Image
  • Writing
    • Andy Gavin: Author
    • About my Novels & Writing
    • All Writing Posts
    • The Darkening Dream
      • Buy the Book Online
      • Sample Chapters
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Untimed
      • Buy Untimed Online
      • Book Trailer
      • Sample Chapters
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Scrivener – Writer’s Word Processor
    • iPad for Writers
    • Naughty Dark Contest
  • Books
    • Book Review Index
    • Favorite Fantasy Novels
    • Andy Gavin: Author
    • The Darkening Dream
      • Buy the Book Online
      • Sample Chapters
      • Short Story: Harvard Divinity
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Untimed
      • About the Book
      • Buy Untimed Online
      • Book Trailer
      • Sample Chapters
      • Reviews
      • Info for Reviewers
      • Press Coverage
      • Awards
      • Cast of Characters
    • Naughty Dark Contest
  • Games
    • My Video Game Career
    • Post Archive by Series
    • All Games Posts Inline
    • Making Crash Bandicoot
    • Crash 15th Anniversary Memories
    • World of Warcraft Endgames
    • Getting a Job Designing Video Games
    • Getting a Job Programming Video Games
    • Naughty Dark Contest
  • Movies
    • Movie Review Index
  • Television
    • TV Review Index
    • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • A Game of Thrones
  • Food
    • Food Review Index
    • Foodie Club
    • Hedonists
    • LA Sushi Index
    • Chinese Food Index
    • LA Peking Duck Guide
    • Eating Italy
    • Eating France
    • Eating Spain
    • Eating Türkiye
    • Eating Dutch
    • Eating Croatia
    • Eating Vietnam
    • Eating Australia
    • Eating Israel
    • Ultimate Pizza
    • ThanksGavin
    • Margarita Mix
    • Foodie Photography
    • Burgundy Vintage Chart
  • Other
    • All Posts, Magazine Style
    • Archive of all Posts
    • Fiction
    • Technology
    • History
    • Anything Else
  • Gallery
  • Bio
  • About
    • About me
    • About my Writing
    • About my Video Games
    • Ask Me Anything
  • Contact

Archive for audiobook

Untimed, Unheard no More

Jun25

Seventeen months in the making, the Untimed audiobook is finally ready!

The complete unabridged book is available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for MP3 download to your phone or ipod. It’s narrated by producer Steven Barnett.

A bit about the production

ACX_Logo

I started way back in January 2013, and like most Independent authors considering an audiobook edition, decided to use Amazon’s ACX service. This is a marketplace for connecting authors with voice and production talent as well as an automated mechanism for delivering the finished books to the big online markets (Audible, Amazon, and iTunes). This makes it  easy to post descriptions of what your looking for and a section of the book to read. I listed both The Darkening Dream and Untimed. Lo and behold, over the next couple of weeks a pile of auditions started to come in.

Untimed  is a tricky novel from a recording standpoint. Like all my books it features a lot of accents. The two most important characters are Charlie, a modern 15 year-old boy from Philadelphia, and Yvaine a 16 year-old girl from 16-18th century Scotland. It’s also a first person narrative, so it needed to be read in Charlie’s voice. Therefore, I wanted to cast a man who sounded fifteen, but also could pull off a passable falsetto. Steven Barnett’s audition was the one that fit the bill. He sounded young, and he proved great with accents.

Steven B

Steven Barnett in the studio

It important to prepare detailed notes on all your characters. Untimed doesn’t have the biggest cast, but the characters are from all over the world (and time!) with varied accents and histories. Given my lean prose style and my use of whitespace to delineate dialog instead of extensive tagging (see below), the voices needed to be distinct enough for the listener to distinguish who is talking. After Steven studied my character sheets and we discussed them on the phone, we created a number of voice tests for the major parts. I listened and then gave feedback. This is a broad pattern that continues through the process. Prep -> Record -> Listen -> Feedback -> Repeat.

As I’ve experimented in many mediums: video games, novels, screenplays, and now audiobooks, it’s worth noting some of the differences. The physical placement on the page (as dictated by white space) is useful in novels. I separate dialog spoken by different people on different lines, and I make sure to place tags (he said, she said) and beats (small action queues like “Yvaine shifted in place” or “Donnie smirked” in the same paragraph as the speaker’s dialog. In an audiobook, you can’t hear the white space, but differences in voicing can make up for who is speaking. Still, you lose this spatial grouping. The tags also stand out more when spoken, as the eye tends to ignore them.

Another thing I hadn’t thought about is how long it actually takes to listen repeatedly to an entire novel. Untimed is over ten hours and every few weeks I’d get an hour or two of recordings, need to listen — usually twice (paying attention!) — and write up notes. And my side of the work was a lot easier than Steven’s. I can only imagine how long it took to record multiple takes, audition them, edit, then proof.

A final thing I decided to do was to add sound effects (sfx) to Untimed for the time travel aspects. I wanted the mysterious Tick-Tocks to have a creepy otherworld quality, so I thought to underscore them with an antique ticking noise. They never talk, but they do CHIME. In the books, I just write it like that, but having Steven read out the word “chime” sounded lame, so I replaced it with the sound of a deep resonant clock tower. Likewise, to help sell the mechanics of the time holes and the frequent (and complex) travel, I engineered unique sounds. This harkened back to my days as “assistant” sound engineer on Crash Bandicoot (I process and installed all the sounds that the real engineer, Mike Gollom, made for me). I found a source of royalty free sfx and combined and pitch shifted various ones until I got what I wanted. For example, the Tock ticking is a layered sample combining 4-5 different clocks and watches to reach suitable complexity.

Then, as the months rolled by, chapter by chapter, the book came together brilliantly. I’ve listened to it 2-3 times — although not all together at once. I’m curious at the psychological effect, but after reading various drafts countless times and a couple listens, I’ll leave that to you guys!

Listen to a free sample if you like:

http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/untimed_excerpt_v2-acx.mp3

Or buy the Audiobook at:

Amazon, Audible, or iTunes

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

_

Related posts:

  1. Dream a Little Dream
  2. Hark, I hear The Darkening Dream
  3. Untimed for sale at B&N and iTunes
  4. Untimed officially for Sale!
  5. Untimed – $1.99 this week!
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Audible, audiobook, iTunes, Philadelphia, Scotland, Steven Barnett, Untimed

Dream a Little Dream

Feb10

The e-book versions of The Darkening Dream will be on sale for only 99 cents this week through at least Friday February 14th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal. And if anything celebrates Valentines right, it’s a little succubus on psychopath action (villains, of course).

Buy it on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book.

Plus, if you don’t like to read and only want to listen, there is always the new audiobook version.

Listen to a free sample if you like:

/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/71-The-Darkening-Dream-Retail-Sample.mp3

Or buy the Audiobook at:

Amazon, Audible, or iTunes

Also, on the publishing front, The Audiobook version of Untimed is almost done, and I just wrapped up the 5th or 6th (and hopefully “final”) draft of the screenplay. Plus, 175+ pages of notes into my secret new novel.

About The Darkening Dream

As the Nineteenth Century gives way to the Twentieth, modern science and steel girders leave little room for the supernatural. But in dark corners the old forces still gather. God, demon, and sorcerer alike plot to regain what was theirs in Andy Gavin’s chilling debut, The Darkening Dream.

1913, Salem, Massachusetts – Sarah Engelmann’s life is full of friends, books, and avoiding the pressure to choose a husband, until an ominous vision and the haunting call of an otherworldly trumpet shake her. When she stumbles across a gruesome corpse, she fears that her vision was more of a premonition. And when she sees the murdered boy moving through the crowd at an amusement park, Sarah is thrust into a dark battle she does not understand.

With the help of Alex, a Greek immigrant who knows a startling amount about the undead, Sarah sets out to uncover the truth. Their quest takes them to Salem’s brutal factory workrooms, on a clandestine maritime mission, and down into their foe’s nightmarish crypt. But they aren’t prepared for the terrifying backlash that brings the fight back to their own homes and families. Can Alex’s elderly, vampire-hunting grandfather and Sarah’s own rabbi father help protect them? And what do Sarah’s darkening visions reveal?

No less than the Archangel Gabriel’s Horn, destined to announce the End of Days, is at stake, and the forces banded to recover it include a 900 year-old vampire, a trio of disgruntled Egyptian gods, and a demon-loving Puritan minister. At the center of this swirling conflict is Sarah, who must fight a millennia-old battle against unspeakable forces, knowing the ultimate prize might be herself.

“Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying” — Publishers Weekly
“Wonderfully twisted sense of humor” and
“A vampire novel with actual bite” — Kirkus Reviews
“Steampunk Lovecraftian Horror by way of Joss Whedon”

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

_

Related posts:

  1. Hark, I hear The Darkening Dream
  2. Thanksgiving Dream – only $0.99
  3. Summer Night’s Dream Sale
  4. Dream Sale
  5. The Darkening Dream for Christmas!
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: ACX.com, Audible, audiobook, iTunes, sale, The Darkening Dream

Hark, I hear The Darkening Dream

Oct30

Ten months in the making, The Darkening Dream audiobook is finally ready!

The complete unabridged book is available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for MP3 download to your phone or ipod. It’s narrated by producers Marti Dumas (female parts) and Eric Pollard (male parts).

A bit about the production

ACX_Logo

I started way back in January, and like most Independent authors considering an audiobook edition, decided to use Amazon’s ACX service. This is a marketplace for connecting authors with voice and production talent as well as an automated mechanism for delivering the finished books to the big online markets (Audible, Amazon, and iTunes). This makes it  easy to post descriptions of what your looking for and a section of the book to read. I listed both The Darkening Dream and Untimed. Lo and behold, over the next couple of weeks a pile of auditions started to come in.

ACX has a couple of options and it’s important to get them squared away BEFORE you pick a production team as they make it difficult to change after the fact (I know from experience). You can go either Exclusive or Non-exclusive. Retaining the right to sell through some other market (and remember they hit all the big online markets) earns you a much lower royalty rate (about half). Also, you can chose to pay your production team either as a fixed dollar amount per finished hour or as a percentage of royalties. Obviously royalties involve less up front costs on the part of the author, but I suspect that far less voice talent is interested in taking those terms as earn outs for Indie books are probably very variable. I went for pay up front exclusive.

The Darkening Dream  is a tricky novel from a recording standpoint as it has seven different points of view, of both genders, and given that the protagonist is a young woman and several of the POVs are nasty male villains, I couldn’t imagine either a man or a woman reading both. Luckily, I found a talented pair who works together and we began production last winter. However, I wasn’t totally prepared for how long it would take and how much work it was on both sides.

Belle Voix

Marti (left) and Eric (right) finishing up a recording session with a glass of al-Nasir’s blood

First of all, it’s important to prepare very detailed notes on all your characters. TDD has a big cast, many with varied accents and histories, and not all are even human. Each of the POVs had to sound distinct and in the authentic voice of that character. After my team studied my character sheets and we discussed each character, we created a number of voice tests for the major parts. I listened and then gave feedback. This is a broad pattern that continues through the process. Prep -> Record -> Listen -> Feedback -> Repeat.

As I’ve experimented in many mediums: video games, novels, screenplays, and now audiobooks, it’s worth noting some of the differences. The physical placement on the page (as dictated by white space) is useful in novels. I separate dialog spoken by different people on different lines, and I make sure to place tags (he said, she said) and beats (small action queues like “Alex shifted in place” or “Sarah smirked” in the same paragraph as the speaker’s dialog. In an audiobook, you can’t hear the white space, but differences in voicing can make up for who is speaking. Still, you lose this spatial grouping. The tags also stand out more when spoken, as the eye tends to ignore them.

Another thing I hadn’t thought about is how long it actually takes to listen repeatedly to an entire novel. TDD is over eleven hours and every few weeks I’d get an hour or two of recordings, need to listen — usually twice (paying attention!) — and write up notes. And my side of the work was a lot easier than Marti and Eric’s. I can only imagine how long it took to record multiple takes, audition them, edit, then proof.

With the multiple voices, TDD sounds a tad like an audioplay, which is rather cool, and a few of the supernatural elements needed sound effects. We kept this to a minimum, because once you head down that rabbit hole, who knows where it leads — but the mystical horn (readers will know what I’m talking about) and the vampire glamour both begged for a little special treatment.

Then, as the months rolled by, chapter by chapter, the book came together brilliantly. I’ve listened to it between 2-3 times — although not all together at once. I’m curious at the psychological effect, but after reading various drafts over 50 times and a couple listens, I’ll leave that to you guys!

Listen to a free sample if you like:

/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/71-The-Darkening-Dream-Retail-Sample.mp3

Or buy the Audiobook at:

Amazon, Audible, or iTunes

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

_
_

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream for Christmas!
  2. Summer Night’s Dream Sale
  3. The Darkening Dream – Free on Kindle
  4. Dream Sale
  5. The Darkening Dream – Free Today!
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon.com, Audible, audiobook, Eric Pollard, horror, iTunes, Marti Dumas, The Darkening Dream
Watch the Trailer or

Buy it Online!

Buy it Online!

96 of 100 tickets!

Find Andy at:

Follow Me on Pinterest

Subscribe by email:

More posts on:



Complete Archives

Categories

  • Contests (7)
  • Fiction (404)
    • Books (113)
    • Movies (77)
    • Television (123)
    • Writing (115)
      • Darkening Dream (62)
      • Untimed (37)
  • Food (1,765)
  • Games (101)
  • History (13)
  • Technology (21)
  • Uncategorized (16)

Recent Posts

  • Happy Hibi
  • Eating Naples – Palazzo Petrucci
  • Eating San Foca – Aura
  • Eating Otranto – ArborVitae
  • Eating Lecce – Gimmi
  • Eating Lecce – Varius
  • Eating Lecce – Duo
  • Eating Lecce – Doppiozero
  • Eating Torre Canne – Autentico
  • Eating Torre Canne – Beach

Favorite Posts

  • I, Author
  • My Novels
  • The Darkening Dream
  • Sample Chapters
  • Untimed
  • Making Crash Bandicoot
  • My Gaming Career
  • Getting a job designing video games
  • Getting a job programming video games
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • A Game of Thrones
  • 27 Courses of Truffles
  • Ultimate Pizza
  • Eating Italy
  • LA Sushi
  • Foodie Club

Archives

  • May 2025 (4)
  • April 2025 (4)
  • February 2025 (5)
  • January 2025 (3)
  • December 2024 (13)
  • November 2024 (14)
  • October 2024 (14)
  • September 2024 (15)
  • August 2024 (13)
  • July 2024 (15)
  • June 2024 (14)
  • May 2024 (15)
  • April 2024 (13)
  • March 2024 (9)
  • February 2024 (7)
  • January 2024 (9)
  • December 2023 (8)
  • November 2023 (14)
  • October 2023 (13)
  • September 2023 (9)
  • August 2023 (15)
  • July 2023 (13)
  • June 2023 (14)
  • May 2023 (15)
  • April 2023 (14)
  • March 2023 (12)
  • February 2023 (11)
  • January 2023 (14)
  • December 2022 (11)
  • November 2022 (13)
  • October 2022 (14)
  • September 2022 (14)
  • August 2022 (12)
  • July 2022 (9)
  • June 2022 (6)
  • May 2022 (8)
  • April 2022 (5)
  • March 2022 (4)
  • February 2022 (2)
  • January 2022 (8)
  • December 2021 (6)
  • November 2021 (6)
  • October 2021 (8)
  • September 2021 (4)
  • August 2021 (5)
  • July 2021 (2)
  • June 2021 (3)
  • January 2021 (1)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (11)
  • March 2020 (15)
  • February 2020 (13)
  • January 2020 (14)
  • December 2019 (13)
  • November 2019 (12)
  • October 2019 (14)
  • September 2019 (14)
  • August 2019 (13)
  • July 2019 (13)
  • June 2019 (14)
  • May 2019 (13)
  • April 2019 (10)
  • March 2019 (10)
  • February 2019 (11)
  • January 2019 (13)
  • December 2018 (14)
  • November 2018 (11)
  • October 2018 (15)
  • September 2018 (15)
  • August 2018 (15)
  • July 2018 (11)
  • June 2018 (14)
  • May 2018 (13)
  • April 2018 (13)
  • March 2018 (17)
  • February 2018 (12)
  • January 2018 (15)
  • December 2017 (15)
  • November 2017 (13)
  • October 2017 (16)
  • September 2017 (16)
  • August 2017 (16)
  • July 2017 (11)
  • June 2017 (13)
  • May 2017 (6)
  • March 2017 (3)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (7)
  • December 2016 (14)
  • November 2016 (11)
  • October 2016 (11)
  • September 2016 (12)
  • August 2016 (15)
  • July 2016 (13)
  • June 2016 (13)
  • May 2016 (13)
  • April 2016 (12)
  • March 2016 (13)
  • February 2016 (12)
  • January 2016 (13)
  • December 2015 (14)
  • November 2015 (14)
  • October 2015 (13)
  • September 2015 (13)
  • August 2015 (18)
  • July 2015 (16)
  • June 2015 (13)
  • May 2015 (13)
  • April 2015 (14)
  • March 2015 (15)
  • February 2015 (13)
  • January 2015 (13)
  • December 2014 (14)
  • November 2014 (13)
  • October 2014 (13)
  • September 2014 (12)
  • August 2014 (15)
  • July 2014 (13)
  • June 2014 (13)
  • May 2014 (14)
  • April 2014 (14)
  • March 2014 (10)
  • February 2014 (11)
  • January 2014 (13)
  • December 2013 (14)
  • November 2013 (13)
  • October 2013 (14)
  • September 2013 (12)
  • August 2013 (14)
  • July 2013 (10)
  • June 2013 (14)
  • May 2013 (14)
  • April 2013 (14)
  • March 2013 (15)
  • February 2013 (14)
  • January 2013 (13)
  • December 2012 (14)
  • November 2012 (16)
  • October 2012 (13)
  • September 2012 (14)
  • August 2012 (16)
  • July 2012 (12)
  • June 2012 (16)
  • May 2012 (21)
  • April 2012 (18)
  • March 2012 (20)
  • February 2012 (23)
  • January 2012 (31)
  • December 2011 (35)
  • November 2011 (33)
  • October 2011 (32)
  • September 2011 (29)
  • August 2011 (35)
  • July 2011 (33)
  • June 2011 (25)
  • May 2011 (31)
  • April 2011 (30)
  • March 2011 (34)
  • February 2011 (31)
  • January 2011 (33)
  • December 2010 (33)
  • November 2010 (39)
  • October 2010 (26)
All Things Andy Gavin
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Programmed by Andy Gavin