A few weeks ago, Drew and I finished narrating the audiobook 125 Ways to Meet the Love of Your Life by Dr. Jan Yager. If I were single and hoping the meet the right person, I would buy this audiobook in heartbeat!
Once we finished the production, we were inspired to create a 2:28 video to describe how we met in the style of the interviews from the popular movie When Harry Met Sally. Enjoy!
June is Audiobook Month! To celebrate, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) kicked off a video campaign titled “A Good Audiobook Speaks Volumes” in which authors and narrators share why we #LoveAudiobooks!
I had such fun in creating this 2:01 video, which premiered today on the Audiobook Community Facebook page. I hope you enjoy it! If you also love audiobooks, please tell me your favorite audiobook in the comments. I’m always searching for my next good listen! 🙂
Last Monday was Ladies’ Night on the East West Audio Body Shop (EWABS) show! On 22 June 2015, I was excited to be a guest on the show and talk with hosts George Whittam and Dan Lenard about my favorite thing — AUDIOBOOKS!
My narrator colleagues Hillary Huber and Ann M. Richardson and publisher Carlyn Craig, founder of Post Hypnotic Press, joined me as guests.
In our 1.5 hours on the show, we covered a variety of topics of interest to both new and experienced narrators.
At one point, I compared the job of audiobook narrator to that of a baseball player. I summarized my thoughts in the graphic below.
Howdy, pardner! Welcome to my first stray post roundup! I don’t always confine my writing to this blog, and some of my critters have wandered off hither and yon across the ‘Net. I thought I’d rein ’em in here in case you missed seeing them.
In this roundup, I’ll link to my new magazine column and responses posted on other sites about my thoughts on setting boundaries in your voiceover business, how audiobooks allow you to read more books, which audiobooks about technology are best, and whether to read fiction or non-fiction. I’ll also unveil my latest video, which shows how to use the iAnnotate app during the audiobook corrections process.
In writing a response on author Elizabeth Spann Craig’s blog about tips for success on ACX.com, I realized I had been remiss in adding my latest video to my own blog!
Last fall, I spoke at the Georgia Romance Writers annual conference to help authors get started with creating audiobooks. I recently created a 41-minute video from that presentation which:
If you have questions or comments about the video or the audiobook production process, please leave a note for me on the blog!
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.
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
