My Audiobook Journey…

In 2003 my best friend* since junior high moved from the central coast of California where I still live, to Las Vegas. So every three or four months I would drive, alone usually, to and home from Vegas. It was a 500 mile trek door-to-door each way. The trip took me between 8-9 hours depending on weather and how many stops I made (one fateful trip took me 13 hours thanks to a late start and a late evening snow near Mountain Pass, CA I wasn’t expecting nor prepared for). 

My mom, ever the worrier, hated those days because I was stubborn and independent (and very much an adult) and dammit I was going to visit my friend. This is pre-3G cell service which was shoddy in the desert I had a penchant for locking my keys in the car. 

The idea that I should give audiobooks a try came to me for one of those many trips. I didn’t have satellite radio and radio stations were hard to find while transversing the mountain passes and desert between our houses. I checked one out at the library before one of my trips. I remember it was Stephen King because I was on a kick at the time but I don’t remember which exact book it was now. But these are the audiobook CD days- so it was several cds long. 

I just couldn’t get into it at all. Switching out the CDs was hard even on the mostly deserted highways. I had trouble concentrating on the story and driving because it was hard for me to picture what was going on in the book because I couldn’t envision it like I did when I read with my eyeballs. Needless to say I returned the audiobook to the library upon my return home, never bothering to finish it and declared that audiobooks were not for me. 

Fast forward to about two years ago. I’m a published author. I work full time at my “day job.” Reading for enjoyment is harder to find time for but I still manage to do it- usually at night before bed as a way to wind down. It just takes me much longer to get through a book. I’d been trying to find time to read Andy Biersack’s They Don’t Need to Understand: Stories of Hope, Fear, Family, Life, and Never Giving In. 

I keep having to go back and reread parts of it and to make matters worse it’s a physical book and not an ebook so reading at night was too hard because I’m lazy and don’t want to get back up to shut my light off when I decide it’s time to sleep. Plus I will admit right here I am the girl who falls asleep reading in bed and wakes only when she drops her Kindle on her face. 

Around this time there was an Audible deal four month free or something (I think it was a Black Friday special) so I decided what the heck. I’m going to try it and see if I can finish Andy’s book. I can cancel at the end of my free trial. So I commenced to listening. I listened back and forth to work and during errands and other solo outings (although my mom did catch a few chapters here and there and got pulled in to the story as well despite not knowing who Andy Biersack is (he’s the lead singer of Black Veil Brides- known to some as Andy Black). I quickly found myself looking forward to outings in my car purely because I wanted to listen. It’s narrated by Andy himself, which made it all the better in my eyes, especially for a memoir because it just gives it a little something extra to me.

Next I started listening to a Christmas rom-com- starting just before leaving for a trip to Vegas (as in I downloaded it after boarding the plane but before I had to put my phone into airplane mode so I could listen to it on the flight. I’m a nervous flyer and found that this was the perfect way to pass the time on the just over an hour flight. Needless to say I’ve been hooked on audiobooks ever since- and have been working my way through listening to my favorite comfort reads (there is a LOT of them). 

But the author in me had a secret. I had, the previous spring, signed with Tantor audio to produce audiobooks of my Blind Rebels rock star romance series so I also considered it research while I was waiting for those productions to begin. 

Fast forward again to this year- where my books are now being turned to audio (as I’m writing this I am about two weeks from having the last book, Finding Harmony, audio release). There is something you learn when you become an “indie” author. That you are responsible for or in control of every aspect of your books and have to figure out how to do things.  

I went with Tantor because I’d done enough research to realize I’d never be able to afford to publish the dual narration audios as I wanted to on my own. And one of my favorite authors (and now a comp) Carian Cole’s audios were produced by Tantor. 

Not to mention, I was pretty much at capacity for learning how to do something new like an audiobook. I made sure I had final approval of narrators built into my Tantor contract but was suddenly nervous deciding if the suggested narrators were right for my characters based on the short samples Tantor provided me because I’m still an auto audio newbie and had no knowledge of the narrators. 

When I finally started getting release dates I was so darn excited and nervous to listen to my books as I had by this point become a fan of audiobooks. When Bridging the Silence came out I couldn’t sleep the night before because I just wanted to download it and listen! And I did download it in the middle of the night- but I waited to start listening until the next morning’s drive to work. 

I’ve found that I do two listens. During the first listen I get caught up in the story. Because of this unexpected phenomenon, I decided audio is the only format where I as an author can experience my books more like a reader would. During the second listen I am listening with my author brain and hearing places where the writing could be improved (because I am a perfectionist these spots bug me). 

It’s probably sounds weird, but after writing the books, then going through several rounds of self-edits, critique partner suggestions, working with developmental edits, then copy/line edits, and finally proofreading it’s hard to experience your books the same way a reader would. And let’s not even talk about reading through again and again to do content pulls (which I have decided I’m bad at and hate doing and try to hire out now when I can). 

Now that have three of my own audiobooks under my belt (for those keeping track that’s six different narrators) and have been so excited for and pleased with the result of each audiobook. Book four, Finding Harmony, will be a return of two of the previous narrators. I suggested to Tantor it made sense to have the same narrators from Blending Chords (book two) come back for Finding Harmony since the main male characters Callum (Blending Chords) and Killian (Finding Harmony) are twins who end up with sisters Arista (Blending Chords) and Viola (Finding Harmony). 

*Referred to both here and on my socials as BFF Misty.