Have a listen to this!

Rise and rise of the audiobook

One of the delights of having a book published these days is you are far more likely to get an audio version at the same time. This is because that audio is one of the areas of strong growth in the book market and publishers have spotted the trend.

What’s been your latest listen? Mine’s the new Cormoran Strike novel - for my view read on!

I’m part of that book buying market. I tend to buy on audio rather than kindle, particularly for books that have a strong narrative drive. This is partly because I spend my days reading and writing so it is a change of pace and means I can be free of a screen.

The Hallmarked Man

My latest purchase was The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith - all 31 hours of it! And yes, I have listened to it - tricky to follow because the plot is very knotty. Perhaps this is a case where buying the book or borrowing from a library would’ve been preferable to keep track. However, it did all come together at the end.

While listening, I kept thinking of Robert Glenister (the reader) narrating away in a little room for all that time. How many days did it take, I wonder? His Cormoran is more Cornish than the version in the TV series as played by Tom Burke so it feels very different. I listen on train journeys, in the car and when doing household chores like shopping, so the time adds up.

Regency Secrets

My own books come in at a modest 10 hours - that’s what about 90,000 words is like when read aloud. I did have to campaign for this with the publisher but now I’ve two new audiobooks in the Regency Secrets series to share with you, making three. The fourth (The Austen Intrigue) will be out when that book comes out in November.

The reader is Rose Robinson. She’s got a lovely voice and manages well with the range of accents I throw at her. Please do give it a try if you like audiobooks. It is very restful to be back in 1812 even if there is murder and mayhem afoot. The good thing about historical fiction is you know what is going to happen in terms of the bigger picture - much less nail biting than current events.

Making my own

I’ve also had a go at making my own audiobooks of titles where the publisher hasn’t chosen to make one. Quite a few authors do this. It takes time but is so much easier now as there are great sites to clean up an audio track and make it sound professional. If you want to see what that sounds like, you could try books 1 and 3 of the Dragonfly series - here’s Ragged Wolf.

Or you can try my dragon adventure under my Joss Stirling name:

Favourite voices

If you start to listen to a lot of books, you soon develop favourite (and unlistenable) voices. I particularly like Natasha Soudek who reads a lot of fantasy titles. I enjoy Andy Serkis’ version of The Lord of the Rings, and Lorelei King - again another voice for many fantasy titles. On the other hand, oddly I struggled with Jennifer Ehle reading Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare - I loved her as Elizabeth but I don’t think it suits her. Perhaps a voice you like is personal rather than objective? If so, it’s worth listening to a sample to check you want to be in this person’s company for so many hours.

AI

What I do know is that I don’t want to listen an AI generated narration. If you upload to Kindle Unlimited you are now offered a conversion of your book to an AI voice. I tried it just to see what would happen. Awful. The voice was fine but it didn’t know what it was saying. I deleted it immediately.

So for now I’ll be grateful when someone like Rose reads my book, or when I spend the time doing it myself. The human touch counts.

Have a listen.