Exciting developments! I’m starting work on the audiobook version of The Stone and the Song. It’s been part of my plans to have audio versions of my books available at some point, but I was a little intimidated about the process and didn’t have specific plans yet about when and how to get S & S into audio.
But I looked into it, and it turns out it’s a lot simpler than I thought. I’m mainly looking at Audible for now and I expected all kinds of complicated specs and formatting stuff, but it’s actually not bad. There are a few specifications in terms of audio quality, volume variations, etc., but the requirements for structure, credits, and so on basically come down to stating the title, author, and narrator; having a bit of dead air at the beginning and end of each file; and keeping the file sizes and lengths reasonable.
So that’s exciting. My big Christmas present was a Blue Yeti microphone and, while I’m not a qualified audio tech, I am loving it. Still experimenting with the best setup to get a really crisp, professional-sounding audiobook, but it’s a really promising start. And I’m really excited about the project. The Stone and the Song is made to be read aloud—very intentional use of rhythm and rhyme and timing.
My friend Bill is starting to make early forays into podcasting and audio narration as well, and he’s starting to record The Dream World Collective for Podiobooks and/or Audible. Exciting times – updates to follow!
