Writing into the Sunset: Another Audio Book!

Over the weekend Ann M. Thompson and I wrapped up the third Shandra Higheagle book made into an audio book. Making audio books and working with Ann has been a new and exciting chapter in my self-publishing journey.

I was lucky enough to have met another Ann who narrates at the In'DScribe conference last fall. Having visited with her, learned more about what a narrator does for a book and how to capture a good narrator, I decided to get the mystery series out in audio book.

I put up my audition pages and offered a royalty split and a per finished hour amount and the third person to audition caught my attention with the tone of her voice and her comment she was teachable to get the characters right.

And Ann has been wonderful! When I wasn't happy with a voice she used for a secondary character she worked on it, talked with a person she knew of the same ethnicity, and after four tries, we came up with a voice that we were both happy with. I try to send her pronunciations of words I think she won't know. If there is a word she is still not sure of we discuss it.

She's been great at letting me know when things happen in her life and she won't get chapters to me as she had planned.

The best part, is she sounds like Shandra Higheagle and does a good job with the voice for Detective Ryan Greer. And even better was the response an audio book reviewer had to say about Ann:
"Ann M. Thompson is a good narrator, giving warm, earthy tones to Shandra and handling other voices with noticeable differences from one character to the next. In particular, I immediately picked up on Blane’s immaturity and brashness just from Ms. Thompson‘s interpretation."

You can find the whole review here.

My only downfall with the audio books is finding the right audience. If you have a place where you find audio books, would you let me know? I'm trying to find the right way to promote them and so far, it's not as easy as book promotion.

Did you know that by joining Audible.com you get the first audio book FREE? Here are the first two books in the series and their links to Audible. Deadly Aim will be published as an audio book this week.