Maelyn Audiobook is Here!

 

 

For those of you who prefer to listen to your books, Maelyn is now available as an audio book from Audible.com. It's just over 2 hours long, so it's good for a short road trip! I chose the voice actor Lara Asmundson from ACX.com to do the narrating. She has a beautiful reading voice that I thought matched Maelyn's character well. And she does a great Book Miser!

 

The audio book is $6.95. CLICK HERE to view the product page and listen to a sample. (Hit the play button below the book cover image.)

 

Auditioning Coralina narrators now. Boy is that fun!

 

 

Goodreads Giveaways

Every month I do a Goodreads giveaway for paperback copies of Maelyn and Coralina. It's like a drawing, you enter your name and address and at the end of the month, the winners are selected randomly. (I don't select the winners, Goodreads does.)

I usually offer about 2 or 3 copies of each book, and about 900-1000 people enter the drawing. But if you don't win, you can always enter again the next month! As soon as one giveaway ends I start another one and I'll keep doing that as long as Goodreads allows me.

For authors, by the way, this is an inexpensive way to get exposure. All it costs is the price of mailing the books, usually just a few dollars for each copy. And many of the people who don't win the books add it to their 'To Be Read' list. With Maelyn, for example, I've given away about 20 copies to winners, but over 1,700 people have added the book to their 'To Be Read' list. It's an easy way to read hundreds of new readers!

If you're interested, click on the links below and then find the button that says 'Enter to Win'.

Maelyn Goodreads Giveaway

Coralina Goodreads Giveaway

Good luck!

Maelyn Audio Book Coming Soon

I love reading books out loud. I read to my children almost every day, even though the older ones can read on their own. I used to read to my younger siblings when we were all teenagers. And now and then, I find a short story or magazine article I think my mom would enjoy, so I take it and read it to her. I just find reading aloud to be a nicer way to share a story with someone. You experience it together, rather than just handing them the book and saying "Read that, you'll like it." (Though I do that too.)

So when I thought of doing audio books for The Nine Princesses, I really wanted to read them myself. And I tried. But I hit a wall of technical ignorance and discovered that I just don't have the knowledge, equipment, time, and voice-acting skills to do a professional recording. For one thing, you need a silent room. Silent room? I have KIDS! Silence doesn't exist at my house.

So I went looking for an affordable voice actor to do Maelyn for me. And I found one! There's a wonderful site called ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) that's owned by Amazon. It's a place where authors can find voice actors, and voice actors can find authors! Win, win. 

I posted a reading sample from Maelyn and about a dozen or so actors auditioned for the job. I also browsed the various voice actors listed on the site and listened to their samples, trying to find one that sounded right to me. Eventually I invited one of those actors to audition and ended up giving her the job. I was looking for "feminine but serious" which is how I imagine Maelyn would sound. :)

So! The audio book is just about done and should soon be available in online stores, like Audible.com. If it does well, I'll look into doing an audiobook for Coralina. I guess in her case, I'll be looking for "smug and seductive" voices.  LOL! Really wish I was narrating that book.

I realize most everyone who visits this blog has probably already read Maelyn, but I wanted to share this anyway. It was a fun experience!