The Audiobook: Does your prose go to 11?

This week at the YA Indie Carnival we’d love your take on audiobooks. Are you that person driving around listening to Dickens? Or…are you the gal cranking up Bared to You by Sylvia Day? I first discovered audiobooks on my long evening commutes when I worked the night shift at The Los Angeles Times. Somehow I got through high school and college (math & science gal here) light in the reading-the-classics department and so I listened to A Tale of Two Cities and Anna Karenina. I checked the tapes (oooops! so dating myself) out of the library. But, I hadn’t listened to much in the way of YA audiobooks. Then I became an author. My best friend never reads. She is an audiobook junkie. And one of my dearest friends (and was a bridesmaid in my wedding) told me that she is unable to read now do to a medical condition and listens to books. DING. Well, I wanted to make an audiobook in a BIG BAD WAY! But…I had no idea how. My daughter Candy recorded 13 on Halloween (Shadow Series #1) as a Christmas present for me last year. It was such a sweet gift. I emailed Audible about making an audiobook out of it, but never heard back.

Then, I went to an SCBWI Conference at Asilomar where I had a fabulous time AND I met my amazing voice over artist Jeanne O. Whitehouse. She knew about acx.com, a place where authors and artists get connected to sell audiobooks. It was the piece of the puzzle I needed to get 13 on Halloween (Shadow Series #1) in the world of audio. So….now it goes to eleven! hee-hee. I love letting authors know about this amazing service because there are so many people in the world who, either by preference or because of a disability, can’t read. So….if you are an author, what are you waiting for?

The biggest surprise for this indie? How price is determined. Audible determines the price and the price is a function of how long the book is. 13 on Halloween at 212 pages came to 5.9 hours of narration.

My good friend Stacey Wallace Benefiel has an AMAZING post on the process! Click here to read her ACX audiobook how-to!

If you’d like to listen to a sample, 13 on Halloween, (Shadow Series #1) is now available as an audiobook on iTunes, Audible or Amazon.

Check out what my fellow carnis are saying about audiobooks! TGIF!!!!