



About a month ago I first listened to Every Single Day by Bradley Charbonneau. I listened to it on a day when I was testing out my new work schedule. I awoke ridiculously early and my mind wouldn't shut up, so after I had written a blog post & recorded a couple of chapters of whatever book I was working on, in order to not bug my still sleeping wife & kids, I grabbed one of the dogs & took him for a walk while listening to ESD. This was just the encouragement I needed for my day. This book is a phenomenal little nugget to help push you in the right direction if you're doubting your ability to follow - whatever your dream may be. I've followed a few different dreams through the years with the focus of Pre-ESD Bradley – that of “every other day, plus weekends.” This most recent dream for me however – that of narrating full time & working from home. I don't know that I've been quite as religious as he recommends in this book, but whether I've recorded something, read something, emailed another author, or planned something that I know I'm going to follow through on – I know I've been at least mentally & emotionally invested in this project Every Single Day for the last year.





Bradley gave me a copy of this book so I could review it via StoryOrigin, and I'm sorry to say, my first impression, beyond the awesome content, was going to be a LOW review. Nobody likes to GET a bad review, and the reasons that I would have given him one had much less to do with the content, and more to do with the fact that content was Missing or Repeated.

So I reached out to him on Goodreads & said, in essence, “You're book is great & I enjoyed it, but unless you're able to fix x & y, I'm going to be forced to leave a lousy review.” A couple days later, I heard back from him. He hadn't heard about that from anyone else in the year and half that its been available, so his initial reaction was that I must have some kind of other error. I deleted the book from my library & uploaded it again with the same results, so I gave him a list – chapter by chapter – of what was missing & or duplicated on Findaway. He looked into it & sure enough, it was just as I had said. He has since uploaded the correct chapters & it should be updated on Findaway soon.





That started a dialogue between us, in particular about my own recent launch into “self employment” & on Monday of this week, he and I met in the virtual ether on his podcast “Audio for Authors.” We had a delightful conversation and both of us came away with some great new ideas. You can check out the podcast here: https://bradleycharbonneau.com/podcast/afa39/













So... More of my thoughts on his book. Bradley took a leap to do something that he wanted to do, even though some may have thought him nuts. He narrates the book himself and, for the most part, does a pretty darn good job. The material feels very personalized and his delivery feels very much as a conversation with you (albeit, you don't really get to speak back with him – unless of course you contact him about your upcoming review & how to make it better & he invites you on to his podcast). I

Probably my favorite part of his book was the account of his fictitious confrontation with a character at a party who doesn't pull any punches about telling him what he actually needs to do to make his dream of being a writer go. I won't spoil it. But the first time I listened to it, I didn't catch on to the point that it was an imaginary confrontation. Would that every single one of us could have one such confrontation every few years (or months?) just to remind us what it really takes to succeed in anything.





My couple points of quibbling, aside from the repeated chapters – I realize this was his first foray into audiobook narration, but it still needs to be said (and I also know some of my early titles suffer from similar problems): there were a few repeated phrases that were missed in the editing. Also, he stumbled over a few words here & there (and being his own words, can be particularly embarrassing), and just a few hesitations or extra noises here and there. Nothing that another set of ears wouldn't have probably caught. He also told me he caught some errors in going back through it, so it could be that when it is all through the process & re-uploaded by Findaway, it may be a moot point. Overall – I'd give this 5 stars for content & overall tenor of the book, and 4 stars on the narration, with the caveat that the production issues be fixed. I've already listened to it again for some of the common sense reminders it gives me. I'd definitely listen to more of his material, both written or narrated. And I'll be checking out his podcast too.







