2/17/10

My First Pro Audiobook

If you've visited some of the linked pages in this blog, you probably know that I am a frequent contributor to the growing catalog of public domain literature on audiobooks over at LibriVox.org. I joined that group just over four years ago.

A couple months ago I was contacted by a publishing company in Canada, I Publish Press, to ask if I would like to produce an audiobook for them. I immediately subjected this idea to the following decision tree:

     (1) Read a book out loud? Well, yeah! I've done this over 40 times already and I like doing it!
     (2) Get paid?  ??? YES!!!

As an additional inducement, they were asking me to do something current and interesting. Deal sealed.


The audiobook was being co-published with the print version. Both are out now. The book is "My Problem With Doors" by Scott Southard. The book starts with the premise that the narrator at an early age started to walk through a door in his house, and somewhere between the two sides was transported to another time and place. What's more, that behavior keeps up; he discovers that roughly 5% of the door transits he makes will whisk him away to yet another place and time. Lost past reasonable hope of return to his home and family, what can he do? In a thirty-year career of time-hopping, he searches for the meaning of why he, of all mankind, is subject to this anomaly.  Good stuff!

The good folks over at I Publish Press only knew me from my LibriVox recordings, but they selected a good project for me. I was very engaged in the story and I hope that shows.

Now (shameless plug coming!) if this story premise at all appeals to you, I hope you'll mouse right over to ipublishpress.com and snap up a copy!

4 comments:

  1. hi, I couldn't find a contact so here goes:
    1.)what are your other favorite librivox readers? will you do a post on it?
    2.) will you PLEASE read "prison memoirs of an anarchist" by alexander berkman for librivox? berkman was a boyfriend of emma goldman who went to jail for shooting a strikebreaking industrialist, it would be a perfect companion piece to the ossendowski. it's incredibly moving.
    anyways, thanks for being awesome!

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  2. I guess this is a suitable forum to leave my thanks for your librivox readings. I've discovered there to be a particular set of very active librivox readers who seem to record the things I'm interested in listening to; of these, you're a particular favorite of mine. Not only do you have a mellifluous voice and clear, correct recordings, you have a down-to-earth style that's a pleasure to listen to.

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  3. I found it only fitting to thank you for your contribution to librivox. Being on the move a lot prevents me from reading printed books, so I've started listening to them instead.

    Yesterday I finished listening to your version of The First Men in the Moon by H.G.Wells and I found it to be magnificent. You truly did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life, in my opinion, and I must say it was a real pleasure to listen to it (unlike some other books I've found on librivox, sadly).

    Thank you very much for taking the time to record these books for us! I can't wait until I have a chance to listen to the one mentioned in this post!

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  4. I just wanted to say thanks for your librivox recordings. I enjoy them and I look forward to your versions of the classics. Among my favorites are The Mysterious Island and The Lone Star Ranger. I listened to a commercial rendition of Robert E. Howard's Horror Tales and I'm confident you could do better. Anyway, thanks again.

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