audiobook narration

Look at me updating! Dang, I’m so good at this. Professional blogger, that is me.

I can finally BREATHE! As of this moment I have no audiobook narrations to do. Dusk Mother be praised! Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love narrating, but taking on four projects in–what was it, two months? Three?–was a stupid, bad bad bad idea. I barely had time to finish the southern/military one, and the fourth one? Oh man, that’s a story I will get to in a second.

First off, let me promote myself because that’s what you’re supposed to do according to all the professional and popular narrators. I’ve already put up a link for my first narration on Facebook, so not going to worry about that. I will however put the links to the next two for your listening pleasure (if you so desire).

The first book is Hex Breaker by Stella Drexler

UPDATE: This title is no longer available. Apparently it was taken off Audible for plagiarism or something.

This one was fun to narrate. It’s an okay story, kind of predictable, but an enjoyable read overall.

The second book is Love Me More by R. S. Medina

This one is rough. It’s pretty realistic when it comes to trauma and soldiers suffering from PTSD, but I only recommend it if you’re okay with tragic endings. Super fun to narrate though.

Hokay, so, the fourth book. Where do I even start?

I’m not going to name it. I’m not going to throw the publisher or author under the bus or anything because that’s unprofessional. But holy shit. I actually broke the contract last night, so I won’t be finishing this one. I was as polite and diplomatic as I could possibly be but I just couldn’t do it anymore.

When I was first approached about doing this narration, I read some of the reviews on Goodreads and flipped through the first couple chapters and though, “okay this sounds fun, I like demons.” But I really should have done more research, as in read more of the book. There was a huge language barrier and some of the paragraphs were almost unintelligible, I’m talking copy-paste into Google Translate type of unreadable. After accepting, I met with the publisher and voiced some of my concerns about it and they were super cool. They gave me free reign to change dialogue and passages to make them more palatable to an English speaking audience, so I was like “cool, let’s do this.”

Except, editing a 170K word novel to be more palatable for English speaking people is a lot of work. I was putting in almost twice the hours of actual recording just trying to fix things. I realized over the weekend that I was basically doing an editor’s job, without getting paid. And that’s not fair to me. I considered reading it as is, without fixing anything, just to get it done and fulfill the contract, but I couldn’t in good conscious do that. The book would fail, and it would reflect badly on the publisher–and me.

So, ladies and gentleman and non-binaries, I broke the contract, sent them a long letter stating my reasons for leaving the project, and then relaxed and ate veggie chips and watched anime with my husbando for the rest of Sunday.

Life is good again. I didn’t realize how much this project was weighing me down until I felt it lift off my shoulders. Please don’t be like me. Choose your battles. Don’t take on too much just to prove something. You are important and you need to take time to take care of yourself. Take a hot bath with one of those cool bath bomb things (they come in black!), pet your pets, do a face mask, or eat something delicious and don’t shame yourself for it! LOVE YOURSELF GODDAMNIT!

Also, watch anime. In Japanese.

Love you all, have a great week. I will be back soon with writing news. Hopefully it will involve werewolves.

I %100 did not meet my goal of getting a journal post up last week. Oops. I have a good excuse though, promise.

Okay, so, first thing’s first: I have now finished two novel narrations. The first is past the author/publisher’s checks and now it’s on to Audible approval. I should hear back (hopefully) soon. I’ll put the link to it up here, but it’s the billionaire romance so I don’t expect anyone that follows me to actually read (listen to) it. It’s cool, don’t worry about it.

The second is an urban fantasy and that one was really fun to narrate. I got to try out some silly accents, it had a nice range of emotions and style choices, and bonus! The story is kind of fun! It got a little harry there for about a week because I got behind and didn’t have the time I thought I would to record. Well, actually, recording is the easy part. After I record all the chapters, I have to go back through and cut out all my bloopers and that takes FOREVER. Then I have to do a third pass, reading along as I listen to make sure it’s accurate to the actual text. If I’ve messed up a phrase, or flubbed a word or something, I have to go back, record that piece again, and then splice it into the final cut. Waaahh, such a long process! But I did it. I turned it in on the due date and it’s waiting approval now.

I’m trying not to be nervous about it, but there is so much in there, and so many voices and accents they might not like? Bluuuh. Oh well, nothing to do but turn my energies on the next one. This third novel is a drama/military/tragedy and wooaaa it’s heavy. I also have to do it all in a southern accent. It’s not actually that hard, the hardest part is going back to talking normal once I’ve left the studio haha.

All in all I’m loving it. There are so many weird things I wouldn’t have thought of before starting this whole thing. Like, for example, I think Rule Number One of audio narration should be ALWAYS HAVE CHAPSTICK ON HAND. It’s a must, otherwise when your mouth begins to dry up – and it will – your lips start to click and it’s Super Loud on the microphone. Random huh? But good to know.

Also, Jesus Christ AIRPLANES. I forgot I live next to an airport! How many freaking planes fly over my house per hour?? SIX! SIX PLANES AN HOUR!! …It’s cool though, it’s cool. It’s only in the afternoon. Someday I’ll live somewhere quiet and I’ll have an actual studio office with soundproofing…. … someday.

In other news, I’ve also submitted my writing for the Norwescon Writer’s Workshop. I almost didn’t, having had a not-so-great-experience last year. (Maybe I’ll talk about that later bluh.) However, the workshop is where I met my current writer’s group, and I’ve already made so many good connections through the process that it would be irresponsible of me not to try and do it again. I submitted the first chapter of my horror/thriller+superheros novel, so that should be fun. If I make it in, I hope everyone gives me the “superhero trend is dying out” speech so I can punch them. Not really. But maybe.

Okay, I think that’s all the major things that have happened in the past few months. I hope everyone is doing well, and that things are looking up for you in this new year. If you ever feel lonely or need someone to talk to about… well, anything, but mostly nerdy stuff, hit me up. I am down for feelings jams, especially if we get to scream about anime or awesome tv shows or something.

Love your pets, be nice to people, and have a good one!