New Audiobooks!

Audible.com works fast. My two short story collections are now on sale as audiobooks! I’ve only listened to the samples so far, but I like the sound of both of the narrators. If you enjoy audiobooks for your commute or your dog walks or whatever, why not give them a try? (You could also ask your library to consider ordering them.)

On my own dog walks, I’m currently listening to War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk. Gets a little long in places, but it’s an engrossing listen, continuing the story begun in The Winds of War.

More Live Audiobooks!

Once again, I was surprised to discover that more of my books are up on Audible.com!  Five Star Rigger books were released in February. That’s Panglor, Dragons in the Stars, Dragon Rigger, Star Rigger’s Way, and Seas of Ernathe—all of the Star Rigger books except Eternity’s End.

You can see the lot of them on my author page, or go straight to the individual titles.  I’m still working with the Audible people to get the descriptions corrected (Panglor has the wrong plot description altogether), and not all of the sample buttons are working. But the books are all available. They’re also for sale in the iTunes store.

The titles that went up in October are all listed now as being enabled for “Whispersync for voice,” which means if you have a Kindle edition you can switch back and forth between reading the ebook and listening to the audiobook without losing your place.

Panglor audiobook

Dragons in the Stars audiobook

Dragon Rigger audiobook

Star Rigger’s Way audiobook

Seas of Ernathe audiobook

There Be Audiobooks!

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Quite accidentally, I’ve discovered that four of my novels recently became available as audiobooks from Audible! News to me! But good news.

I reported earlier that nine of my books have been picked up for audiobook production, and I knew that three of them were in production. I didn’t know any of them were finished, and the fourth was a complete surprise. I had been asked by a producer to record my preferred pronunciations of names and funny words in From a Changeling Star, Down the Stream of Stars, and The Infinity Link. That’s how I knew they were in process. Apparently a different producer was in charge of The Rapture Effect, and on that book I guess I’m at the mercy of the narrator.

Check them out and listen to samples at Audible.com! I notice that three of them have a special offer: Get the audiobook for $1.99 if you buy the Kindle ebook first. That’s a great deal! The Kindle ebooks are only $4.39 right now, so that means you’d get ebook and audiobook combined for only $6.38! Makes me want to go get them for myself.

The Infinity Link
Audiobook from Audible | iTunes
Special Audible price $1.99 with purchase of Kindle ebook

The Rapture Effect
Audiobook from Audible | iTunes
Kindle ebook

From a Changeling Star
Audiobook from Audible | iTunes
Special price $1.99 with purchase of Kindle ebook

Down the Stream of Stars
Audiobook from Audible | iTunes
Special price $1.99 with purchase of Kindle ebook

Also Battlestar Galactica, though that one isn’t new.
Audiobook from Audible | iTunes
Kindle ebook

And more on the way!

What’s Up with My Writing Projects?

It’s been a while since I reported on what I’m doing, writing-wise. Here’s the short form:

Chaos 5: The Reefs of Time — Yah, it’s coming; it’s coming. Piece after piece keeps falling into place. It’s long and it’s complex, and there are a lot of things in it  that I could not figure out beforehand; I could only discover these things by pushing at the story and the characters—that is, by writing and sometimes taking wrong turns into blind alleys. That process involves many hours of pounding my head and pulling my hair. Hell of a way to run a railroad, but there you have it. The train called The Reefs of Time will come in.

Audiobooks — Production at Audible has already begun on the books they’ve licensed for audiobooks. These guys move fast; I’ll give them that. I’ve recorded pronunciations of character and place names and like that for three of the books. And three narrators are now at work on From a Changeling Star, Down the Stream of Stars, and The Infinity Link.

Going Alien — My second short story collection is near to completion. I just have to put final touches on the new introductions, and finish proofreading the stories. My able assistant Ann has already done the lion’s share of the formatting work, so the conversion to ebook will be quick. The launch is planned for August 28. I’m enjoying rereading the stories, some of which I have not looked at in many years. Good sign. Here’s what it’s going to look like.

And that’s where I am in the writing projects!

Bring On the Audiobooks!

Mine, that is. The contracts have been inked, and I am now an Audible author! (In press, so to speak.) Nine of my novels, in the coming year or so, will make their debuts as Audible audiobooks. As I said previously, I’m a big fan of audiobooks myself. I often listen to books while I’m walking the dog, or working around the house. So on those grounds alone, I’m excited. Professionally it’s a welcome breakthrough, because audiobooks have grown to be an important part of the book market, and this will open my work to a whole new potential audience—just as ebooks did.

No word yet on who will be doing the narration, but I’ve made some suggestions of readers I like. So here, now, are the books slated for audio:

Seas of Ernathe
Panglor
Dragons in the Stars
Dragon Rigger
Star Rigger’s Way
The Infinity Link
The Rapture Effect
From a Changeling Star
Down the Stream of Stars

I just have one more thing to say about that: Yee-haw! 

P.S. You don’t suppose I should be worried that the acquiring editor at Audible is a fellow by the name of Snape?

Naw…

Audiobooks!

Great news from my agent —nine of my novels are being signed to become audiobooks! I am excited. I’ve been wishing for this ever since I became hooked on listening to audiobooks myself. This package does not include my Chaos Chronicles book, and won’t affect our homebrew full-cast audio production of Neptune Crossing (still in the “we hope to get started again realsoonnow” stage). It does include most of the Star Rigger books and several of my standalone novels. Nothing’s ever final until the contracts are signed, of course, so I should probably hold off on more specific details until things are official.

My own love affair with audiobooks started when I discovered you can download them for free from the public library and listen to them on your favorite MP3 player (a Zune, in my case). I love listening to books while walking the dog, which I do for at least an hour every day. I’ve been listening to a lot of books outside my own genre, books I’d never find time to sit down and read, even as ebooks carried in my pocket. I started with Robert Parker mysteries, and moved on to some thrillers. I’ve learned that the voice of the narrator makes an enormous difference even with a good book. (With a bad book, it just makes it harder to decide when to give up.) In some cases, I’ve stumbled onto some fine listening simply by looking for other books read by a narrator I like. Here are some of my recent favorites:

  • The Jack Reacher series, featuring a retired MP turned wanderer, by Lee Child (read by Dick Hill)
  • Cold Choice, a well-crafted and realistic submarine thriller by Larry Bond (read by Dick Hill)
  • The Myron Bolitar series, featuring a pro sports agent who sidelines as a detective, by Harlan Coben (read by Jonathan Marosz) [The last couple in the series were narrated by other readers, including the author. Not even in the same universe.]
  • Leviathan, Behemoth, and Goliath—a young adult, alternate history, SF series by Scott Westerfeld (read by Alan Cumming) [This one the library only carried on CD.]
  • Ender’s Game, the SF classic, by Orson Scott Card (read by Stefan Rudnicki, with Gabrielle De Cuir and David Birney, Scott Brick, Jason Cole, Harlan Ellison, Christian Noble, Don Schlossman, M.E. Willis and Orson Scott Card) [Ditto, on CD.]

What are your favorites?

Boskone 2012

It’s Boskone time again. Boskone is a regional science fiction convention, drawing attendees from all over New England, NYC, and parts farther away. It’s one of three major conventions held every year in the Boston area (Arisia and Readercon being the other two). I’ll be there this weekend: Friday evening, Saturday during the day and perhaps the evening, and Sunday morning. The con is held at the Boston Westin Waterfront.

I’m on several panels Saturday, and will be autographing at 5 pm Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, I’ll be doing a panel on audiobooks with two estimable colleagues, Bruce Coville (author and founder of Full Cast Audio), and Bob Kuhn, audiobook narrator (including my still-in-progress audiobook of Neptune Crossing). 

If you’re at the con, look me up! 

Progress on the Audiobook

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We’re really rolling now on the production of our home-brew full-cast audiobook of Neptune Crossing. Our narrator Bob Kuhn has recorded through Chapter 12, and the dialogue cast has done quite a bit of recording, bouncing around through a number of chapters—sort of movie-shoot style, so as to consolidate reading sessions for the characters who are in fewer scenes. It is remarkably difficult to do good voice acting for an audiobook.  Bruce Coville told us he actually had stage actors at his Full Cast Audio studio who said, this is too hard—too different—can’t do it. Not stopping us, though!  We’re on a steep learning curve, but we haven’t been flung off into space quite yet. 

While Allysen’s away, we’re taking a pause in recording, and hoping to get some of the editing done, so that we can start to hear what a fully assembled production will sound like.

I hope to get a bit of a teaser up online soon.

New Book Projects

I got an email from a reader not too long ago, asking if I was ever going to write a sequel to my star rigger novel Eternity’s End. That got me thinking that I haven’t posted an update lately on what I’m doing in terms of new book projects. So here you go, a writing sitrep.

First of all, the answer to the question is yes, I plan to write a sequel to Eternity’s End. I started jotting down notes for it before that book was finished. The question is, when—because I first have to finish The Chaos Chronicles. So, yes, but don’t start asking at the bookstore quite yet.

Right now, I’m dividing my time among three projects:

The Reefs of Time
The next Chaos book is still coming—still a lot more slowly than I’d like. For the benefit of people who haven’t heard me say this before, part of the reason for this is some serious challenges in my family’s life in the last year, and part of it is that it’s a complex story. We’re going back with Li-Jared to his homeworld of Karellia, along with Bandicut. In related events, other members of the company are journeying back in time, way back in time, and to the center of the galaxy to boot. And there’s always that question, are Julie and Bandicut ever going to meet up again? And what’s this about Dakota? And a fracturing of authority among the Shipworld Masters? Ai caramba. Don’t worry, we’ll get there.

Neptune Crossing Audiobook
Have I mentioned this before? My wife Allysen and I have undertaken as a little “side project” to produce a full-cast audio production of Neptune Crossing. She started the ball rolling as a birthday and Christmas present, and we’re now in the early stages of production. The voices include both of us (Bandicut and Julie), our daughter Julia (Napoleon and possibly Copernicus), and a number of folks from around town with drama or reading talent. I probably shouldn’t name names at this point, but we have an experienced reader with a fabulous voice doing the narration for us, and we’re still trying to figure who of our other volunteers are best for some of the other parts. I think this is best characterized, at this point, as a semi-professional production. We hope to get a salable audiobook out of it, and certainly serialized podcasts, but we’re under no illusions about the work ahead of us. Our model of how this is done is the wonderful productions by our friend Bruce Coville’s Full Cast Audio, and Bruce has generously offered us advice from his own experience.

Dragon Space—a dragons omnibus ebook
My omnibus ebook of the first three Chaos Chronicles volumes has been so successful, I’m now preparing a combined ebook of Dragons in the Stars and its sequel Dragon Rigger. Those two books are already out in individual E-reads editions, but E-reads has generously allowed me the rights to do my own omnibus under my Starstream Publications imprint. I’m close to finishing the formatting of the book files—it’s astounding how long that can take, even when you start with files you think are in good shape (partly because I keep learning tricks that help make well-formatted ebooks)—and my favorite cover designer is working to fit me into a busy schedule.

And every once in a while, it hits me—Oh frak!—tax time is right around the corner!

(If you don’t hear from me for a while, you’ll know why.)

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