Note from a Grateful Heart #1
Note from grateful heart to uncaring world — thanks for all the great listens. Click to see what books captured my ears and imagination this past week. Continue reading Note from a Grateful Heart #1
Tag: Audio Books
Swashbucklers, Rogues and Assassins: The Bad Boys of Fantasy
The bad boys of Fantasy, like the buddy cop flicks we all love, are full of friendship, ribald comments, one-upmanship and enough jokes to lighten up the darkest story. Set in places that range from the epic to the intriguing, their exploits run the gamut from world-ending to a simple heist gone hilariously wrong. Whatever these guys get up to for their clients, you can be certain of one thing: you’re in for a fun ride. Without further ado, I bring you the bad boys of fantasy.
Royce & Hadrian
Royce and Hadrian’s exploits are penned by Michael J. Sullivan in his Riyria Chronicles series and in the Riyria Revelations series. The Riyria Chronicles series covers the twenty year period between the boys’ founding their unique partnership and the events in the Riyria Revelation series. Mr. Sullivan will keep writing those prequels as long as fans request them and I will keep requesting more. I love these guys!
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Audio Book vs Audio Drama
in medias res continues its audio book obsession with a look into an emerging trend in the audio book world: audio dramas.
What’s the difference between an audio book and an audio drama?
A lot apparently. An audio book started out life as a book. Not a comic book or a screen play but a book. A book that sometime narrated. A book that included actual description of important things like wtf is going on in the action sequences, some kind of introduction to who the characters are and some reason to care about them.
Audio dramas start out life as a graphic novel or screenplay. They are meant to be accompanied by visuals. The visual element is the important part of these works. Audio productions have no visual element. They are pure sound. Do you see a problem? I do and I’m not alone.
Who Will Narrate: Listen and Cast Your Vote
Okay, we’ve talked these last two days about audio books both the professionally produced variety and the self-narrated too. If you need a refresher, pop by this post here for a discussion of professional voice acted audio books and here for the DIY option.
You are armed with knowledge and ready to cast your vote an a very important issue. Who should narrate?
With the above posts in mind, I come to you, wonderful followers and one time visitors alike, to ask your opinion on the matter. Below I submit to you two scenes from my novella narrated by me, the author. Worry not, neither one is longer than 7 minutes. Together they comprise the first two scenes from my forthcoming audio book. It will be available for sale in 2016.
Continue reading “Who Will Narrate: Listen and Cast Your Vote”
Audio Book Meets DIY
Yesterday we talked about audio books, specifically about the money side. You can refresh your memory here about that. I also referred you to a great post that Cecilia Lewis wrote up detailing how you pick a narrator for your book. Read her article here. Yesterday’s discussion centered around the cost to produce audio books and the options you have about production–if you go the professional route.
If you, like me, have some skill at editing audio files on your own, there is another option. You can narrate your book yourself, edit the audio yourself and submit the files to ACX. They have guidelines and tips to help you navigate your way through the DIY option.
Is There a Narrator in the House?
I love audio books. So do my coworkers. We have our own little audio book club where we advocate and cajole each other to listen to the audio books we have loved. Right now two-thirds of the audio book club is pushing me to read Robert Galbraith’s novels. They are also lobbying me to put a project on kickstarter.com to raise money for my novella’s audio book to be narrated by a real voice actor.
ACX, whom I will be doing this through, offers several options for turning your book into an audio book. Step one is to publish your book as a kindle book through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program. I’m working on that right now. Rest assured.
Candy for Your Ears: Urban Fantasy
Urban fantasy audio books are like candy. You can’t consume just one. The first one always leads to the next and the next. It’s the gateway drug of audio books.
They’re the first person shooters of the fantasy genre. What makes these stories so addictive? Let’s toss them onto the operating table and dissect them to see what makes ’em tick.
Red Queen versus White King: Alan Touring Through the Looking Glass
Unless you too just finished The Enigma: Alan Touring, you’re probably scratching your head right now at the title of today’s post. I did read it, and I’m still scratching my head over it. Before I attempt to make some sense out of this, because I will lose my mind if I don’t, I need to get one thing off my chest: If I die after having done something world-changing or just plain cool, do not compare me to a fairy tale character. Please, just don’t. I don’t care of I make some offhand remark ONE time in my life and you … Continue reading Red Queen versus White King: Alan Touring Through the Looking Glass
Sound off: Advice from the Web
While you relax and enjoy your well-deserved Sunday morning rituals, here’s some advice culled from the internet on a writing, creativity, motivation and process. While your sipping orange juice, some exotic tea, a coffee confection or plain old milk, let your mind consider these tidbits and store them away for future reference.
Here’s a new way to look at your writing from The New Yorker, a piece entitled, Omission: Choosing What to Leave out:
Hypocrite? Who me? Say it isn’t so!
Yesterday I posted a rambling review of The Girl in the Spider’s Web. Sharp readers no doubt noticed at the end of the post that I contradicted myself. I talked about avoiding the fourth installment of the Millenium series initially just because Stieg Larsson, the series’ creator, passed on and a new author picked up the thread of the story.
I mentioned a thing called author loyalty. Then I ended the post speaking about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Mycroft Holmes and my enthusiasm for reading it. That got me thinking about the whole issue. How long does an author have to be dead before author loyalty erodes and readers flock in comfort to a new author’s continuation of the saga?
Inspired
Jodi Taylor, author of the Chronicles of St. Mary’s series, which I love by the way, got her start by self-publishing. She published the first Chronicles of St. Mary’s story as an ebook! (I love that book by the way: Just One Damned Thing After Another) If you like history, time travel and a lot of comedy, her Chronicles of St. Mary’s series will take you on quite a thrill ride. Her latest book, The Nothing Girl, is today’s daily deal on Audible. You can pick up a copy for $3.95. For nine hours of contemporary fiction mixed heavily with comedy in her skillful manner, that’s a bargain. Reading … Continue reading Inspired
What did you read this week?
Well what did you read? I really do want to know. So leave me a comment and let me know. I’m asking this because I love stories and I’m always looking for something new to read, some new author’s works to fall in love with (in audio of course). I did mention somewhere on here that I am an audiobook addict right? Audible is my drug of choice. I can’t get enough of that site. I start my day off by checking the daily deals. Follow that up by skimming through the pre-orders and recent releases while munching on my … Continue reading What did you read this week?
Audiobook Round-up
What did you read this week? I fed my audiobook addiction with some great reads. I hope you did too. From the Higgs Boson to the blackgaurds of the fantasy to everyone’s favorite serial killer, this week’s offerings sent me on a wild literary ride. The Great Courses: Higgs Boson and Beyond Dive into particle physics. This series of lectures is for the arm chair physicist in you. It explains what the heck a Higgs Boson is and why countries spent millions of dollars to build a collider in the hopes of producing one. Prof Carroll is thoroughly entertaining as … Continue reading Audiobook Round-up
The Challenge
Ok, I’m finally starting a blog. You can stop mentioning it now. Really. I got the point. I am taking the mental challenge (thanks Coleen Phoenixxx). Why am I blogging? Because people keep telling me to. They believe I have something that needs to be said. I finally got tired of telling them that everything I’d write about has already been written. So here I am blogging. I’m saying all the things that need to be said and I’m challenging myself to say those things right here every day. Right now this blog is not about anything in particular. That might … Continue reading The Challenge
Melinda Kucsera - USA Today Bestselling Author of Epic Fantasy Adventures 
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