Thursday, January 7, 2016

Socket Greeny Has My Voice


Most of my books are available in audiobook, but none in my voice. Until now.

I recently decided to give one of my characters a read. I chose Socket because he was my first story and the character I felt most attached to. So I bought a microphone (Snowball) and set up a disturbing little studio in the back closet.

Click to download.

Despite blankets draped on the wall, my sound studio wasn't anything close to sound-proof. I read at night when the house was mostly quiet, pausing when a truck would pass nearby or my wife went to the bathroom.

Armed with Audible (free sound mixing software) and a few YouTube videos on correcting mistakes and cleaning up background noise in addition to compressing audio, I went about the business of reading a story.

It's harder than you might think.

I would run out of breath or swallow way too much. This in addition to a flood of mistakes. The mic picks up every tiny sound. I would tell my daughter not to flush the toilet or close a cabinet or think too loudly.

The software turned my voice into something more listenable than I thought possible. And since I knew the characters inside-out, I had an advantage of how to tell the story over another narrator--regardless how silky smooth or professional sounding, they can't know them like I know them.

In the end, I wasn't horrible.

For an extended sample, click below.





Get it on Audible.com (HERE) for free with a credit (you get 2 credits for signing up).





THE BERTAUSKI STARTER LIBRARY is FREE!
Get 3 full-length novels and 1 novella.