An Unexpected Journey: Producing an audiobook the long way ‘round…

Author: Diane Steinbach

Narrated and Produced by: Brian Wiggins

Audiobook: Song of Mornius

Warning: the “Bad Guy Sample” contains some graphic descriptions of violence that sensitive listeners may find disturbing.

Imagine writing a dark fantasy epic. Then imagine losing almost all of it due to computer issues, and having to essentially re-write the book. Then imagine trying to have it produced into an audiobook, and having that narrator take over a year to never fully complete the book properly and still charging you full price.

Such is the tale of Diane Steinbach when she came to me to produce Song of Mornius. And, sadly, there is probably much in this story that would ring familiar with other indie authors who elect to set out on a similar journey.

Why bother with audiobooks?

The Audiobook Producers Association, of which I am a member, has done annual research on the subject, and audiobook growth is trending steadily up. If you’ve been paying any attention whatsoever to Twitter, you will have seen people raving about Neil Gaiman’s Sandman audiobook, which was produced essentially as an audio drama.

As an independent (or traditionally published) author, having your opus in audiobook form is just simple common sense. Not only will you reach people who don’t have the time to sit down and read a book, but will listen to one on their commute or while running, you also open up your work to folks with disabilities and to people who are auditory learners.

Simply put: you are allowing your work to reach a wider audience, and that’s a good thing.

So what happened?

I was introduced to Diane through another author, James Duvall, the writer of the wonderful “The Brightistry” novella, and of The War of Embers". They are in the same writing critique group (please read why getting critiques and revising your work is of such importance, even to a voice actor) and he learned that she was having a nightmare of a time with her current narrator.

Kids, this is why to always do a good job: you never know when that good work will turn into referral business. And you better believe that I will always hold a spot in my production schedule open for James.

Long and short of it, Diane waded into the sometimes murky world of voiceover production for the first time, as many people will do, and didn’t know of the pitfalls that await in the swampy waters there. And, unfortunately, by no fault of her own, she fell victim to some of them.

A caveat

Let me pause here to say two things:

  1. I do not blame Diane for any issues that befell her during this process. There simply aren’t a lot of easy-to-use resources for independent authors when it comes to making this jump into changing the medium of the written word. In fact, it’s the issues that she ran into that inspired me to start putting together the Audiobook Production Guide for Independent Authors.

  2. I do not blame (entirely) the original narrator for these woes, either. There are a lot of people who jump into voiceover work, specifically into audiobooks as they are the easiest and most accessible form of voiceover for newbies, without all of the knowledge or skills required to do so successfully. They will remain nameless throughout this post, as it isn’t fair to drag their name through the mud for what, I am assuming, was simply a lack of knowledge.

The nightmare begins…

As equipment becomes cheaper, that particular barrier of entry into voiceover becomes easier to clear. It used to be that you needed to spend tens of thousands of dollars in order to outfit a home studio, or else use a professional studio, which in and of itself was a barrier as without money or skills, you wouldn’t be able to get into one.

That more people have voiceover as an option is a good thing, but it is a double-edged sword; it also means that there a more and more people without the skills or equipment needed to do this job properly getting into it, as well as people who are downright dishonest. And it can be difficult yo tell the difference between the two.

Diane found the narrator on one of the gig sites (not ACX), and they entered into a contract to have Song of Mornius produced into an audiobook.

The narrator moved slowly. Very slowly. Terminally slowly. It was six months before even 25% of the book was recorded. (As a frame of reference, I was able to record and produce Coliseum Arcanist, a much longer book, in less time.)

This was merely the first warning klaxon.

A perfect storm

During this time, Diane was offering notes on various parts of the narration, specifically character voices. She had certain ideas in her head and communicated this to the narrator…and they decided to do the voice that they wanted to do. And when Diane tried to ask for changes, they refused.

Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

Listen, I know that I’m no Mel Blanc or Rob Paulsen or anywhere near any of the greats out there, so I know that while I can do a variety of character voices, I’m never going to nail them all. And that can be a tall order in an audiobook with dozens of characters, all voiced by me.

But if my author, who is essentially my director, tells me that the voice is just completely wrong, I know it’s my job to take that direction and figure out how to make the voice work within my skill set and abilities.
One of the keys to success in voiceover is the ability to take direction. If you can’t do that, no one will hire you.

So now we have a narrator who not only is moving painfully slow with narration, but is also refusing direction.

And that is when they stopped communicating.

Diane tried and tried again to get them to respond to her emails, but to no avail. And what’s more, she had already paid for the first half of production up front.

My personal theory: based on looking at their credits on Audible, they had only done short, nonfiction books up until this project, and may have been overwhelmed by the endurance test that is long-form fantasy fiction. I think that also being new to the career and not having the training yet, they didn’t know that accepting direction is an important thing in this industry.

Relief in sight?

Fast forward to a year after production began, and the book still hadn’t moved much beyond the 25% mark. Diane finally decided to pull the contract and offer it to me. The original narrator quickly threw together the rest of the recording in a week with no editing or mastering, and then demanded the final payment.

(I wrote about this situation in Audiobook Production Guide, might be worth a read if you want to avoid this pitfall yourself.)

I took over production and began the book from page one. We had several conversations about voices and about pronunciation of names and words, something not uncommon in fantasy books.

Production took, in total, a little more than three months. And now, for your entertainment, Song of Mornius is available as an audiobook.