Creating an Audiobook: The Easy, the Challenging, and the Unknown

By Tracy Weber

I’ve been clamoring for an audiobook version of my Downward Dog Mystery Series since before the first book came out.  Unfortunately, my agent was unable to find a buyer for the audio rights to the series, so I recently self-published the audio version of my first book, Murder Strikes a Pose using ACX, an audiobook self-publishing platform.

The process was simultaneously easier and more challenging than I could have imagined. For those considering the same path, here are some of my learnings.

Let’s start with the easy:

·        The ACX process.  ACX breaks the process of creating an audiobook into a few easy steps:

1.      Set up an account.

2.      Make sure you have rights to the title.  (If you’re traditionally published like I am, check your contract.)

3.      Create an audition script. (That’s a blog article all by itself.)

4.      Post the title and script on the ACX site for audition. Interested narrators (producers) submit audition recordings based on your script. You can either offer producers a set dollar amount per finished hour or a royalty split.

5.      Make an offer to your favorite producer.  This includes both agreeing to a schedule and contract terms. The contract template is provided by ACX, which I found super helpful.

6.      Start production. ACX recommends approval after the first fifteen minutes have been recorded and then again after the entire work is complete.  I chose a different process.  (See below.)

7.      Upload a cover

8.      Finish production and submit to ACX for quality review.

9.      Start selling.

Kind of reminds me of a Staples button.  Wow, that was easy!

Well, not exactly …

Now for the Challenging:

·        Hiring the right producer.  If you’re a fan of audiobooks, you know that the narrator makes or breaks the listening experience, perhaps even more than the writing. Some authors choose to read their own books, but I wanted to use a professional. I assumed hiring a producer wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

I was wrong.

Recording an audiobook is a ton of work; doing it on a royalty split, a huge gamble. I didn’t get a single audition for the first two weeks. Week three, auditions started trickling in.  Most potential narrators used soothing, yoga voices. My protagonist, Kate, may teach yoga, but she’s spunky!  Yoga voice would never do. 

One narrator was quite talented, but she could only speak with a British accent. Kate is a Pacific Northwest girl through and through.  I was about to give up when I received an audition from Anne James.  I knew she was right for Kate the minute I heard her.  I made an offer, she accepted, and off we went!

Whew!

·        Creating the cover. I thought creating the cover would be a no-brainer, and it sure started out that way. My publisher kindly granted me cover rights, as long as I got permission from the artist.  She agreed, but for a fee that was, to be honest, way too expensive for an unproven audiobook. 

Still, covers are important and I love my cover art, so I paid it. The dimensions needed to be changed, so my husband spent a few hours massaging the original artwork until we created the cover below.  It’s pretty cool, don’t you think?

 

·        Finding the time. My narrator was wonderful to work with.  Simply wonderful. She recorded a chapter at a time, then sent it to me for review. I listened to it once or twice, wrote up feedback, and sent it back to her for revision.

Ana pup waiting for me to stop working and play with her.

Sometimes a chapter was perfect on the first take. Most times, however, we had to do two or three versions.  The finished product is a little over eight hours, but I spent approximately twenty hours listening to the recordings. Add the time spent thinking and typing up feedback, and pretty soon I’d used up a pretty big chunk of my puppy’s playtime.

And the unknown.

Hello, is anybody out there?

·        Where are the listeners? I’ve spent a lot of time building the audience for my series, and I’m learning more about book promotion every day. An audiobook is proving to be a whole different animal, however. I joined groups, arranged blog tours, held launch parties, and offered giveaways.

I’ve definitely sold copies, and I hope to sell more.  As I write this, the audiobook has 49 reviews which are generally quite positive. But audiobook promotion has its own unique challenges, and frankly I’ve stumbled up against most of them.  Still, I’m learning as I go and am optimistic about the future.

Finally, the question my fellow authors might be asking:

·        Would I do it again?  The answer is a definite yes.  Anne and I are currently working on Book 2 of the series, A Killer Retreat.  We don’t have a launch date yet, but hopefully we will soon. Stay tuned!
 

To enter to win a copy of your choice of my Downward Dog Mysteries, please comment with the answer to one or more of these questions:

1.      Do you listen to audiobooks?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

2.      How do you learn about the audiobooks you purchase?

3.      If you’ve produced an audiobook, what advice would you give to me and my readers? 

Comment with one or more answers by midnight on Sunday, April 2 to be entered in the drawing.  Be sure to include your e-mail address (i.e. Tracy(at)WholeLifeYoga(dot)com) so I can contact you if you win.  Good luck!

Tracy Weber

All four books in the Downward Dog Mystery Series are available at booksellers everywhere!
  

Coming in Hot

Eileen here! I'm in the last stages of finishing a book, which is good since it's due in about two weeks. I'm a little farther behind than I'd like to be, but it's all still doable while still taking the occasional shower and eating something besides potato chips and M&Ms.

There's a wonderful kind of madness for me at this point in a book. It's all coming together. In fact, most of the scenes are written. Unfortunately, they're not in order and there are damn few transitions from one scene to the next and there are also those scenes that are all dialogue between characters without tags or descriptions. It always reads like it's two people talking in a white room with no furniture. Still I get a little elated when I realize what scene needs to come next and that I've already written it. It's just a matter of finding it in my crazy long document and plunking it into place. And getting my heroine there and making sure she looks like something and is wearing clothes and stuff. And that she moves something besides her eyebrows and shoulders (seriously, what is my obsession with people furrowing brows, raising eyebrows, and shrugging?).

Sometimes I'll look up at the end of a day writing and feel like I've been driving at breakneck speeds over winding roads with my hair on fire. It's that kind of experience as I negotiate red herrings and plot twists and placing clues and emotional development in my character and establishing the little town she lives in and and and . . .

So wish me luck! I'm going in and I'm going in hot.

Gazing Out Windows in Ireland and on the Novel Page

By Lisa Alber

My morning writing spot at the B&B.

St. Patrick's Day is coming up, and it's reminding me that a year ago I was in County Clare, Ireland. I spent three glorious weeks performing novel research, hanging out in pubs, and writing all morning long in the sunny breakfast room at my B&B. 

PATH INTO DARKNESS, the third County Clare mystery, comes out in August, and it takes place at this time of year, in the weeks leading up to and just after Easter. This was why I chose to go to Ireland in the spring. Spring is amazing there, rainy to be sure, but so changeable. The cloud formations, rain, even snow!, warmth, sun, rainbows, wind. Three weeks is enough to see the change in a season, and every morning I looked out the big picture windows and noticed daffodils, the arrival of magpies, not to mention the neighborhood farmer who always waved as he drove past on his tractor. 

One of the themes of PATH INTO DARKNESS is resurrection, so Easter time is a fitting time of year in which to set the book, eh? By resurrection, I mean by means of healing -- emotional healing, psychological healing, spiritual healing, physical healing. I didn't set out to do this, but once I noticed that the novel was leading me in this direction, I paid attention to it.

Here's a small snippet that I wrote while I was Ireland last year:

Once again, Merrit surveyed the world from her bedroom window. Watching the weather had become part of her morning routine, similar to reading her horoscope when she was a kid. Today a hulking grey mass of cloud floated north, taking its rain with it. In its wake, sunshine streaked through lighter fluffy clouds and a rainbow grew out of the ground in an iridescent arc. A flock of starlings swirled like an airborne school of fish and settled on a telephone line while lambs bleated for their ewe mamas in the neighbor’s field. Spring had truly arrived. She decided to consider this a sign of a good day to come.

And here's one of many hilarious things about writing: Sometimes we insert ourselves into the stories without realizing it. In the first draft, Merrit, for example, looked out windows a lot. This was me transcribing my experience in the breakfast room watching the weather and spring's arrival. During revisions, I realized that, story-wise, Merrit's behavior made sense because of the growing pangs she's going through as a relative newcomer to Ireland. Here's another passage that elucidates her state of mind.

Hello, morning. Merrit plowed fingers through her hair and shuffled to her bedroom window. A haze of rain obscured the view of Mullaghamore and the countryside. She always seemed to be looking out windows. Her new pastime, watching the world from afar.

“Fantastic,” she mumbled.

A depressing realization first thing in the morning. She needed coffee.

The needing-coffee thing? Yeah, that's me too. Can't live without my coffee. I hadn't realized that Merrit is the same way.

I leave you with three of my favorite pictures taken from my writing spot at the B&B.

Toward the end of the trip I discovered that I'd met this man on a previous trip to Ireland. He's the ex-husband of my former B&B hostess. 

The rain storms (and rainbows) came and went with the clouds.

Woke up one morning to snow!

Lisa Alber is the author of the County Clare mysteries. Her debut novel, Kilmoon, has been called "utterly poetic" and "a stirring debut." Her second in the County Clare mysteries, WHISPERS IN THE MIST came out in August from Midnight Ink Books. Look for PATH INTO DARKNESS in August 2017. Ever distractible, you may find her staring out windows, fooling around online, or drinking red wine with her friends. Ireland, books, animals, photography, and blogging round out her distractions. Facebook | Twitter

Gearing Up to Launch

Edith Maxwell, here, still over the moon that  Delivering the Truth is nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Historical Mystery AND "The Mayor and the Midwife," my short story featuring midwife Rose Carroll, is nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Short Story.



It's exactly a month before Midnight Ink releases Called to Justice into eager readers' hands, and I couldn't be more excited! Plus I have a contemporary mystery releasing under a different name (Maddie Day) and a different publisher (Kensington Publishing) ten days before. April 8 is the big day for Called to Justice, but I have events planned all month, both in person and online. 

Here's the rundown:

• 19 March 4 pm. “Walking Through Amesbury’s Past” hosted by Acton Historical Society. South Acton Congregational Church, 35 School Street, Acton, MA. Open to the public.
• 27 March 7 pm. "It's Never Too Late." Nichols Village Retirement Community, Groveland, MA.
• 5 April 6:30 pm. "It's Never Too Late." Plaistow Public Library, Plaistow, NH.
• 7 April 7 pm. Two-book release party, with Maddie Day interviewing Edith Maxwell. Jabberwocky Bookstore, Newburyport, MA. With refreshments and prizes!
• 13 April 6:30 pm. With Susan Oleksiw, Marian Stanley, and Connie Hambley at Sisters in Crime 30th Anniversary Party, Amesbury Public Library, Amesbury, MA.
• 17 April 7 pm. Cozy at the Cafe, with other mystery authors. Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA.
• 19 April 6:30 pm. With the Wicked Cozy Authors, panel and signing. Barnes & Noble, Nashua NH.
• 22 April 2 pm. Sisters in Crime 30th celebration and panel. Plymouth Public Library, Plymouth, MA.
• 23 April 2:30 pm. Prose and Poetry, with Lainie Senechal. The Noshery, Amesbury, MA.
• 24 April 2 pm. Sisters in Crime 30th celebration and panel. Rodgers Memorial Library, Hudson, NH
• 27 April 7 pm. With the Wicked Cozy Authors, panel and signing. Barnes & Noble, Bethesda, MD.
• 28-30 April. Best Historical Mystery panel and Best Short Story panel. Malice Domestic, Bethesda, MD.

I have two Escape with Dollycas blog tours planned for the first two weeks in April, as well, many of which include book giveaways. I'll make an appearance on Jungle Red Writers on March 30, too. Here are the tour links:

• When the Grits Hit the Fan
• Called to Justice

I hope you can join me either in person or online for some of these fun events!

National best-selling author Edith Maxwell is a 2017 double Agatha Award nominee for her historical mystery Delivering the Truth and her short story, “The Mayor and the Midwife.” She writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries; as Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. Her award-winning short crime fiction has appeared in many juried anthologies, and she is honored to serve as President of Sisters in Crime New England. A fourth-generation Californian and former tech writer, farmer, and doula, Maxwell now writes, cooks, gardens, and wastes time as a Facebook addict north of Boston with her beau and three cats. She blogs at WickedCozyAuthors.com, Killer Characters, and with the Midnight Ink authors. Find her at www.edithmaxwell.com and elsewhere.

Our Lives, Our Writing

by Linda O. Johnston

Last time I was here, I wrote about using reality.  I described losing a beloved dog, Lexie, then acquiring a puppy, Cari, to be a new friend for our remaining dog Mystie.

And I discussed how I would try to use these experiences in my upcoming writing.  It's what I do.  I'm a writer.

I also find it fascinating to see how other fiction writers do the same thing: take experiences in their lives and find ways to use them in their novels.  And why not?  It's a lot easier to manipulate an idea based on reality and turn it into something we can live with than it is, at least sometimes, to have to deal with that reality.  Plus, it does help us get past difficult circumstances--or use good things that happen in a way to keep them real.

That seems to be so with at least some of my fellow InkSpot bloggers.  For one thing, I'm sure those of you reading this can understand how much I empathized with what Tj O'Connor recently wrote in his blog: the pain of his loss after his beloved dog died.  As I mentioned, that's been a major issue in my life, too.  Will Tj use the experience, the emotions, in an upcoming book?  I won't be surprised if he does.

Then, also recently, Tracy Weber described on her InkSpot post about learning to be a doula--a yoga program to help in delivery of a baby.  She used that in her most recent Downward Dog Mystery, A Fatal Twist--an excellent book, BTW.

Others here and elsewhere have done the same thing--using their life experiences as research in books they write.  As I mentioned in my last post, cozy mystery writers often use themes in their series that are important parts of their own lives.

It's not only a thing fiction writers do, either.  If you learn something important in your life, find another way to use it.  Tell others.  Teach it to your kids.  Incorporate it as a hobby.  Change your career.

Has that ever worked for you?

BTW, right now I consider myself on the countdown till the publication of my next Barkery & Biscuits Mystery from Midnight Ink: Bad to the Bone.  It's fiction, of course, but originated as much of my work does from the reality of how much I love dogs. 

New Sins and Old Dogs

by Tj O'Connor

 

Cancer should be spelled with an F. That’s the way I spell it—F---ing Cancer.

Cancer took my girl. Fast. Painfully. Heartlessly.

First it took her by surprise. Then it took her leg. Then it took her dignity. Then, it forced me to … f---ing cancer.

 

I have faced death all my life. We all have in one form or another. But these past couple years has been one heartache after another. Still, nothing prepared me for the loss of my girl, Maggie Mae. Nothing. In 2015, I lost both my mentor, Wally, and my companion, Mosby. One as much as the other—a Lab and a brilliant but crusty old spy—devastated me nearly the same. I’m not embarrassed to admit it. Wally was 92 and had lived his amazing life. Up until the very end—the hour—we shared laughs and talked and made sure there was peace and understanding between us. But with Mosby, it was hard to share anything but the loss. I wanted him to understand there was no choice. To understand that there was no greater love than to let go and save him from pain and despair. No greater sacrifice than accepting responsibility for the strange, heart-breaking kindness that is sometimes death. I hoped—prayed—he understand that I was not betraying him. Not merely moving on. I was saving him from the worst fate.

I try to tell myself that every day. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it kills me all over again. Pain doesn’t go away, it just simmers in the background waiting for an opportunity to burn you a little more.

Maggie is different. Painfully different. I can’t explain why—perhaps because she was my girl or perhaps it was because it was such a shock. Perhaps it was something else—she was forever in bandages for something. Always on meds for this or that. A twelve year struggle to cure the next thing. But she lived without complaint. Without demand. Always happy and loving. Until December when she came up lame in one leg. The vet told me she had arthritis, maybe a damaged ligament. No worries. Pain meds, therapy… maybe a little surgery if it didn’t heal quickly. All would be fine.

Wrong. Dead wrong.

Three weeks later, I knew something was very, very wrong and sought out a specialist. My girl wasn’t going to limp anymore or down pain pills any longer. Whatever the reason. Whatever the cost. She was going to be healed—and fast.

Oh dear God … twenty minutes after arriving, the end lay in my lap, panting and begging me for a chance—a few more weeks. A few more months ...  Osteosarcoma. F---ing cancer. Deep in her bone. So deep it was killing me, too.

The doc, an amazingly lady with class, skill, and compassion, operated that day and took her leg to save her life. Chemo was scheduled. More pain meds. But hope was in my grasp. Within three days she was hobbling around, playing a little, loving a lot—the smile back in her eyes after two months in hiding. Even after her first chemo treatment, she was on her feet and fighting back. Fighting for us. Fighting for life. She loved on Toby, or black Lab and the love of her life. She played with my granddaughter, walked and slept with me, and ate everything she could find. After all, dying be damned—she was a Lab.

Until the second week. Paralysis consumed her. It was back. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t sit, couldn’t have the dignity of controlling herself … her face exuded embarrassment when I carried her for days into the yard just to keep her from soiling herself. I didn’t know what was killing her faster—f---ing cancer or shame.

Humans should have such dignity.

I can barely write these words. The next ones especially. Pain rains and fingers tremble—the thoughts of those last moments. For those who don’t share my emotions over pets, you shouldn’t have them. For those that do, I can only image you’re sharing a little of my grief right now. You know the rest of the story. I couldn’t allow her any more pain, anymore shame, anymore cancer. And in my arms, both of us shaking … I let her go.

Damn me for what I had to do. Damn me. I only pray that if there is a heaven—and for souls like hers and my boy, Mosby, there has to be—that she and he are together and happy. They deserve it like no human I’ve ever known. Loyal. Loving. Compassionate.

This is not the fun, lighthearted post I wanted to write. But it is the post I had to write. It hasn’t healed me yet—I am struggling still. But it helps. Because sadly, I’m not always the adventurous, tough Harley guy people think of me too often—I’m an UFO (ugly fat old guy) who cries over lost dogs and isn’t ashamed to post that pain for the world to read.

But, the loss of one has one good fortune with the pain—room for another. Toby needs a companion—he morns for Mags every day. This house needs a girl—I do to. Not to replace you, Mags, but because you left such an emptiness behind.

So, to end this with a little hope … welcome Annie Rose. You’ve got big paws and a huge heart to fill. Be gentle with Toby and me—we’re still grieving. But he, like me, is coming around.

We’ll talk again next month.

 

Tj O’CONNOR IS THE GOLD MEDAL WINNER OF THE 2015 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS BOOK AWARDS (IPPY) FOR MYSTERIES. He is the author of New Sins for Old Scores, coming in Spring 2017 from Black Opal Books, and Dying to Know, Dying for the Past, and Dying to Tell. He recently finished his new thriller and is beginning three sequels to previous works. Tj is an international security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism, investigations, and threat analysis—life experiences that drive his novels. With his former life as a government agent and years as a consultant, he has lived and worked around the world in places like Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and throughout the Americas—among others. He was raised in New York's Hudson Valley and lives with his wife and Lab companions in Virginia where they raised five children. Dying to Know is also the 2015 Bronze Medal winner of the Reader’s Favorite Book Review Awards, a finalist for the Silver Falchion Best Books of 2014, and a finalist for the Foreword Review’s 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award.

Learn about Tj’s world at:

Web Site:  www.tjoconnor.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/tjoconnor.author
Blog: http://tjoconnorbooks.blogspot.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7148441.T_J_O_Connor