Talking books – Listen up! by Ruth Bonetti

Word is out that audio books are hot sellers. (Tell me, is it so?) 

Word is out that, like bookshops, Amazon Audible shun small fry accounts. Authors should enlist a third party company to fast track. 

So I outlaid. Speak Out-Don’t Freak Out joined the clamour of audio books. But last week, I realised my audio book had become Phantom of the Audible. Terse phone calls and emails resulted in links to other sites while the go-between negotiates with Amazon Audible to reinstate.

Listen Up and Speak Out!

A lightbulb moment brightened recent gloom. With time on my hands, experience of speaking, of training and coaching speakers to confident performance polish and even the book (but sorry, no T-shirt)... 

Why not narrate my own books? 

Cue self-sabotage...

I'm a bear of limited tech brain. 

But, aha! I know a savant who revels in such. Musician colleague and former student Kathy is paying off the Classical clarinet I no longer play. She has some time on her hands and welcomes a project. Hear her on Soundcloud, a site she led me to. Rather than borrow her kind offer of tools of trade equipment, we went to an audio shop and I bought the most user-friendly device possible, a Zoom TN1. Too easy!

The mic sports a “dead cat” to block extraneous noise, so I can record out on my deck. I begin narrating Burn my Letters, the first book of the Midnight Sun to Southern Cross trilogy. 

Cue a Molotov cocktail of self-sabotage, frustration and reality check

Have I bitten off an elephant of words! Perhaps it's enough to narrate a chapter of each book as PR teasers? 

And what to do with male Swedish voices who predominate in the book? Its main protagonist hero is a Finland-Swede, and my book includes magical realism conversations with him. I begin to regret this clever trick which enables me to go inside heads and explore motives. 

Northern Light and Sound

Email a friend of 50-years with decades' experience as a music journalist with Swedish Radio. Now retired, he has time on his hands. Professional but humble, Carl (“Calle”) sounds caution. Any mispronounced colloquial words would shriek unprofessional. Feel free to ask another friend of 50 years. But hear Calle in this narration, round 3'40". after an intro précis) reading lines from Kalevela. What say you? 

Email Jan Westerlund, a flautist with whom I performed in Regionmusiken 50 years ago (see pp 47-46 of Burn My Letters). He's interested. 

Sound circles around the globe

So my team consists of two Swedes and we two who live streets away in Brisbane. After recording takes, I drop the SD card into Kathy’s letterbox, she edits and uploads. 

LISTEN UP! Enjoy our team work Introduction and Chapter 1 of Burn My Letters 

It includes an excerpt of Grandad's 1960s radio interview 2'30".

 

Opportunity: Do you dream of your own titles morphing into audio books? Would a teaser audio chapter boost your book sales? As I finesse my narrative skills and eventually learn editing expertise (meanwhile supported by Kathy's brilliant savvy) I'll offer these to other authors. Contact me if my voice suits your book. 

You, too, could enter a new genre, the talking book.

RUTH BONETTI is author/editor of a dozen publications, firstly in her primary field of music and performance. Her passion is a heritage trilogy Midnight Sun to Southern Cross, of which Burn My Letters won the Omega Writers Nonfiction CALEB award in 2017. 

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Thank you for reviews on Goodreads.  They're gold to authors who hate blowing their own trumpets. Though this one is so excited by her new foray into tech, please forgive the many links!

Reliably Write

The first weekend in June heralded WordFest Toowoomba 2022. Hosted at “The Lighthouse”, a fabulous initiative by local Toowoomba “Child Writes” creative, Emma McTaggart, a wintery blast met exhibitors and attendees alike, sending hands diving for pockets of thick jackets and scarves winding tight about necks. All over, it was a modest but enthusiastic gathering.

The second year of the event offered an array of workshops catering to writers and readers across a range of genres. Other familiar faces were also in attendance (Nola Passmore and Jessica Kate). I was thrilled to be on the “Knowing your YA audience” panel with author Verity Croker and chair, Ben Tupas.

This cosy conversation explored (amongst other things) our written works, creative processes, and the topic of the moment: how to know and connect with a young adult audience in a way that is relevant and authentic. (Since, as Ben kindly highlighted, we were not exactly “young adults” anymore. 🤔🤨)

At the close of the session attendees were invited to ask questions. This led to a discussion about narration viewpoints and character/reader perceptions in the context of young, perhaps naïve, protagonists. In essence, an “unreliable narrator”.

“An unreliable narrator is a storyteller whose perspective isn’t totally reliable if we want to get the full picture or the whole truth.” ~ Kaelyn Barron

The unreliable narrator is an interesting concept and a well-used literary device. My personal leaning is that no viewpoint is ever truly reliable, and I too have made use of this technique in my stories to create tension between reader insights and the protagonist’s view of their life, values, goals and the realities they are yet to perceive, whilst challenging the reader’s own.

“Fiction that makes us question our own perceptions can be powerful. An unreliable narrator can create a lot of grey areas and blur the lines of reality, allowing us to come to our own conclusions.” ~ reedsyblog

Interestingly, this concept of “unreliable narration” lingered in my mind into the week—and not in the context of writing.

As Christians, we readily reference scripture and songs that remind us of who we are in Christ. But is it just me, or are there times when you also find yourself engaging the world in a way that conflicts with the new identity that has been placed upon us as redeemed children of Almighty God?

The longer I reflected on this, the more I was reminded of the importance of realigning our “self-narration” with our identity in Christ. For as anyone who has been a believer for more than five seconds knows, some days this is not at all how reality plays out. Just like our written characters, we can narrate our world with horrible unreliability.

In the face of rejection, we don’t always feel or act “beloved”. In the face of massive mess ups, we don’t necessarily feel “chosen”, “forgiven” or “the righteousness of Christ”. In the face of brutal failure, we may seem the opposite of “an overcomer”. When we’re hit with a gut-punch betrayal or loss, we don’t necessarily feel “unforsaken”. And yet all these things, and so much more, are still true when we place our hope in Christ and step into relationship with Him.

Because of Jesus’ life, sacrifice and resurrection, our identity in Him has already been validated. Yet so often we can wrestle with speaking, acting, and even thinking, in accordance with who HE says we are. The importance of spending time in the Word and prayer and building relationships with others who will encourage us in these truths becomes vital in this context. For as we grow in who we’re truly called to be and our self-perceptions become more aligned with our identity in Christ, this will allow us to “narrate” our identity in our world with increasing reliability.

Queensland author Adele Jones writes young adult fringe and near-science fiction exploring the underbelly of bioethics and confronting teen issues that include disability, self-worth, loss, domestic conflict, and more. She also writes historical fiction, poetry, inspirational non-fiction and short fictional works, with themes of social justice, humanity, faith, natural beauty and meaning in life’s journey. Adele’s first YA novel Integrate (book one of the Blaine Colton Trilogy) was awarded the 2013 CALEB Prize for unpublished manuscript. As a speaker she seeks to present a practical and encouraging message by drawing on themes from her writing. For more visit www.adelejonesauthor.com or contact@adelejonesauthor.com