wanted to record. I was amazed to see the broad range of banned and challenged books, including a long list of classical titles. People complain about and attempt to censor material for a variety of reasons.

 

Many of these books are still under copyright, so I can’t record them. However, I found a historic and significant pamphlet that is directly connected to my life today:  Margaret A. Sanger’s FAMILY LIMITATION, first published in 1914.

 

You see, I am child-free by choice. I am grateful to live in a time period where I not only can make that choice but have immediate access to information about birth control and appropriate medical care.

 

If I had lived 100 years ago, though, it would have been extremely difficult for me to learn how I could prevent pregnancy. In my research, I learned about the Comstock Law of 1873. The Comstock Law (the Federal Anti-Obscenity Act) banned the mailing of material considered to be “lewd”. “indecent”, “filthy”, or “obscene”. It also forbade distribution of birth control information.

 

My research led me to a fascinating blog devoted to Margaret Sanger’s work and papers. In this interesting article, I learned Sanger was a nurse in the NY slums who believed that women had a right to know about their reproductive health. She first published her pamphlet in 1914.

 

The next year, her husband was jailed for distributing this pamphlet which describes and advocates various methods of contraception. Sanger fled the country to avoid prosecution. When she returned, she started the American Birth Control League, which merged with other groups to become Planned Parenthood.

 

In 2012, the Library of Congress included Sanger’s pamphlet in its exhibit of Books that Shaped America. This exhibit featured 88 works that shaped American life and thought.

 

For these reasons, I am very proud to present the entire recording of the FAMILY LIMITATION pamphlet (sixth edition, published in 1917) by Margaret A. Sanger in celebration of Banned Books Week.

 

 

Mainstream Media Articles on Audiobook Boom

Mainstream journalists have recently learned what I’ve known for years — Audiobooks are cool! Listed below are several extensive articles from recent months about the public’s increasing demand for audiobooks that you may have missed:

On 8/23/13, one author detailed her experience in recording her book in The Atlantic. The responses to her Goodreads post publicizing the article were quite illuminating.

Reading by ear: Audiobook fans multitask while listening to spoken word in the Detroit Free Press 9/8/13 (also appeared in USA Today)

The New Explosion in Audio Books in the Wall Street Journal 8/1/13

How Amazon Became the King of Audiobooks in The Atlantic 7/16/13

Actors Today Don’t Just Read for the Part. Reading IS the Part in the New York Times 6/29/13