A Video Sample of Me Narrating an Audiobook

While the video quality leaves much to be desired here check out me narrating a sliver from an audiobook and a bit of my process. At 1:35 the audio switches microphones and you can hear the difference between my iPhone 6+ internal microphone and my Audio‑Technica AT2020 cardioid condenser microphone. Maybe next time I'll figure out a better lighting situation than just the light of my laptop :)

Speed Up Your Audio Editing in Audacity

While producing my first audiobook of a full length novel the first thing I realized was that the editing of my raw audio was taking me FOREVER. I had narrated a lot before but they were all short stories. This was an 8+ hour novel and it became very clear that the bulk of my time producing the audiobook would be spent editing. When you're getting paid per finished hour more production time means less money earned for that finished hour of audio. I wish I would have known the things I know now back then. I have since put into practice two different methods when recording narration. You may like one or the other better. Let's get into them and I sincerely hope that these methods will help you shave hours off of your production time. My Digital Audio Workstation of choice is Audacity because it's free, it has everything I need, and I love its user interface. The second method I'll explain goes into detail for Audacity users, but has relevance for other DAWs too. This first method works in any recording software.

The Clicker

I'll start with the easier of the two methods. For this you'll need a dog training clicker. They cost like 2 bucks and can be found at any pet store. When I write "use the clicker" you could also substitute this with making a loud click with your tongue or snapping your fingers. Every time you make a mistake reading your script stop, use the clicker, then start over on the line. When you finish your recording session you will easily be able to see in the waveform where all of your mistakes are. The loud clicker makes two quick tall spikes in the audio that are easy to spot. This means that instead of listening back through your entire recording to find and delete the mistakes, which takes forever, you can quickly spot them visually and delete them. This takes minutes instead of hours. It will save you a lot of editing time. You might still need to listen through to delete mouth and breath sounds or adjust the timing here and there, but without all the mistakes the recording will me much shorter and this step will take much less time. I love this method and use it all the time. To see what I'm talking about check out this great video from Edge Studios. Skip to 11:05 in the video to see this specific thing, but the whole video is great and don't forget to come back here because the best in this blog post is yet to come!

Punch and Roll

The second method is what many pro audiobook narrators use. It's called the Punch and Roll method. I used it on the last long audiobook project I did and it saved me a lot of editing time. It does make your recording time take longer, but saves hours in the end. If you have software that allows you to do this then it's quite easy. If you use Audacity like I do then it's still possible but requires a bit more work. Punch and roll allows you to stop when you make a mistake, then listen back to the flubbed line and continue recording over the top of it - replacing the mistake on the fly. When you're done recording the timing is all perfect and there are no bad takes that need to be edited out. I haven't found an article anywhere online I can point you to that shows you how to do this in Audacity, a popular free audio editor or DAW, but I'll try and explain it here as briefly as possible. If you use another Digital Audio Workstation like Adobe Audition then Google "punch and roll in Audition" and you'll find how to do it. Here is a method I discovered through some hard thinking and experimenting in Audacity.

Since Audacity doesn't have a punch and roll tool built in you have to get a little creative. Normally you place your playhead a bit before your mistake and then hit record - then the punch and roll tool lets you hear the first part of the line and start recording over the top of it replacing the mistake with your new take. Since we can't do that we're going to use two audio tracks to achieve the same thing, but we'll have to go back afterwards and delete the mistakes, but this will still be much faster and I'll explain why. Okay here we go.

Hit record. Narrate the script. Oops, you made a mistake. Hey it's cool, even the pros flub lines. Hit stop. Move your play head back to the beginning of the line you made a mistake on. Hit R to start recording on a second audio track. Listen to a few words and then start reading over your mistake. Keep narrating until you make a mistake again. Oops, that didn't sound right. Hit stop. Now move the cursor back to the beginning of the messed up line again, but this time make sure you're back on your original track. This time hit SHIFT+R to append record which means record on the selected track instead of recording onto a new track. The next time you make a mistake, stop, move your playhead back to the start of the line on the track without the mistake, then append record on that other track. When you're done you'll have two audio tracks with the good takes alternating from one track to the other. Now all you have to do is go back and delete the bad takes but now they're easy to find, like with the dog clicker, but even better - all the timing is perfect. If you don't know how to delete audio on a track without everything after it sliding back instead of leaving an empty gap like you want - select the audio you want to delete and hit CTRL+ALT+K to perform a split delete. If you're on a Mac it's Option+Command+K. Now you don't have to listen back through to fix the spaces between lines that are too long or short because everything was recorded with the natural timing instead of having to be fixed after the bad lines were deleted.

There you have it. The first method is a bit less technical and makes for an easier time while recording but still saves you lots of time. It may be the best method for a more dramatic reading of fiction because it's less distracting. The second method saves you the most time but may take a while to get used to. It may work best for non-fiction narration or if you get used to it then use it for fiction as well. If you currently hit record and don't stop until you're session is over with mistakes and all I strongly suggest trying one of these methods. If you do please come back and share your results in the comments. Thanks for stopping by!

Ghost Mansion | An Audiobook I Narrated & Produced is live!

A really fun audiobook called Ghost Mansion I had the pleasure to narrate and produce just went live. Think The Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland, but scarier, and you've got the gist of this story. It has a bunch of really fun added sound effects and background music to really enhance the audio story to be a great listen. Grab your nice headphones and go give this a listen. It's very short and very inexpensive so give it a purchase if you like what you hear and support an indie audiobook narrator, me and an indie author Drac Von Stoller. Not only are there cool sound effects and music in the background, as always, but I got to really have fun coming up with different voices for each character in this story. Also think old western shoot em' up story mixed with a ghost story and you've got Grave Robbers! Now available at Audible.com, Amazon.com, and in iTunes! Go have a listen. I know you're going to love it. Why not pick up a copy and support an indie author and narrator. Thanks for stopping by!

Grave Robbers | An Audiobook I Narrated & Produced is live!

An awesome audiobook I had the pleasure to narrate and produce just went live. This was a really cool story and my favorite I've been able to do so far from the author Drac Von Stoller. Not only are there cool sound effects and music in the background, as always, but I got to really have fun coming up with different voices for each character in this story. Also think old western shoot em' up story mixed with a ghost story and you've got Grave Robbers! Now available at Audible.com, Amazon.com, and in iTunes! Go have a listen. I know you're going to love it. Why not pick up a copy and support an indie author and narrator. Thanks for stopping by!

Desecration | An Audiobook I Narrated & Produced is live!

I narrated and produced the audiobook Desecration for author Drac Von Stoller. It's another really short story with cool sound effects that add to the ambiance of the story. I had a blast recording and producing it. Go give the sample a listen with some nice headphones on. Thanks for stopping by!

A brief synopsis:

Graven Cemetery was once a very well kept place until Jimmy and his friends started camping out and drinking heavily around a campfire, breaking the tombstones, and leaving their empty beer cans on the graves, but their little desecrating games were about to turn deadly for the four teens.

Find it at Audible.com

Sugar Detox by Tracy-Ann HymanA New Audiobook I Narrated is Live!

I was really excited when the contract to narrate the audiobook came in for Sugar Detox: The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Cleanse, Detox and Overcome Sugar Addictions Completely. For one, this was a book I auditioned for. Most of the books I've signed contracts to narrate have been when an author or rights holder has heard samples of my voice and asks me to audition for them. I've even been given a contract without having to audition from an author I had not worked with before. That is very flattering, but there's also something special about getting a narration gig from a book you auditioned for. 

Narrating audiobooks takes a surprising amount of time. Turning in 5 minutes of finished audio for an audition can easily mean 30 minutes of my time. There's editing, mastering, exporting, and uploading after the recording is complete. Many times I don't hear back on projects I audition for until they've chosen another narrator. Several weeks back I had a block of free time while everyone else in my house napped, we have many young children, so I recorded three auditions for three separate titles. I heard back from the rights holder to Sugar Detox a few days after submitting my audition and it made my day! It was an interesting book to narrate, and it's chalked full of great information. If you're even slightly interested in what sugar does to your body or why it might be a good idea for you to cut back on sugar, you'll really enjoy this book. I had a blast narrating and producing it. Go listen to the sample and if you like what you hear purchase it and support an indie author and narrator.

Quality, Assured | I was quoted on the ACX Blog!

The latest blog post over at the ACX blog has a quote from me. It was pulled from a reply email I sent to an ACX Client Support employee. They found a tiny intake of breath at the very end of one of my chapter files. I usually have multiple chapters recorded into one audio file so to get them saved out individually I select them on the timeline and export the selected audio. Apparently I selected just a bit too far and caught just a sliver of the beginning of the next chapter. I always double check these things, and it was the first time that I've had audio returned to me from ACX for it needing something to be fixed, but I missed this tiny detail. It was easy to miss upon listening to it even when I knew it was there and yet ACX caught it before letting the audiobook go to retail. I really appreciated their thorough review of my files so I wrote what you see in the image above. Pretty cool to be quoted in a blog I look forward to reading! Thanks fro stopping by, and here's the link to the ACX blog post:

http://blog.acx.com/2014/03/20/quality-assured/

AirpocalypseA New Audiobook I Narrated and Produced is Live!

Airpocalypse by Drac Von Stoller is now available! You can pick it up at Audible.com, Amazon.com, and over in iTunes. This is a very short audio book that I'm very proud of. The production was really fun on this one and it came out beautifully. It's one you're going to want to listen to in a quiet place with nice headphones on. There is a thick atmosphere to the audio of this book. It really creates a mood and makes you feel like you're there in the bleak environment. It's only $3.95 or $2.76 for Audible members so snatch it up and enjoy something fun and different in the world of audio books - and support two indie artists in the process. It would sound nice cranked up in your car or home stereo system as well. Thanks for stopping by!

The XJ7 Experiment: Hostile Grey AliensA New Audiobook I Narrated and Produced is Live!

I had the pleasure to narrate and produce The XJ7 Experiment for Drac Von Stoller. It was an absolute blast. This audiobook was a very different animal. While it was very short, there was a lot of production involved because the author requires that his stories have sound effects to enhance his audio books. I love producing these kinds of stories in audio! Although this is another Science Fiction story for me, it's also my first horror book. It gets pretty gruesome and the sound effects only add to the intense scenes. Have a listen to the sample, and hey why not support a couple indie guys and buy it to hear the rest. It's only $3.95 and although it's short - it really packs a punch. The two of us have partnered up again on another one of his stories called Airpocalypse that I'm really excited about. It really shines in audio and I can't wait for you to hear it. It's another one with sound effects and will be one of those audiobooks you'll want to listen to in a quiet place with really nice headphones on so you can hear all of the intricacies and texture of the sound. That one should be out in just a couple weeks and I'll be sure to post about it when it goes live. Thanks for stopping by!

And Another Audiobook!

I had the pleasure to narrate another audio book by James M. Lowrance under the pen name of Percyvelle Pennington III. This one is called Evolution Can't Be True Because I Don't Like Bananas: My Ponderings on Mr. Darwin's Flawed Theory and it's much more hilarious than it is controversial or opinionated. Click the link and give it a listen. Thanks for stopping by!

A New Audiobook I Narrated is Live!

This hilarious and very tongue in cheek book I narrated is now available at Audible, Amazon, and in iTunes! I had way too much fun with this one. I hope to do more humorous books in the future as the delivery and timing required in the narration on them is a really fun challenge. The next two book to hit digital bookshelves are actually humorous books as well. Look for posts about them soon. 

Here's the synopsis for this book:

---

While the solution I offer to the growing problem of restaurant patrons blowing their noses outwardly and openly within public dining rooms, is simple and that I could have easily stated within a single paragraph, this would be a lost opportunity. I say this because my example and solution for only one problem we may experience during our stay at a public eatery, is simply that..."an example". I am using what might be the single most disgusting behavioral act that can be perpetrated but not hidden, by a fellow restaurant-patron, being that of "dining room nose blowing".

My purpose being to set a type of standard for correction of similar problems. Certainly we could instead report undesirable behaviors to the staff of a food service establishment. We could simply ask them to speak to the offending patron, requesting that they desist their gross or offensive activity, while keeping us anonymous. My question however, would be to ask if this would be the best way to send corrective admonition? I think not... (just a taste of what you'll get in this over 3,000 word dissertation!)

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Rudeness of all Types Can Occur in Restaurants

3. "Restaurant Boogie Fever" - One of the Rudeness Biggies!

4. What You Would Like to Do (but Can't)

5. What You Can Do Within Legal Limits

6. In Conclusion

---

I hope you'll give it a listen. If anything listen to the sample for a laugh. Maybe it will convince you to pick the book up. It's a great price for an audiobook. Thanks for stopping by!

The Third Audiobook I Narrated is Live!

I had the privilege to narrate the book Intriguing Science Fiction Short Stories and Tributes: Thrilling Adventures in Fantasy by James M. Lowrance. This book was really fun to narrate and it covered my two favorite genres as you can see in the header of my website. There is also some excellent non-fiction in this book about UFOs and a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock. The book is well written and full of humor, intense action, and a lot of mystery. I know you'll enjoy it if you're a fan of my work. I enjoyed narrating Mr. Lowrance's work so much that I hope to do more of it in the future. He's a great writer. I'm so excited to have three professional audiobooks under my belt! Go grab your copy and enjoy. It's a short work so the price is right. Thanks for stopping by!

Dinosaurs: 51 Fabulous Facts is Online!

The audiobook "Dinosaurs: 51 Fabulous Facts" by Lucy Wilson is now available on Audible.com, Amazon, and in iTunes!

 

This book was so fun to record! My first love is fiction, but who doesn't love Dinosaurs? I think it's important to read both fiction and non-fiction even if you only write fiction. Go grab your copy today and listen to me tell you 51 fabulous, fun, and cool facts all about Dinosaurs. Have a road trip coming up during the holidays? Well here you go. Thanks for stopping by.

I Signed the Contract to Narrate my 3rd Audiobook!

This time I'm really excited because I'm getting to narrate a collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy short stories. Those are my favorite two genres, a fact you already knew because you've totally checked out my awesome header at the top of my site right? Anyways - I absolutely love audiobooks and narrating them is at least as fun if not more fun than listening to them. Narrating a book that's well written and in my favorite genres is like the chocolate dipped cherry nestled nicely on top of a rich chocolate frosted cupcake complete with three white sprinkles. Okay, I may have used the image I found at the awesome website UnrestrictedStock.com to get some inspiration for that but seriously - I'm so excited to be the narrator for this title! It's called: Intriguing Science Fiction Short Stories and Tributes: Thrilling Adventures in Fantasy by James M. Lowrance and you can snag your copy now at Amazon. The eBook version is only $2.99 and judging from the audition script I got to read and the 4 and 5 star reviews for it on Amazon it's an awesome read. I can't wait to share James's great stories with the world.

Second Audio Book Narrated in the Books

Today I received an email letting me know that the completed audio book I narrated and produced was accepted by the rights holder. It was really fun to record and it's called "Dinosaurs: 51 Fabulous Facts," by Lucy Wilson. In about three weeks it will hit all the online stores and my name will then be listed as a narrator for two audio books on audible.com, amazon.com, and in iTunes! That is so exciting to me! I previously had the privilege to record the novel "A Life Worth Dreaming About" by Nicholas Dettmann. So now I have one fiction title and one non fiction title under my belt. 

I absolutely love audio books. I have been avidly listening to them for years and now I'm finally doing it - I'm narrating them! I can't wait to land the next gig and bring someone else's beloved novel to life in people's ears. My goal is to narrate 25 audio books, continue to have a blast and pour my passion into it, and then apply to become and audible approved producer. You can't do that until you've narrated 25 titles for ACX but then you get a special icon next to your profile so people know you're an experienced and approved narrator. I want this to become a thriving career and something I'm posting about all the time. I can't wait to fire up the microphone for the next project!

Narrating "Dinosaurs: 51 Fabulous Facts"

As I stood in front of my microphone narrating Dinosaurs: 51 Fabulous Facts I started to run into some fun challenges. There was a fact in the book which listed a ton of different dinosaur names, including the longest dinosaur name: Micropachycephalosaurus. That's right if you pick up the audio book in a month or so and give it a listen you'll hear me pronounce that word casually with perfection. :) That was just one of many names I had no clue how to pronounce correctly until narrating this book. Thank goodness for the internet.

Narrating non fiction is much different than narrating fiction. Instead of going into different character voices and narrating with a bit of dramatic flair I'm going for a fun and energetic voice. I love a good story, but I also love dinosaurs. Who doesn't? This book is proving to be a blast to narrate because as I read I learn lots of cool facts about them, many of which I did not know. I can't wait for people to be able to stick this book in their cars on family road trips or on their iPods for their commutes or chores. It should prove to be a very fun listen.

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Narrating Another Book & NaNoWriMo!

It's almost November so I should be gearing up for NaNoWriMo, but right now I'm excited about something else. I just landed my second audiobook narration gig! This one is nonfiction but it's still going to be very fun. No why? It's about dinosaurs! Who doesn't like dinosaurs?

As I read the short audition I already had lots of fun and learned quite a few things about dinosaurs. It's going to be a blast to narrate this book and I know listeners will have a great deal of fun as well. This book would be perfect for my family. Say we're going on a road trip - the kids could sit in the back and hear all about dinosaurs with fun facts and funny little asides. That's this book and I can't wait to narrated it.

As for NaNoWriMo I plan on writing the same way I did when I won and got 50K words a few years ago. I will either record myself talking in my phone and transcribe it later, or just do straight up speech to text transcription. I did it on my old blackberry and it worked pretty well but my iPhone 5 works so much better with speech to text and I'm pretty excited about it. I should be able to get quite a few words to and from work. Also I'm not working full-time at the moment so I should have some time during naptime as well, but this will only come after I'm done with the audiobook because that comes first. It won't take me too long to produce this one as it's a children's book. It's going to be really fun and it gets me one step further to my goal. Once you have narrated 25 books for ACX you can try and become an Audible approved narrator. Then you get a special little logo next to your name when people are searching for narrators for their book. It tells them that you've been around the block and have some experience narrating audiobooks. It is my goal to become an Audible approved narrator and start doing much more narration. I really enjoy narrating and producing audiobooks. Listening to them has always been a passion of mine, and producing them is now a new passion for me.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Audio Book I Narrated is Online!

Have a listen - the audio book I narrated, A Life Worth Dreaming About by Nicholas Dettman, is now available online! You can go listen to the 5 minute sample of it at Audible. I'm so excited! I'm now listed at Audible, iTunes, and Amazon as an audio book narrator! Who-hoo! This event marks a dream coming true for me. I'm so thrilled and excited! I had an absolute blast narrating the book and I'm so glad it's out in the wild now for people to listen to and enjoy the great story that Nicholas wrote. 

I also just noticed that I received a promising message from an author about an audition I recorded for another book so here's to hoping I'll be recording the next one soon. I look forward to narrating book for the rest of my life, I really love doing it that much. I can't wait for the next one. Thanks for stopping by!

A New Narration Recording Technique

Last night I started recording a new chapter in the audio book I'm narrating, and I went about it in a different way. This new way is going to save me a ton of time in post. I'm still not even halfway through editing the enormous first chapter of the book. I recorded the first chapter by hitting record and just going until I was done reading the chapter. I took a couple breaks to refill my water cup, but when I was done I had over two hours of audio to go through. This chapter is way longer than most clocking in at over nine thousand words. In some cases I wasn't sure about the way I read a line so I would do a few more takes. Now I'm having to go back and edit all of those out and it is taking me forever. Like, two hours gets me twenty minutes of edited audio type of forever. Yeah, that long - really!

From what I've read on the web many of the pros record audio books using a "punch and roll" technique where they stop recording on mistakes, and then punch right back in recording over the mess up. I'm using Audacity to record and it doesn't have a way to listen to a few seconds of the track and then record over the bad line, but I've found a method that works surprisingly well for me. It maybe takes me a second longer than it does for them with their expensive recording software.

Last night I spent around two hours recording. There were some interuptions, but I got almost forty minutes of recorded audio. This audio, however, is only of the good takes. No bad lines can be found, not even a couple good versions of a line. If I mess up I stop and delete the bad line, then hit record and keep going. In some cases I'll still just keep recording until I nail the line, then stop recording, review, and edit out the bad ones right then and there. I really thought this would mess with my flow of narrating, but it hasn't whatsoever. I was already stopping to take sips of water, so stopping to do a quick delete and hit the record button is no big deal - especially since I'm using hotkeys. This is going to cut down on a ton of my production time for this audio book. I'm so excited to be doing this and I can't wait to see it out in the world on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes! Thanks for stopping by.

I'm an Audiobook Narrator!

Once again my blog has been silent for a time. That's because I've recently taken on a huge project that I'm really excited about! I joined ACX, audiobook creation exchange, a few weeks ago. I uploaded some samples of me narrating fiction and non fiction. I tried out for one fairly short non-fiction book about teaching. I was going to become a teacher before I changed my mind and went into the arts so it's something I'm interested in. Then I started receiving messages from a gentleman with questions about how it all worked to get his novel made into an audio book. I quickly and professionally answered all of his questions. Quite a few messages were exchanged and then he sent me a message stating that he'd like me to narrate his novel. I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought it would take much longer to land a gig narrating someone's novel. I'm still waiting to hear from the non-fiction author. It's always been a dream of mine to narrate audio books. He said his wife liked my voice and thought it would fit his book well. Thank goodness for his wife! :) I'm so excited! This project is going to take every last second of my time to get done under deadline, but I'm really enjoying it. Once the project is finished I'll be sure to give you guys all the details of where to find it on Audible and Amazon. I added a progress meter to the right. Once that thing fills with blue I'll be done and I can go back to cranking out the first draft of my current novel "Zombie Super Powers." Wish me luck! So far I'm very pleased with how it's turning out. This will be a long steady race, not like recording one of my short stories. I was a distance runner in high school though, and writing novels is a similar long slow process, so I think I'll be okay :) Thanks for stopping by.

The isolation box I built for my microphone in my closet to record