The Audiobook Journey

I like audiobooks.  I have done so for years.  I remember listening to books-on-tape in my car and how great it was when my local library upgraded to CD’s.  Wow – talk about bleeding edge technology!  Audiobooks were a part of my daily commute starting back in the 80s.  And, I confess, there were even times when I hoped that the traffic would jam up for a bit – because a story was so good…

So, I thought that I would try to make an audiobook version of Gold-Digger’s Daughter.  I feel that the story lends itself to that medium, and when Archway Publishers offered a DIY kit for making an audiobook, I took it. Not to read it myself. No no no.  I have what I would call the opposite of a ‘radio voice’, plus an accent and a slight speech defect.  It would not do at all.  But I have friends…

So I asked one, and she readily agreed to try it.  Even though this story is presented by an ‘omniscient narrator’, in third person, I felt that given that the protagonist is half English and half Russian, the narrator should not speak with an American accent.  This friend is Australian who has lived in Britain for a long time, so I thought that her accent would work.  But, she encountered some technical difficulties and could not get to it, and  as I was eager to get going – this was mid summer 2025 – I thanked her and we agreed to move on.

I then asked another friend – a lady I dated twenty years ago – who I remembered as someone who had a fantastic voice.  The kind of voice that even strangers commented on.   Soothing. Hypnotic…  She agreed to give it a go.  But then, a few weeks later, having made no progress, she confessed that she just could not get into it.  Did not ‘feel’ the story.  I thanked her and we agreed to move on.  This was September 2025.

Then I tried my luck on UpWork – a site that specializes in connecting certain kinds of professionals with possible employers.  I put up an ad for a female narrator with a British accent, and within hours I had many candidates.  I received all sorts of samples and resumes, and chose a particular lady with a suitable English – but not snooty upper class English – accent. We connected and agreed on terms, and were ready to go.  This was October 2025.

But then we encountered technical issues with the on-line service that was recommended by the publisher.  We resolved those and then encountered issues with managing accents of various characters in the story.  This was something that I had not thought about at all – I thought it would be just someone reading the book.  Period.  I worried more about my nasty habit of writing long run-on sentences, and a narrator running out of breath than about voices and accents.  But this lady opened a pandoras box for me. Different accents for different characters would certainly make for a better listening experience.  I loved the idea.  Except that it quickly got very complicated – doing multiple accents in a conversation is hard.  Very hard.  So she got frustrated and resigned – feeling that the challenge was beyond her skills.  We parted as best of friends – I really liked her – but decided to  move on.  This was November 2025.

Based on a recommendation of my UpWork narrator – now friend – I contacted a real professional.  A voice actress.   From northern England.  Having lived in that part of the world for ten years, I have a soft spot for that kind of English accent.  And this woman was someone that did many audiobooks and clearly knew a lot more about it than I did. We exchanged e-mails, talked, she read the book, asked a whole bunch of questions about things that never occurred to me,  and then we signed a contract.  This was December 2025.

I expect that she will finish reading sometime in January.  And hopefully we will have a real honest-to-goodness audiobook, maybe in February. March?

I am really excited about that.

And I have clearly learned that there is a lot more to producing audiobooks than I imagined.  I was naïve…  Loved Loving the learning curve…