Authors, Dip Your Toes in the Audiobook Ocean! PART II

Author: Tara Fox Hall

Last week I began a step by step guide for authors wanting to dip their toe into the world of audiobooks. Let’s take up where we left off!

3.    We were on the step of listening to an audio file submitted on ACX by a narrator. If you like what you hear, click accept and review the contract offer ACX generates ($ to be paid/royalty share and the dates by which recording is to be completed; be sure to provide ample months for a full-length book), then send it to the narrator. They will accept or get back to you asking for a contract revision, such as additional time needed to complete the work.

4.    If you don’t like the audio sample, you can ask for the narrator to make corrections/adjustments and resubmit or do nothing.  The audition will expire in a set time.  You can go back to step 1 and send proposals to other narrators, edit your own proposal or do nothing and wait for more auditions.  But you must contract with a narrator to go forward with your audiobook.

5.    At this step you have successfully retained a narrator to work with you on your audiobook and have agreed on a date by which the first fifteen minutes will be sent to you and a date by which the entire work will be complete. I would urge any author to be flexible on dates, as invariably things do and will come up. For example, if you have a Christmas novel you want made into an audiobook, then begin looking for a narrator the December PREVIOUS to the fall season when you are planning to release it.

6.    ACX will email you when the first 15 minutes are done, but if you have a thorough narrator, you will also get a private message from them with everything from typos to suggestions…and you may have been corresponding with them all throughout the process regarding characters or plot points. Listen to the audio file all the way through, then give the narrator feedback and/or approve.

7.    Do the same as step #6 when you get the files for the entire book. DO NOT approve something you did not listen to, under any circumstances.

8.    While you are waiting for your final chapters to arrive, take the time to create your audiobook cover. Unlike Kindle, ACX does not have a cover creator, and you as the author are responsible for the cover. However it is simple to crop an existing PDF of your Kindle or print cover to 2400x2400 pixels using whatever software that is on your computer. This may edit out your author name or the book title, but you can add back in the title and or author name to the square cover with new lettering. You can also create a different cover for your audiobook, or have someone create one for you, just realize you will need to pay for stock art and/or any fees the artist may charge.

9.    ACX will review your audiobook for any issues, from too-long pauses or aberrations. You will get an email if they approve your audiobook for sale or if there is a problem. The narrator will also be informed, but if there is any issue, work with the narrator to fix it, then resubmit the audiobook for approval.

Congratulations! You have made your first audiobook! Sit back and bask in your accomplishment or go right on to the next one!

Check out my 13 audiobooks on Audible! https://www.audible.com/author/Tara-Fox-Hall/B005YPAA4W

For codes to obtain free copies of Audiobooks for review, check out my titles on www.audiofreebies.com . You can submit a request for a code or codes right through the website! I appreciate all good reviews, if you like what you hear! J

 Links:

www.tarafoxhall.com

tarafoxhall@gmail.com

Click here for Tara's Blog

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Authors, Dip Your Toes in the #Audiobook Ocean! By Guest Blogger Tara Fox Hall (@TerrorFoxHall)

If you’re an author who has delayed making your novel, novella, or anthology into an audiobook because you were feeling daunted, you’re not alone. Most of my author friends tell me that they have not tried converting any of their works to audiobooks, citing either expense or unfamiliarity with the process. My reply to that is that self-publishing via Amazon to make a kindle or print book is a more complex process, in my opinion. As for expense, an author can spend hundreds of dollars per finished hour of a book, spend nothing, or any amount in between. Sound doable after all? Good, let’s get started!

1.    First, go to www.acx.com. This is the website where you will create your audiobook, so you must register yourself. After you are registered, look under the Projects tab and assert the title you want to make into an audiobook. Follow the prompts, including noting what you are looking for in a narrator (male/female, specific or no accent, tone, etc.), information on your book and who the main character is, and an excerpt of your book which will be the narrators audition script. Note that you want to choose a section of text that represents the majority of your book, which is different than the kind of “exciting” excerpt you might choose for a promotion. When these sections are all full, review everything, then click approve to make your proposal available to accept auditions.

2.   

While you are waiting for someone to send you an audition, peruse a sampling of the narrators that are currently available. You will find some willing to take on projects for a royalty share, and others that want to be paid in advance. Listen to several; there is a WIDE selection of narrators out there. You may think you want a specific set of traits only to listen to someone completely different and realize they are the perfect narrator for your work. Note any who you might like to work with, in case your proposal does not net you any auditions. You may need to send direct offers to narrators in that event. ACX will spell out how to do this.

3.    Listening to auditions/audio samples from a narrator is next! You will get a message via email saying that you have one of the previous audio files on ACX. Log in and listen to it. This step is crucial! Think about the narrator’s voice as they speak; are they saying each word clearly? If you were listening to them speak without knowing the story, could you follow it? Are they mispronouncing words or names? Are there any noises in the background? An audiobook is rated on not just the story being told, but also on the speaker telling the tale. It doesn’t matter how great a story is, if the person telling it is hard to understand with a heavy accent or slurred speech, odd pauses or background noises, or mispronounces words, listeners will almost always mention it in their reviews in an unfavorable way.

                                     

To be continued...

Check out my audiobooks on Audible! 

For codes to obtain free copies of Audiobooks for review, check out my titles on www.audiofreebies.com

Tara Fox Hall

Links:

www.tarafoxhall.com

tarafoxhall@gmail.com

Click here for Tara's Blog

Click here for Tara's Facebook Page

Click here to follow Tara on Twitter

Congratulations @JennyTwist1 - voted 2018 Top Female Author

Regular readers of my blog will know by now how much I admire the stories of my good friend and fellow author, Jenny Twist, so they will understand me wanting to shout out a few words of congratulations to her on her recent success.  In fact, I shouted so loudly, I managed to rouse her from her beautiful idyll in Spain, and persuade her to come and tell us a bit more about her award-winning book, 'All in the Mind'.  

Welcome Jenny, and many congratulations on your win.  Before we talk about the winning novel, do tell us about the competition, how you came to enter it, and your reaction when you heard the news.

My very good friend, Tara FoxHall, did a radio interview for TheAuthors’ Show and told me that as well as doing interviews, they were running a top female authors competition. You couldn’t enter yourself but had to be nominated and it was FREE. So naturally I wrote to all my friends asking if they would be prepared to nominate one of my books. It turned out they all were (I have some lovely friends) and between them they nominated all my books. I also nominated all my own favourite authors.

So I duly filled in all the forms they sent me and then forgot all about it. On Monday morning Tara emailed me to say I’d won. I thought she was joking. I’ve entered so many competitions and never got further than the shortlist before. So thank you so much, Tara.

What a great friend!  All in the Mind is a beautiful story and a worthy winner.  When I read it, I described it as 'a sweet and haunting feel-good story, which will immerse you totally in its fictional world and leave you feeling deeply satisfied'.  Would you like to outline the story in more detail for us.

All in the Mind is the story of Tilly, who wakes up from a dream of her youth, dancing in the street on VE Day, to discover she is in her 80s and has been suffering from Alzheimers. Miraculously a new treatment has restored her memory and she wonders if it can be applied to her beloved husband, Johnny, who has had a stroke. But the treatment has an interesting side effect. Soon she realises she is gradually getting younger.

It's a fascinating idea.  I'd love to know what inspired you to write this.

Years ago I read about an old folks’ home where they did the experiment of making the resident’s environment like that of their youth. I can’t remember where I read this or what they were attempting to achieve but I do remember that one surprising result was that the subjects’ hair darkened.

I’ve had this idea lurking in the back of my mind ever since. What if you carried the experiment to its logical conclusion?

Spookily only the other night I caught the tail end of a ‘Horizon’ programme. They were doing an experiment with old people – surrounding them with things from their youth and treating them as if they were still young. Result, they became fitter, their cognitive ability improved and, to the amazement of the scientists, even their eyesight and hearing improved! Maybe this isn’t science fiction but science fact.

Will you share an excerpt with us?

“What? This weekend?”

They were in the hospital cafeteria; Tilly leading the way, looking for a free table, Johnny following on behind with a tray of tea and cakes.

“I'm being posted next week and I don't know when I'll get another chance.”

Tilly found a table and sat down, placing her bag carefully between her feet.

Johnny placed the tray on the table and sat opposite.

“I'm supposed to be on duty,” she said.

“Supposed?” Johnny began, taking a mouthful of tea. He spluttered, but managed manfully to swallow it.

“For f – heaven's sake,” he exclaimed, suppressing the more robust army oath which had risen to his lips. “What on earth is this?”

Tilly smiled. “The general consensus amongst the staff is that it's the floor sweepings from the tea warehouse, but some of us think it comes from a less salubrious place – a stable, for example. Of course,” she mused, “its unique flavour is enhanced by making it with lukewarm water and leaving it to stand for at least twenty minutes.”

“Jesus,” Johnny muttered under his breath, afraid the other customers might hear him blaspheming, “It's worse than the stuff they give us in the NAAFI.”

“You should try the cakes,” Tilly said sweetly.

Beneath the merry banter, she was in a terrible stew. She was terrified of meeting Johnny's parents. She saw them in her mind's eye – his father, stern and forbidding with a military bearing and mutton chop sideburns, looking, now she came to think of it, very much like Kaiser Bill - his mother very stiff in bombazine, her grey hair piled on top of her head, a lorgnette held before her piercing grey eyes – both of them scrutinizing her with obvious disapproval.

She found herself tracing the rings on the table left by countless tea cups and wondered how long she could postpone the fateful meeting. Her instinct was to put it off as long as possible. There was no way they could possibly find her acceptable. She had been foolish to even consider it. The minute they met it would be all over for her and Johnny. They would put a stop to it and look around for a more suitable daughter-in-law.

“I can't wait to get home and have some real food for a change.”

“What? Tilly said, startled out of her thoughts.

“Real food, you know. Fresh eggs, proper meat, butter.”

She fixed her eyes on his face, searching to see whether he was joking. He wasn't.

“Fresh eggs,” she repeated in reverential tones.

Suddenly they were sitting in a circle of silence. Tilly realised that the customers at the nearby tables were all looking at them with an identical hungry look. She could feel the same expression on her own face. It wasn't that they were starving exactly, the ration was adequate, but that was all it was and everyone craved more interesting food.

“Yeah.” Johnny seemed entirely unaware of the effect he was having. “I can't wait to get my teeth round a nice pork chop or a leg of chicken.”

Tilly felt her mouth water and was afraid she might begin to dribble.

“How come?” she whispered.

Johnny looked startled for a moment. “Well, the farm, you know.”

“I didn't know your parents were farmers,” Tilly said, the image of Kaiser Bill wavering somewhat.

“No, not at all.” Johnny shook his head. “It's just a home farm, you know. Attached to the house. Just for the family. We don't sell the produce or anything.” He hesitated. “Although I expect my mother does swaps and things. She's very good at organising.”

“So what have you got on the farm?” Tilly's mouth was now very dry and she took a long drink of the odious tea. Johnny put out a hand, too late, to stop her.

“Don't drink that! I'm convinced it's poisonous.”

Wonderful stuff, Jenny.  In fact I'm going to re-read All in the Mind immediately.  As always, it's been a real pleasure to host you on my blog, and thank you so much for taking the time to share your great news with us.

Buy Links for 'All in the Mind' 

Amazon US 

Amazon UK

Universal

About the Author:

Jenny Twist was born in York and brought up in the West Yorkshire mill town of Heckmondwike, the eldest grandchild of a huge extended family.

She left school at fifteen and went to work in an asbestos factory. After working in various jobs, including bacon-packer and escapologist’s assistant (she was The Lovely Tanya), she returned to full-time education and did a BA in history, at Manchester and post-graduate studies at Oxford.

She stayed in Oxford working as a recruitment consultant for many years and it was there that she met and married her husband, Vic.

In 2001 they retired and moved to Southern Spain where they live with their rather eccentric dogs  and cat. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, knitting and attempting to do fiendishly difficult logic puzzles.

Jenny's published works include: Take One at Bedtime, Domingo's Angel, All in the Mind, An Open Letter to Stephen King, The Mantequero series, The Owl Goddess, For the Love of a Child, Doppelganger, Flipside, Tales from the Dark Side and Six Tales of Christmas.

Jenny's Website 

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Deep Breaths: Tales of Hope and Inspiration @TerrorFoxHall #FREEAudioBooks #TwoPaths

TWO PATHS

It's always a great pleasure for me when the hugely talented Tara Fox Hall pops over to my blog and today she's in a reflective mood and also a very generous one, since she's giving away multiple audio-book copies of her delightful collection of essays, to which I gave 5 stars.  You can read my review here. Enough from me, over to Tara.

Frost’s popular quote, “Two paths diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less travelled by…and that has made all the difference,” is familiar to many people, either from a social reference, a mention in a book or movie, or just from reading the poem. A choice between two futures is something we all face in our lives multiple times. In youth the decisions we make are often easier for us, not because they are any less weighty in consequence, but because we see before us many years of opportunity, no matter what we decide. 

The older we get, the more purposeful we become in our choices, aware that the clock that was quietly ticking since our birth is now slowly winding down. The reality that we all must die someday isn’t something to give much thought about in the first few decades of life, unless its experienced firsthand, such as with the loss of a parent or sibling. That’s something that’s going to happen someday, but not anytime soon. 

When midlife approaches, suddenly we are all too aware of what we didn’t accomplish, and how little time is left. But the reality is that no one can know exactly how much time they have. There is no fairness in death, just as there is no fairness in life. There’s just life, with all of its good times and hardships, golden moments of perfect bliss and stark moments of horrible realization. 

If something is important for you to do in your life, don’t wait until you are fifty years old, or your child graduates from college, or you lose ten pounds to start making plans to make your dreams a reality. Futures aren’t set; we are actively changing our potential prospects every day we live by what we say and do. The fork that confronts you today won’t ever be revisited, even Frost knew that. 

Confront your challenges and embrace every opportunity that comes your way, as it may never come again. You only get one life. What is right for one person may not be right for another, so don’t base your notions of happiness and fulfillment on what the world, your friends and family, or society tells you should to give you serenity and contentment. Do be kind, respectful, and above all, true to yourself in your actions. No one is perfect, and not every action we take will always be the best one. Yet we can find our way back to who we want to be, in time, if we choose to. With each new dawn comes another chance to get it right, to make amends, to fulfill dreams, and to discover new possibilities. There are two paths waiting before you today; pick the right one. Which one is right? Only you can make that choice.

#TwoPaths

The author is giving away 18 free copies of this audiobook from Audible, first come, first serve! Email the author with “Audiobook of Deep Breaths” in the subject line, and you will be sent instructions and a code for a free Audible download of Deep Breaths: Tales of Hope and Inspiration.

Blurb:

Tara Fox Hall's writing career began in the pages of a small print magazine, Catnip Blossoms!, that a friend, Harald Moore, put out to promote his catnip farm in Johnsonville, New York. One short nonfiction article followed another, detailing her adventures saving wildlife, her experiences living on an acreage, and more than a few humorous recountings detailing the antics of her wacky pets.

Written to delight, fascinate, and move readers, her simple but enchanting stories of country life quickly found a following. Tara kept publishing stories for the next five years, even as the name of the magazine changed to Meanwhile and then to On the River when the catnip farm went out of business and Harald moved with his family to a new home near a river.

These previously published stories are collected here for the first time with new added content in the hopes of bringing a little more hope and inspiration into everyday life.

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Amazon Link to Kindle and print versions (US)  (UK)

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My Publishing Journey by Tara Fox Hall (@TerrorFoxHall)

It's always an especial pleasure and privilege to welcome Tara Fox Hall to my blog and today she's stopped by to tell us about her personal road to publication.  I can't wait to hear it, so over to Tara...

I’ve been a published writer of fiction for the last five years, and have written non-fiction for the last fifteen. As the other authors writing to this topic have already said, getting published wasn’t easy.

Like my dear friend Jenny Twist, I began with articles in a local print publication; my articles were on nature and animals, and published in a little magazine called Catnip Blossoms! which sold—you get one guess—catnip via mail. From the beginning, I was very good at putting a message of hope and inspiration into a page or less, and I wrote many articles over the next ten years.

And that’s how it likely would have stayed forever, until my mom suddenly got sick and was given six months to live in 2006. The book I’d always said I would write for her but hadn’t gotten past the first ten pages was suddenly my number one priority.

I hated novel writing at first. Not only was I unable to think of a good plot or exciting characters, I had never been great with grammar or all the rules of contractions, punctuation, etc. I hated simply sitting STILL for hours on end. Out of desperation, I wrote about what I knew, which was vampires, romance, and horror mixed with farm life, pets, faith, and self-reliance in the face of fictional supernatural situations that my everyday normal life hadn’t equipped me to handle. When I gave my mom the first draft of the beginning two chapters, she hated it because it “wasn’t exciting enough.”  So I revised it, adding some gunplay/explosions, general mayhem, deceit and a lot of suspense and hot sex. The latter, which I had always found difficult to write, was suddenly easy, as I had just gone off The Pill after close to two decades and my hormones were raging out of control along with my moods. I poured all that energy and emotion into my novel, which quickly went from a few measly pages to 200K, and then beyond, as Mom demanded sequel after sequel (Her cancer was a VERY welcome misdiagnosis).

I hadn’t planned on publishing my new “epic”, but with both my mother and husband pushing me, I sent the final draft to an “official editor”—read paid editor—and she proceeded to trash it and gave me a long list of recommended fixes (remember above where I said I had plot problems and grammar was not my friend?). I revised further, and then began to send out queries to multiple agents at this editor’s advice. This phase lasted for years, as I revised and submitted, and received thousands of rejection letters (okay, just about over a hundred really, but it felt like thousands). I further revised my queries, my synopses, my first novels (by then I had three: Lash, Promise, and Immortal Confessions), and with the help of a small non-profit, Wolf Pirate Publishing/Wolf Pirate Project, went thought a very-intensive 6 month writing workshop with the book Promise, hacking it to ribbons which I eventually wove back together into two complete and polished books, Promise Me and Broken Promise. 

While that experience gave me the skills to successfully handle the editing stages of writing, I was no closer to getting my books published; more queries netted only more rejections. I even tried hiring a submission service, which just netted me a few nibbles but no bites and yet more rejection letters. BUT…this service suggested something I hadn’t thought of before: taking an excerpt from the book and making it a novella, then submitting THAT. They also suggested trying to publish other short works, to give my queries for my longer works more credibility. Suddenly, all my experience with my non-fictional short stories was useful, and might make the difference; the rub was I needed new works to submit, not previously pubbed articles. Energized, I cranked out a plethora of short horror stories— that genre had the biggest market in print, and online flash fiction was all the rage—and I had a lot of nightmares to provide material. I published a few short stories every month in the spring and summer of 2011, then finally was able to place Surrender To Me, an excerpt from my novel Immortal Confessions, with Mélange Books. Mélange also contracted for Promise Me and its first few sequels.

Happy ending? Kind of. I am still with Mélange Books these 4 years later, and the Promise Me Series is on its 11^th book, with #12 coming out in a few months (Immortal Confessions is book #5 of that series). Lash evolved into its own series. My fantasy paranormal historical series detailing my weresnake antihero-protagonist adventures is on its fourth book and its second publisher, Double Dragon (the first small press, Bradley, went out of business). My horror stories have found a home at Hazardous Press in their various multi-author anthologies and my own single authored The Tightening Spiral. A new paranormal series will also debut at Mélange in 2016; the first book is called A Good Year. But my joy now is tempered by burnout. 

Jan Ruth mentioned the two kinds of writers in her blog a few weeks back. In 2011-2012, I was firmly in the know about everything current, and I devoted all my spare time to learning my craft, and putting out as many works as fast as possible (Writer type B). Now I’m in the other camp (Writer Type A), which is where I initially started out on this journey. 

Can I self-publish? Yes, and I have. Those nature stories that started my career are now their own anthology called Deep Breaths: Tales of Hope and Inspiration. I loved putting that book together with a lot of help (thank you again, Su Halfwerk and Jenny Twist J). But do I see myself doing that for all my future works? Probably not, as I just do not have enough spare time anymore. My publishing rate has also slowed tremendously, both from increased workload from my day job, and sheer lack of desire to write stories just to get my name out there. As any writer will tell you, promotion is a huge part of writing, and it takes its toll until finally you crack under the strain. As of this writing, I am officially burnt out. I also have not written anything new just to write since 2014. Am I stopping writing? No, I just need a short break, to ignite my fire again. 

And I thank you for listening to me, as reliving my hard-won publication here has created a much-needed hot spark to get me writing again.

Tara Fox Hall is an OSHA-certified safety and health inspector at a metal fabrication shop in upstate New York. She received her bachelor's degree in mathematics with a double minor in chemistry and biology from Binghamton University.

Her writing credits include nonfiction, erotica, horror, suspense, action-adventure, children’s stories, and contemporary and historical paranormal romance. She is the author of the paranormal fantasy Lash series and the paranormal romantic drama Promise Me series. 

Tara divides her free time unequally between writing novels and short stories, chainsawing firewood, caring for stray animals, sewing cat and dog beds for donation to animal shelters, and target practice. All of her published children’s stories to date are free reads on www.childrens-stories.net.

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Review - Deep Breaths: Tales of Hope and Inspiration by Tara Fox Hall

I always feel privileged when authors let us into their private worlds and so I entered Tara Fox Hall's world with wonder and some trepidation.   I'd read (and thoroughly enjoyed) her stories before, but not her factual essays.  But I needn't have worried; stepping into Deep Breaths: Tales of Hope and Inspiration was like entering an enchanting new world - and one I didn't want to leave again.

Tara's family

Deep Breaths is a collection of reflections on the author's daily life in the idyllic-sounding environment in which she lives.   She enjoys complete harmony with the natural world around her and with which she communes as she goes about her daily routine, doing her chores or walking her faithful dogs (and cats).  Her extended family of pets is especially delightful and unique, each with their own quirks and personalities as interesting as their names.

Wild creatures, some of whose names I've only ever come across in films, surround the author. Coming from the UK, I've never seen coyotes, chickadees, groundhogs or hummingbird moths, but Hall encounters them every day… and generally rescues them from various dramatic plights. Whether she's saving trapped dragon flies, stray toads, adventurous snapping turtles or opportune starlings nesting in the eaves of her house, her sense of humour and powerful faith shines through her accounts and descriptions, making them uplifting to read.

I found Sunset, in which she ensures a trio of beautiful moths with singed wings meet a dignified end particularly poignant; while Letting Go, her reflections on her beloved, aging dog, Kesteral, had me unashamedly in tears.  And only Tara Fox Hall can make the stacking of firewood into such a delightful subject as in Keeping it Straight.

This collection of writings will draw you into the author's special world, lift your spirits and leave you feeling deeply satisfied.  She writes with wit, perception and immense sensitivity.  Each short essay can be read and savoured in isolation, to raise flagging spirits during short breaks from the mundane routine, or read as I did, in a couple of sittings, because I simply could not tear myself away from Tara Fox Hall's captivating world.  Highly recommended, as my five cute kitties prove.

About Tara Fox Hall

Tara, husband Eric, Legolas and Strider (in black)

Tara Fox Hall’s writing credits include nonfiction, erotica, horror, suspense, action-adventure, children’s stories, and contemporary and historical paranormal romance. She is the author of the paranormal fantasy Lash series and the paranormal romantic drama Promise Me series. Tara divides her free time unequally between writing novels and short stories, chainsawing firewood, caring for stray animals, sewing cat and dog beds for donation to animal shelters, and target practice. All of her published children’s stories to date are free reads on www.childrens-stories.net.