When the narrator is deeply connected to the author’s material.
- What if you could offer your audiobooks for free while you still earned royalties?
- My Studio in the Woods
- The future of the audiobook market is wide open because it is device independent.
- The Birth of an Audiobook: What if you just tried one chapter?
- Want to really become an expert at something? Write a book about it.
- Is your audiobook worth a credit? In other words: $14.99?
- Could audiobooks be the secret media to reach your kids’ minds?
- 5 Reasons Nonfiction Authors Should Narrate Their Own Audiobooks
- Because I’m not going to read your book like this–but I’ll listen to it.
- Looking for Audiobook Reviews? Audiobook Boom
- Your audiobook playing in a stranger’s living room? Crazy, I know.
- 5 Reasons Nonfiction Authors Should Hire a Professional Narrator for their Audiobooks
- How $14.38 confirmed my future audiobook publishing strategy.
- When the narrator is deeply connected to the author’s material.
- Why my “Every Single Day” book as audiobook is even more exciting than the print or ebook.
- If your book was available on audio, this might have happened to you.
- You read your books out loud for editing anyway, right?
- Free online tool to add meta tags and image tag to MP3 file
- Add Audible book to your purchase for just $1.99
- Possibly the easiest $50 you might never get. Introducing the Audible Bounty.
- One of my goals for my “Audio for Authors” book and course: Short, Sweet, and Done
- Which microphone to get started recording audiobooks?
- My first test with transcription and how this is going to change … everything.
- The Writer’s Guide to Training Your Dragon (Review)
- How’s that audiobook studio coming along? It might be time to get out of the house.
- Is this the next chapter of audiobooks?
- Audio for Authors: What does this teach? What does this solve? What am I giving?
- Do We Listen? (And an excellent example of newsletter marketing.)
- Audio for Authors: Can we successfully market our audiobooks?
- The Pop Pop Pop audiobook editing method
- Podcasting is the new Blogging
- Audio for Authors | Using Headliner to get your audio onto Instagram
- Audio for Authors | Even remotely thinking of recording your audiobook?
Should you record your books in your own voice as the narrator?
I’ve been back and forth as to whether or not to read my own books (that is, do the recording, be the narrator) especially since I know an award-winning audiobook narrator and we have talked about him reading my books–or at least one of them. But then I come across comments like this:
The narrator (not the author) has a nice voice and professional clear delivery but little connection to the content. I presumed the author must not have a great voice that she opted not to narrate herself. Big difference for the listener when the narrator isn’t deeply connected to the material. (review of another book, not mine)
Dear reader, I’m a writer. I’m an author. I love words, stories, and the impact they have on the reader. I’m also a reader. I’m also an audiobook fan–no, a big, big fan.
I’m currently recording my book “Every Single Day” for audio. My plan was to put it out as a podcast (I still plan on it). But my other plan was to have my award-winning friend read the book for the audiobook version.
But then I read comments like the one above.
Here’s the thing.
I love speaking. No, no, I’m not sure this is clear enough. When I read aloud, I have a connection to the words, the story, the meaning, the underlying architecture more than I do when I’m just reading words on a page. I like to think that this connection comes through when I’m reading aloud into a microphone. That my voice, the vibrations and tones and highs and lows, comes into your ears and give you some of what I’m feeling.
Not just what I’m writing, but what I’m feeling.
That’s what I want to get across with audio.
Am I taking this a little too far?
I don’t think so. I want to be a professional speaker. I want to be on stage. I want to read aloud, speak aloud, have conversations, discussions, and do it verbally.
I’m a writer. I love words. I love words on a page. But hearing the words spoken just does something different for me. I love it–maybe I love it more than reading the words on a page.
I have to read my audiobooks. I have to record them. When I do it, I’m a kid in a candy store. It’s fun, it’s play, it’s pure pleasure.
This is what I’m after:
Big difference for the listener when the narrator isn’t deeply connected to the material.
“Big difference.” That’s what I’m after: making a Big Difference.
When the narrator is deeply connected to the author’s material. This sorta looks like me when I do my laundry and connect with my favorite audiobooks. Sorta.
