In Canada the leaves have spiralled to the ground and snow has arrived. Fall has moved swiftly towards winter, with December’s holiday season on the horizon. Best wishes to you and yours through the month ahead.
This newsletter recaps events from the last few months and includes a piece outlining the journey of creating an Audiobook. All the best, Gwen.
CREATING AN AUDIOBOOK
In pursuit of turning the pages of The Acquisition of Elizabeth Grace into the spoken word, my publisher referred me to the ACX website. ACX stands for Audiobook Creation Exchange which is owned by Audible (an Amazon company). It’s a digital marketplace where authors, publishers, agents and rights holders seek out narrators and audio producers to create and distribute audiobooks. Once produced through ACX, these audiobooks are distributed globally through platforms such as Audible, Amazon and iTunes.
To find a narrator I searched through the ACX database seeking a female narrator whose voice I liked and who was proficient in Canadian and British accents. It became a daunting task. There were many providing all types of British accents, and I could find a US accent for every corner of the United States. But it was difficult finding someone proficient in both the more subtle Canadian accent that was needed for my protagonist and her Toronto family along with the British accent required for my protagonist’s extended family in England. In time I reached out to a few people, and we corresponded about accents and fee structure. I learned some narrators charged a set fee, while others charged a lower fee and asked for a % of the audiobook revenue. My publisher requested we work with the former.
Frustrated by not finding a reader with the right fit, I set the project down and months went by. Fortunately, at one of my Meet the Author events in the fall of 2024 my sister-in-law Marg passed along the name of a narrator known to a friend who had attended the book event. And that’s how I met Robin Siegerman.
Robin is a voice actor who has her own recording studio. I listened to her recordings, her variety of accents and her business proposition. On all levels it felt right and so we began moving through the steps towards production.
The first step was for her to read through the manuscript and approve that she would take on the work. She loved the story and was happy to book a reserved spot in her calendar.
The second step was for me to complete a Character Voice Description chart that included a deep dive into adjectives to describe each character’s voice and personality. I’d lived with these characters and could hear them in my head. It was a new experience to translate how they sounded into words.
One of her questions asked about dream casting. Who did a character sound and act like? I readily jumped in to describe Elizabeth Grace as Lady Mary from Downton Abbey, Peter as the sweet version of Jude Law in Holiday, and Aunt Flora as Melanie Hamilton from Gone With the Wind. But after that I began to fumble. So many of the characters were unique, completely made up. I didn’t have a direct comparison.
The third step was for me to choose sample paragraphs for each of my characters, so she could practice and share sample recordings. Particularly tricky were the passages where multiple characters were speaking with each other. I wondered how one person would be able to make each person sound distinct.
The fourth step was to listen and critique the results. This was the toughest step in the process. Suddenly characters who had chatted away in my head were talking out loud. Some sounded similar to how I imagined, many did not. I had such a wide range of characters: men and women of different ages, classes and nationalities, and children from age six to adolescence. For the same reason I found it complicated to read these characters at book readings, Robin too was challenged. How can one woman’s voice sound like all those voices?
Tactfully (I hope), I asked Robin to tame some characters and age up the children. I cringed when I heard an adult voice pretending to be a six-year-old. It sounded like an adult voice pretending to be a six-year-old! Robin then explained that there were two ways to narrate. One as an actor who expresses and becomes each character and one as a reader, speaking each part without unique intonation. She was the former and in truth the later sounded too plain. We opted for expression and carried on.
The fifth step was Robin moving forward and narrating the full book. I waited, wondering what the result would be. How would I react to hearing my characters speaking to each other? How would I live through the story as they talked out loud?
The sixth step was to receive and listen to the audio file. Robin is sensational as she narrates Sophie telling the story. She is flawless, no mistakes and has the perfect reader voice for Sophie thinking and telling her story. And then six-year-old Sophie speaks and I cringe. Elizabeth Grace speaks next and I grin. Close, but how could she ever be the woman I’ve lived with for three years? Chapter by chapter, characters speak out loud. As the children age up, I relax, and when Lady Bedford catches up with Sophie examining the parrot in the tropical themed wallpaper in Peter’s club, I’m entranced. “Careful he might bite,” Lady Bedford says, and one of my favourite characters bounces off the pages. I’m hooked. She nails that character.
Step seven – I’m amazed. I only found three mistakes in the entire audiobook, where not pausing at a comma changed the meaning of a sentence. Robin easily fixed them.
Step eight – Chloe at RE:BOOKS modifies the book cover to the format ACX requires. Audiobooks have square covers, not the rectangular shape of a printed novel.
Step nine – The audio files and book cover are sent through a third party to ACX.
Step ten – ACX takes a week or so to confirm that the material is not offensive and safe to release. With their consent the Audiobook goes live.
The audiobook is now on Audible, Amazon and iTunes.
Reflecting back on the process, I feel fortunate to have worked with Robin. She was an experienced professional and I was a novice. Every reader flipping through pages of a book hears characters in their own way. There is no universal one way for those characters to sound. But an audiobook presents one version. And so, I’m reminded that while an audiobook works well for those on the go or with challenged eyesight, there will always be a place for the reader to curl up with a book and escape into a world of voices their own brain creates. As you hear the voices you imagine, you are truly in a unique place.
INK’D VERITY
Thank you to Delane Cooper & the Verity Book Club for hosting me and 10 other writers. INK’D is inspired by PechaKucha, a Japanese style of presenting, similar to a slide carousel. Each author had 3 minutes to present their book – think speed dating!
BOOK CLUB
Thanks to Susan Cremasco for inviting me to join in for an hour at your Girls Weekend away. It was fun to revisit my first book with you which is ideal for women talking through life. Thanks for all your insights and questions.
BOOK CITY
Thanks to readers, family and friends who have sent me sightings of my books like this one. And a big thank you to Book City who ordered in The Girlfriend Book along with The Acquisition of Elizabeth Grace. I didn’t know that had happened until I received this picture!
Waterstones – London
While visiting our daughter in London we wandered through many neighbourhoods, where this bookstore kept popping up. It’s a mainstay through the UK. I loved checking out all the creative book covers.
Criminally Good Books
While visiting York in the UK we found Criminally Good Books, which was brimming with every possible type of crime novel, some fiction and some unfortunately true. It happened to be Halloween & I met this character wandering the streets.
Pick A Colour
I enjoyed this short novel. It made me think deeper about those working in service roles and how we interact with them. It spans the day in the life of a woman who owns a nail salon. Shortly after reading the book it won the Giller! Congratulations Souvankham Thammavongsa!
Editing Book #3
“Kill your Darlings” is a phrase much used in the editing process. As much as a writer can love a line, paragraph or chapter, sometimes they have to let it go. As I edit my book #3, the knife has been busy!
Holiday Reading
While on vacation I closed my computer and took a break from writing and enjoyed reading these two books. There is always so much to learn from accomplished authors about developing plot and characters.
Are you in a Book Club?
I’m open to attend virtually by Zoom or Teams. Or I’m happy to answer your questions via email and return them to you in time for your Book Club meeting.
Please do enquire. I can be reached at gwen@gwenkharvey.com.
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