Libriomancer Audio Book Redux
When Libriomancer came out as an audio book, I started receiving messages explaining that while people enjoyed the story (most of them, at least), the narration left something to be desired. The same criticism popped up in reviews on Amazon and the Audible.com site.
I’m very happy to say that Audible took the complaints seriously, and decided to completely re-record the book. The audio book was pulled until they could get the new recording finished.
As of last night, the audio version of Libriomancer is once again available for sale at Amazon and Audible.com. My thanks to Audible for taking the time to try to make this right. I’ve not yet heard the new version, but I’m told the narration by David de Vries is a significant improvement.
(While I’m thinking about it, if you’re an Audible.com author, check out Audible Author Services. Basically, they pay the author an extra $1 per sale, presumably on the hope that we authors will do some extra promotion. I’m not aware of any downside here.)
And that’s all I’ve got for now. I have one week to turn in the final revision of Codex Born, and a nonfiction deadline snuck up on me earlier this week, so it’s frazzled-Jim time again here in Michigan.
Have a great weekend, all!
Alycia
March 9, 2013 @ 8:11 pm
Good to hear they’ve fixed that up… I got quite concerned when Libriomancer disappeared from the search results on Audible as I was trying to recommend it to a friend. My recommendation went something along the lines of “It’s a great book, really interesting… you just have to ignore the narration”.
I do hope the previous narrator, whoever he was, learns from this and comes back to narration. He seems like he has enormous potential, just that he wasn’t very prepared. It was also the production quality. There were areas in the text that you could tell had been edited in later because they’d used a different microphone or there was a different quality to the sound.
Looking forward to Codex Reborn. 🙂
Jim C. Hines
March 9, 2013 @ 8:39 pm
Thanks, Alycia! I appreciate the recommendation, and I hope so too 🙂
Becky Raine
March 15, 2013 @ 5:57 pm
Thanks! I just went over to Audible and bought it. I didn’t see Libromancer the other day when I bought the rest of the Princess audiobooks. I’m glad I saw your mention of it while reading your Blogs. I now have all of your available audiobooks. Any chance of Jig showing up on audio?
Jim C. Hines
March 15, 2013 @ 8:25 pm
The first one comes out from Graphic Audio next month 🙂
Brian E.
April 16, 2013 @ 5:35 pm
Thank you Alycia for the positive comment. I have learned way beyond your imagination. However, I doubt I’ll return to audiobook narration.
I must first sincerely apologies to Mr. Hines. I know this has been a long process and it doesn’t appear to be over.
I offer an explanation into my narration. Not any excuse. My views on the audio of the first production are my own, and not of the production company or audible. And is not an admission of any wrong doing on my part or the production company.
I auditioned and was awarded the audiobook narration of Libriomancer. Through a production company associated with audible. I was extremely excited, as this was one of my very first projects in the audiobook field. I have a professional home studio, and thought it was a great story.
Recording 24 chapters is a major undertaking. It took 3 hours to record one finished hour and another 3 hours to edit one finished hour. Then it’s listened to by quality control who flags and documents mistakes. Those mistakes are re recorded in parts. That’s another 3 full days of pick ups per chapter. Then sent off to production editors and spliced into place. At that point it should be QC again before going out. It’s out of my hands and I don’t know if all my pick ups were spliced in. Based on what I’ve heard, I’m not certain that happened.
To expedite the process, I thought it would be a good idea to out source the initial edit. So I could concentrate on recording. I basically recorded straight through each chapter, when a mistake was made, I would record it again. I would take this 3 plus hour record and send it off to someone to edit out the mistakes. I would be recording the next chapter and the edited chapter would come back to me in a few days. What I should have done at that point, was stopped and listened to it myself and record corrections. I had a false since of security that the audio was going to QC and I would record mistakes then. So I didn’t want to go through that process twice.
I have since added a monitor into my booth and now punch and record, edit, and fix mistakes in the same recording session. It takes a bit longer initially, maybe 6-8 hours per finished hour. But I now have a consistent clean record. Then I re listen to the finished chapter while following the script. Make additional changes as required. This now reduces errors’ picked up by QC and final postproduction.
Another lesson learned was pronunciations. There are a number of ways to say things. I’m defiantly going to take more time doing research! I did reach out a number of times to make sure I was pronouncing things correctly. I don’t think I always received the correct pronunciation. I’m certain all my corrections never made into the final production. And in all fairness, I had a ton of mistakes and overwhelmed QC & post production. That process is now fixed.
As far as artistic interpretation, I wanted to focus on the story and not go crazy with character voices. I could have done a better job. This being one of my first projects, I had a lot going on.
I was really floored by the negative and some downright nasty comments.
Be rest assured after 6 nonstop weeks of work and out sourcing costs. I didn’t receive a single penny for this narration. Nor should I, it was not a good product.
This is an outstanding book, and I do hope it gets the narration it deserves. I’m disappointed it wasn’t me.
All the best.
Brian E
Libriomancer
1st Narrator
Brian E.
April 16, 2013 @ 5:53 pm
Hi Alycia,
Thank you for the kind comment.
Please see my response below.
Best
Brian E.