Audio Books

     At last my publisher has given its authors a chance to get their books recorded. I really wish this had happened when my mother was still alive as I dedicated Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball, one of my best, to her. By the time the book was in print she'd developed macular degeneration and could no longer read, one of her main pleasures gone. But, to be honest, she couldn't hear either and would never admit it, so an audio would have done no good at all. Still when I got the news, I put Queen at the top of my list. It's a fan favorite along with Trashy Affair and my Sinners books.
     Obviously, I couldn't choose all of my twenty books in print.  I asked my readers to help me select, and in addition to Trashy decided on the first Sinners book, Goals for a Sinner, and the second Mardi Gras book, Mardi Gras Madness. After making the selections came the contract extension on these books for seven years. No problem there. New York isn't knocking on my door. This is evidently required by ACX, Amazon's audio arm. Recently, that giant purchased Audible, a big name in audio, so one in the same now.
     Next step, to fill in an audio spec sheet. Not too hard until you get to the sample to be read by potential narrators. I misread the instructions as a maximum of 2,000 words and couldn't figure out why only a few paragraphs showed up on my form. Ah-ha! That was 2,000 characters including spaces, sort of a Tweet sample. The instructions urge you to include both dialog and description, a lot to fit in that small space. After some frustration, I expanded the teaser scenes in the front of my books a bit and went with those.
     These scenes are now put out on a call for narrator. I'd guess some are not chosen, another reason to submit four. They do a reading of the sample which is passed through the publisher to the author to accept or reject. If rejected, another narrator gets a chance. I did note my pet peeve--that of giving people in Cajun country where most of my books take place a twang or a drawl. Really, we speak standard English around here unless older and have a Cajun accent which is not easy to do. My dialog will give the narrator some hints on how to do dat, no? Forgot to tell them my last name is pronounced Sher, not Sure. Somewhere along the line, it lost its German umlaut.
     Once the narrator is contracted for presumably a percentage of the profits, we come to the hard part, listening to the whole book for corrections exactly like a galley. I write long most times. Only Goals is a short book. I can just see me now frantically writing down every mispronounced Cajun name or word in a 100,000 word book. But, that is way off in the future if any of my chosen books fly.
      If anyone out there is jealous of this opportunity, don't be. I believe any indie writer can strike up the same deal with ACX. My audio rights belong to my publisher and so must go through them. They get a cut, Amazon gets a cut, the narrator gets a cut--and I get the thrill of having my books on audio. Not being sarcastic here. I'll let you know how the rest of the process goes as it is a long one. If any of my books comes out on audio some time next year, you will definitely hear about it.
     I hope this information is useful to all who read my blog occasionally, including that one hit in Kazakhstan. I've had readers all over the world, but this is a new one. Enjoy!