I’ve just recorded chapter 10 of book 2 for Audible and it is a spooky one. Teaser: book 2 does go a little dark, and chapter 10 is one of the darker ones. I had goosebumps up my arms just reading it out loud – and I wrote it! Albeit a few years ago.
Someone was asking me about my voice recording setup yesterday. It’s a black sound box about 8″ bigger than my head, with a large professional microphone suspended inside fronted by a pop screen, to take out some of the mouth noises. There’s a phone clip, which – when my phone is inserted on the right screen – gives me the words to read from. I work standing up so that my breath flows better – and off I go.
It takes about 15 minutes for me to read a typical length chapter, which – for me – is just over 2000 words. Then I upload it to my beloved sound engineer. And while it’s uploading, I blog. Hello.
That person yesterday was also asking me why I record myself reading my books. It’s just to provide another version of them. Ideally, we offer the books in paperback, hardback, Kindle and Audible, so that however a customer likes to consumer their prose, it’s there for them. And I like reading them. It helps with the marketing after the launch, especially for a book I wrote a few years ago. It’s always handy to be reminded about the contents before one tries to sell a book!