Audiobook Adventures: Post 23

I try to stay away from my stats (whether it's Dunesteef downloads, page reads here, or feedback on eBay), because invariably, I get bummed out by the numbers. I recently signed on to do a sequel to a piece I recorded earlier in the year, and to match my narration, I went to my Finished Projects. There, I saw the actual numbers of most of the books and stories I've recorded over the past half-year.

There were a couple with zero sales. Zero.

That means, even my evil twin did not buy them. Kind of depressing to think about, really.

Of course, there are some with several purchases, and those should way outweigh the non-starters. But zero . . . yikes.

But that only discouraged me for as long as it took me to type this.  Then I felt alright.


I haven't signed on for any new projects lately, and I plan to spend August finishing up the obligations I've already made before tackling anything new.  But having said that, I'm instantly curious about what books/stories are newly available, since I always think something awesome, like an old novella by Stephen King or something, is going to show up.

I was able to record that short story, another of Kristine Kathryn Rusch's, in two sittings, and I might have been able to do the whole thing at once, had I not stopped to edit the first fifteen minutes and see if that passed muster enough to continue.  I had more than enough reason to worry that my beginning would not be satisfactory in some way or another, but it went through fine, and in just a couple of days, I had the whole thing recorded . . . and edited.  Barring something unforeseen, this one will be ready to sell within the week, and I'll audition for another one in that series soon. 

I started the second book in my five-book commitment this week.  Whereas for the first book, I had an actual paperback in my hands, this one has an electronic copy in front of me.  I was surprised to discover the e-book version is much, much easier to narrate, and has, oddly, fewer typos.  I actually had to make a couple of executive decisions whilst performing the first book, because a sentence made no sense, or there was a word missing/extra in there a time or two.  I'm not sure how a digital file comes to exist, but it MAY be that someone had to physically type it into a computer somewhere.  And while that should fill it with more mistakes, the first chapter, anyway, only had one, and it was very nice to be able to make the text bigger with the click of a mouse.

Lastly, there was an author (and book) I recognized looking for auditions this week.  I remember podcasters advertising the book, and even thought Big had read it, so I emailed him and asked him if it was good, and if I should audition for it.  He told me it was right down my alley, but only I could make the decision as to whether it would be worth it to dedicate, what, seventy-odd hours to it.  I looked at the audition piece, and it was two full chapters of the book (which again, is asking waaaay too much of a prospective narrator).  In the end, what made me go ahead and audition was Big telling me, "I think you'll read it and feel like you're narrating something you wrote yourself."

We'll see if I get that contract.  And if so, whether his prophesy turns out to be correct.

Rish Outfield, Audiobook Guy