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Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

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Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

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Blue Suede Memphis mysteries

Dual Gender Narrations in Audiobooks

21 February 2015

An audiobook listener on Goodreads wrote recently:

“I’m hoping the powers-that-be realize this (and care) and we’ll see more audiobooks being narrated by dual-gender narrators.

And I don’t mean simply dividing up the chapters between a male and female narrator to read…I like the dialogue narrated by the relevant gender.”

I can tell you why most books have a solo narrator: COST.

I produced and co-narrated the 4-book Blue Suede Memphis mystery series (fun, cozy mysteries with romantic elements) where I voiced the narrative and all of the female parts, and a male actor (my husband Drew!) voiced all of the male parts — a narration style known as DUET.

A DUAL narration occurs where 2 actors narrate all the characters’ lines in the chapters associated with their main characters’ points of view.

While I love the sound of the finished product and agree that having both genders makes the production so much more interesting, it’s a very time-consuming and tedious process to create an audiobook this way.

First, you have to have production rights to even be able to do a multi-voice production. One mid-size publisher told me that we couldn’t use 2 voices on a particular book because they didn’t have the production rights for it. I guess the production rights allow you to make a play or movie from the book’s text and are somehow different than audio rights.

Next, you cast the 2 actors and must coordinate their recording schedules. If I weren’t married to my co-star, the scheduling step alone could have derailed the production. The schedule is less of a consideration when the narrators are reading whole chapters instead of performing dialogue.

Once the schedule is worked out, you turn to the cost of studio time, both for the recording and the editing/mastering. The Big 5 publishers can afford real-time studio hours in big cities for their high-profile, bestselling titles. Everyone else — small and mid-size publishers and indie authors — usually looks to control costs by casting narrators with home studios. Depending on the project, the editing might be done by the publisher, the narrator, or an editor sub-contracted by the narrator.

Normally, my rule of thumb is that it takes 2 hours in real time to record 1 finished hour and 3 hours in real time to proof/edit/master for 1 finished hour. With the books in this series, we spent at least an additional hour on both phases. A book that runs 10 hours with 1 narrator (or 2 or more narrators who read different chapters) therefore might require 50 hours in real time to record and edit. The same book with 2 narrators and interspersed dialogue might require 70 hours of production time.

Studio time isn’t the only cost consideration. I also have the opportunity cost of other projects or promotion that I can’t do when an audiobook requires more time than usual to complete.

In this series, I did all of the narrative portions and the female voices. I left airtime in the dialogue where male characters spoke. As Drew directed me, he mouthed his lines and cued me in for my next sentence.

Then, we switched places; I directed him as we recorded his parts:

  • I cued him by playing my audio in his headphones.
  • I pressed Record in the software.
  • He delivered his lines. Everything true of solo narration is true here, too, as far as re-recording to fix inflection, accent, flubs, etc. In fact, it may be harder to be the 2nd person because you’re kind of coming into the dialogue cold. I think that person has to work harder to connect to the text because they weren’t immersed in the story to that point.
  • I stopped recording before he spoke over my next line.
  • Sometimes we originally left too much time for his parts, sometimes not enough. Sometimes his delivery caused me go back to my part and re-do it to change some nuance.

As a result, editing the dialogue is EXTREMELY time-consuming. When I am narrating all voices, as is customary, I naturally leave the appropriate amount of time between characters. The editor is not constantly adjusting the timing to make the conversations flow smoothly and naturally. In these productions with true M/F dialogue, the editor’s job was even tougher given the timing issues.

Due to the considerable amount of time needed for this kind of production, I’m not too eager to produce another one. Instead, I’m looking for dual narration projects with 2-3 1st person POVs (romance or mystery) where each narrator is responsible for entire chapters.

Do you like hearing books with 2 narrators? Do you know of a book for which you’d like to hear a dual narration in the audiobook? Please leave a note in the comments!

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Authors, Business, Observations, Voice-Over Tagged With: 2 voices, audiobook, Blue Suede Memphis mysteries, dual narrators, male and female narrators, voiceover

Audiobook Releases Fall 2014

31 January 2015

What would you do if you received a $20 bill on which someone had written “For a good time, call Kit” and a phone number?

Sherry Spencer decides that she’ll call Kit and let her know that her phone number was being circulated along with the currency. Any woman would want to know that, right?

Only…to Sherry’s shock, Kit isn’t a woman, but a man. And he’s not exactly thrilled to hear her news or anxious to retrieve the bill from her.

The next day, she’s not exactly thrilled to see Kit again. I won’t say how or where they re-establish their acquaintance because I don’t want to give too much away!

For A Good Time, Call by Trish Jensen is a sweet romance that runs 5 hours and 38 minutes. It read like all of my favorite RomCom movies and left me smiling at the perfect HEA ending! I hope you’ll enjoy it, too!


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes


Here’s a different scenario:  What would you do if you were the last person left on Earth following a nuclear war?

For 19-year-old Lita Day, the choice is simple: continue singing to the TV camera every night in the empty Copa.

Her husband Bill had said a man might hear her and would come to her. However, Lita was shocked by the visitors who actually showed up.

Eddie For Short is a 41-minute short story by prolific American science fiction writer Wallace West that is sure to give you something to think about!


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes


In October, I released a couple of cozy mysteries. The first was Return To Fender by Virginia Brown.

This fun book is the 4th in the Blue Suede Memphis Mysteries and is set in the week or so approaching Halloween. In fact, one of the biggest scenes in the book occurs at a Halloween party.

One of the leading drag queens in Memphis asks our heroine Harley Davidson (yep, that’s her name!) to find out who is trying to kill him. Harley isn’t a detective. She’s a tour guide at Memphis Tour Tyme.

Her friend and co-worker Thomas “Tootsie” Rowell is adept with computers and helps her get information. Her former boyfriend Bobby and current boyfriend Mike — both police officers — try in vain to convince her that she should leave the investigations to them.

Whoever it is thinks Harley is getting a little to close to the action and tells her to back off — or else.

As with the first 3 books in this series, Drew Commins, the hero of my life story, voices all of the male parts in this book, which runs 9 hours and 44 minutes.


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes 


Next came Yip/Tuck , book #4 in the Pampered Pets fun, cozy mystery series written by Sparkle Abbey. Each book in this series alternates between the POVs of 2 cousins, pet therapist Carolina LaMont and pet boutique owner Melinda Langston. This time, it’s Mel’s turn to tell the story.

She and her best friend Darby find Dr. Jack O’Doggle, one of Laguna’s best known plastic surgeons, dead outside of her Bow Wow Boutique. In trying to unravel the mystery of his bizarre death and find his killer, they learn most interesting secrets about several people in town.

Meanwhile, in a sub-plot, Mel and Caro are fighting over a brooch left by their grandmother to her “favorite granddaughter”. Naturally, each thinks she is the granddaughter in question, so they keep stealing the brooch from each other. We’re in on the fun as Mel plots and schemes about getting the brooch back in her possession!

The story has a lot of charm and humor. I especially enjoyed narrating Betty Foxx’s lines because Betty White seems to have been the model for this character.

Yip/Tuck is set at Christmastime and runs 5 hours 15 minutes, making this a perfect companion on holiday trips to see friends and family!


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes


December saw 2 releases: one of mine, and one for my husband Drew, which I directed.

Dead In Boca by Miriam Auerbach is audiobook #3 in the Dirty Harriet cozy mysteries.

In Boca Raton, Florida, Junior Castellano, a big-time land developer, hires PI Harriet Horowitz to find the silver-haired gigolo who broke Mama Castellano’s heart.

Simple enough, until the Boca police find Junior bulldozed at one of his construction sites. Was Junior killed by his mother’s con man? Or by a bitter ex-wife or spurned ex-girlfriend? Maybe by his estranged sons got the old man out of the picture for good.

The book has lots of laughs during its 6 hours and 49 minutes. I particularly enjoyed Harriet’s HELP test — the Horowitz Ersatz Lovers Profile — in which Harriet asked funny questions to determine whether Junior’s mama, Miss Lil, was getting scammed.


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes


After the success of Plague, a story about a terrorist unleashing the Ebola virus in Atlanta, Drew was excited to narrate H. W. “Buzz” Bernard’s latest suspenseful offering.

In this stand-alone story, Chuck Rittenburg is a washed-up, former tornado chaser/tour guide. A film director offers him $1 million to find the biggest, baddest F5 tornado within a 2-week window. Chuck hopes to not only find the tornado, but to regain the respect of his estranged son Tyler, who decides to help Chuck in this venture.

At the same time, an FBI agent wants to tag along on the quest. She isn’t tracking storms. Instead, she’s chasing the criminals who follow them and pretend to be emergency workers. The only help these so-called EMTs offer is to help themselves to the victims’ valuable possessions.

Bernard is a former weather forecaster, and he sprinkles his immense knowledge of and love for weather phenomena in unique metaphors throughout the book. His writing style really adds to the drama.

This is a great listen on a trip (especially in sunny weather!) as it runs 9 hours and 45 minutes.


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes
 

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Books, Narrators, New releases Tagged With: Atlanta, audiobook, Blue Suede Memphis mysteries, Christmas, Dead In Boca, Dirty Harriet series, dogs, Ebola, Eddie For Short, For A Good Time Call, H. W. "Buzz" Bernard, Halloween, HEA, Miriam Auerbach, new release, Pampered Pets series, Return to Fender, romance, romcom, science fiction, short story, Sparkle Abbey, Supercell, tornado, Trish Jensen, Virginia Brown, Wallace West, Yip/Tuck

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