Category: Audiobooks

June—Audiobook Appreciation Month: Take a Leap!
Audiobooks · My Books · My Thoughts

June—Audiobook Appreciation Month: Take a Leap!

Larada Horner-Miller1 Comment
June is Audiobook Appreciation Month

June—Audiobook Appreciation Month! Have you bought yours yet this month? I have two available audiobooks now and one more this week or next!

I just finished listening to an audiobook, Break Though the BS by Derek Doepker, driving home from Colorado on Thursday and then to church this morning. Do you listen to them? I love being able to listen to a book while driving. I also really enjoy hearing the book in the author’s voice. Derek entertained me for miles plus shared some great ideas to improve my life.

So, to celebrate Audiobook Appreciation Month this June, I would like to share with you my two titles I’ve done, and my next one should be finished this week.

Let Me Tell You a Story

Let Me Tell You A Story Audiobook Cover Meme - June

This delightful chapbook tells the story of how my grandfather, Laurence Horner, put our family ranch together in southeastern Colorado during the depressions when many others were losing theirs.

Harold Horner, my dad begins the tale in Oklahoma and how the young Horner’s ended up in a small ranching community in southeastern Colorado, exchanging mail delivery positions from Colorado to Oklahoma and back. How they did this prior to the internet is beyond me! Letters and the willingness to wait for an answer in a week or two or a month or two! Such patience!

Harold details the process of how his father bought homesteads near each other to build our family ranch. He shares about his family and beginning experience as a rancher. Take a step back in time and witness this family story unfold.

My mom and I created this chapbook for my dad’s 75th birthday. He dictated the stories to Mom and she wrote them down. Then I entered her handwritten notes into the computer. As we edited it, Dad stood behind me, looking at the computer screen, and directed me to “go back up on the screen or down.” He hated computers but loved directing me on what needed “fixed” on this document.

So almost thirty years later, I recorded this chapbook as my first audiobook, so you hear my dad’s words in my voice.

Links to Buy This Audiobook

Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir

Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir meme - June

Last year in September, I published my newest book, Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir. Immediately, I worked on the audiobook to have it available for Christmas. What fun I had reading my own words to make this audiobook! In fact, I had a serendipity while reading—I realized this book was a Christian book. Then I realized that several of my books have a Christian vein in them.

Links to Buy This Audiobook

This Tumbleweed Landed

This Tumbleweed Landed Audiobook Cover NEW - June
New Cover

As we speak, I’m revising the audio on the Epilogue for This Tumbleweed Landed, so I only have a couple more sections to revise. Then I upload the files to two different sites: ACX and FindAwayVoices. I released this book in June 2014 but wrote it in 1992 while attending the Rio Grande Writing Project Workshop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For all those years, I set it aside, yet it whispered to me often to return to it. It was after my mom died and I retired, that I brought it out again. I fell in love with it again and published it.

As I have recorded the poems and stories in this book, I revisited my childhood home, the zany characters I grew up with and my favorite places around Branson. What a treat to return!

It will be available on all major audiobook outlets sometime this week or next, so be looking for it.

Finally,

I love books; also, I love audiobooks, and I love to record my own. I have my book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? totally recorded, but only up to chapter seven revised. Shingles hit me and I didn’t finish this project, but I will.

What a better way to spend June’s glorious summer days than listening to your favorite audiobook with a cool drink in hand, lounging in the back yard!

Do you listen to audiobooks? Which one is your favorite? Have you bought one of mine? If not, now’s the time!

Enjoy my interview on the podcast, The Writing Table

A Risk: Writing A Christian Memoir?
Audiobooks · Christianity · Christmas · My Thoughts

A Risk: Writing A Christian Memoir?

Larada Horner-MillerLeave a comment
Risk

A risk in writing? When I wrote my Christmas memoir, I never thought it would be a risk, a Christian memoir, but it was. Let’s see why.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

~T. S. Eliot

Writing about Christmas for me had to be about my Christian beliefs, but what a risk it was. Many people today don’t want to make the connection between Christmas and Christ. It’s Santa Claus, gift exchanges and a big holiday meal. My new book, Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming Christmas Memoir focuses on my beliefs.

When I was writing it, I never realized how much of it focused on my beliefs until I reread it to do the audiobook. Then I realized my focus—isn’t that funny? My Christian beliefs come naturally—I don’t think about them separately. So I didn’t write it with that in mind, yet that’s what it became. As I’ve promoted it, I realized the Christian focus more so.

As I’ve thought about my writing and my Christian beliefs, I’ve realized my God is present in most of them. In my book, This Tumbleweed Landed, I mention going to church in my little country church in Branson, Colorado as a child and that’s where I met Jesus and my faith began. Also, in my grief and growth memoir, A Time to Grow Up: A Daughter’s Grief Memoir, I reference the Higher Power I found in recovery. Surprisingly, my faith grew deeper during the pandemic and I recorded my spiritual journey in Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? So, I’m not new to this risk.

My faith has wavered over the years, especially when my first husband divorced me in my late twenties. Because of that, we lost the baby we had been waiting three years to adopt. Devastated, I turned my back on God for many years, but then I found a new, deeper faith in recovery. Recovery gave me permission to find a God of my understanding, so I took years to identify my God, a loving, caring Jesus who resembled a dark-skinned man I could turn to in any situation. Also, I found a new church home, Hope in the Desert Episcopal Church, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I have gone deeper on my spiritual path.

But in this Christmas book, I opened up the topic totally. I risked, unknowingly, and I am proud of the statement I made. I feature a couple of chapters, focusing on Mary and Joseph in the birth of Christ. Throughout the book, Jesus peeks out often—I love that.

In this crazy world, where people either share too freely their religious beliefs and try to strong-arm you and then convert you. Or others who quietly live their beliefs every day, changing their world with their presence and actions. I took a risk, the in-between road, and shared deeply about how much I have placed Jesus in the middle of my Christmas celebration and my life.

Finally, I took a risk, and it paid off. Do you risk sharing your religious beliefs? If, not why? If so, what happens?

Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir - risk

~ Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir available in audiobook format:

Creating an Audiobook? Lots of Work!
Audiobooks · My Thoughts

Creating an Audiobook? Lots of Work!

Larada Horner-Miller1 Comment
Larada in her recording studio - creating
Me in My Recording Studio!

Creating an audiobook? Really? I’m creating an audiobook for my new book, Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir, and what an experience!

This is my second one. In January, 2022, I experimented with my shortest book, Let Me Tell You a Story, and learned a lot. But that’s almost two years ago, and I forgot many key lessons.

To prepare for recording, I bought an exceptional training, “Audiobooks Made Easy,” from Derek Doepker, so I’d like to give him credit. He has supported me totally in producing my audiobooks, as recently as today!

I really wanted this audiobook available for Black Friday, but Jesse, my cat, sidetracked me with his death in October, so I’ve been behind the gun ever since! And I have felt like a beginner in so many ways.

My husband, Lin, helped me create my recording studio in our walk-in closet. We hung a quilt and attached my mic stand to a shelf.

I have two previous blog posts telling about my beginning of this adventure and my first audiobook.

So, here I’d like to tell you about my current experience! I recorded my thirty-three chapters a couple weeks ago, then I went back to edit, deleting breaths and any identified mistakes! (Derek has a great way to identify a mistake and keep recording.)

As I recorded, I had a horrible time not bumping the mic stand with my glasses, my iPad, whatever, causing me to need to re-record sections! More delays!

What I found out was I hadn’t recorded each chapter at the same volume, so I had to go back and re-record several chapters. That set me behind more.

Then, in the last few chapters, I started hearing a hum sound in the background of some recordings, so Derek helped me with that. When I sent him a sample, he didn’t hear it. I realized accidentally I only heard it when I was using my AirPods or Lin’s earphones.

BIG LEARNING!

Don’t ever, ever update an application in the middle of a project! Because of the hum problem, I updated Audacity, the Open Source program I use. In the update, everything changed: the display, how it recorded! OMG! I had recorded 26 chapters on one track. The updated app showed two!

So, I put on my thinking cap and came up with a solution! First, I deleted the updated app. Then I went into my Mac back-up program, Timeline, and re-installed the older program! It worked, but I wasted so much time yesterday trying to deal with the new update.

One last reminder: I never alter the original recorded file! I duplicate it and work in that file. Then I have four folders in my project: the originals, the fixes, the edited file, the file that has the effects and is the final and the .mp3 folder. I also keep a log of each chapter and record when I finish it.

The biggest reward in recording my audiobook: getting to read my book again. I love reading my books and hearing my words in my voice! For you writers out there, it has become a valuable revision tool! I have found mistakes that even my editor missed.

Finally, today I need all the time I have to finish my audiobook, so this post will be short! Hopefully, I finish it tomorrow and upload it to the two distributors: ACX and FindAwayVoices. Tuesday afternoon, I venture up to Colorado, so that’s why I need to get it done tomorrow!

Creating an audiobook is awesome! I would do it again in a heartbeat! See the cover below for my new audiobook, hopefully done soon!

Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir Audiobook cover - creating

When Did I Start Writing?
Audiobooks · Books · Memories · My Books · My Thoughts

When Did I Start Writing?

Larada Horner-MillerLeave a comment

When did I start my writing? My uncle extolled an essay I wrote in high school which surprised me. I didn’t see myself as a writer then! After reading it, I shocked him when I told him my plans after graduation in 1971—business courses. But his compliments lingered in the back of my mind—hiding in my subconscious.

Larada's graduation picture - start
My graduation picture, 1971

Then on a visit back home a couple years later, my journalism teacher simply said in passing, “Send me a copy of your first book!” Shocked, I just stared at her, but she was serious! So in 2014, I sent her a copy of This Tumbleweed Landed. She had an emphasis on my start.

My Publishing & Writing Timeline

Larada's Five books meme - start
Winter meme - Flippo Book

1985—I wrote When Will Papa Get Home? after a visit to the ranch and I found a blue marble at the Phillie homestead. I did nothing with it until 2015.

1987—Working at the middle school as a language arts/literature teacher, I wrote an article for the Raton newspaper, Raton Range, about a flamenco dancer who came to the Shuler Theater.

1991—I wrote This Tumbleweed Landed in a professional development workshop and did nothing with it until 2013 when I started revising it. I self-published it in 2014.

1993—Mom and I self-published Let Me Tell You a Story as a gift for my dad for his 70th birthday. We published it here in ABQ at AlphaGraphics. A friend of mine worked there (manager of the store), and they turned out beautiful. We printed a copy for everyone in our immediate family, and I printed twenty-five extras to use in my classroom.

2007—Tom Cummins, lifelong friend and historian, and I self-published Branson-Trinchera Historic Photos with lulu.com. This was my introduction to online publishing and POD (print on demand). Before POD, you had to print 10,000 copies of a book. POD allowed you to print whatever number you wanted, which made self-publishing affordable.

2012—The year before I retired, I researched self-publishing companies and found the top 3: lulu.com, createspace.com (an affiliate with Amazon and has become kdp.com) and IngramSparks.com. I decided to go with createspace.com and now kdp.com.

2013—I edited and revised This Tumbleweed Landed, adding prose (essays I wrote in the 1991 professional development workshop) because of the Black Mesa Writing Workshop with Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron.

2014—I self-published This Tumbleweed Landed and had a fantastic response to it which so surprised me. Really, I hadn’t planned on doing much more. I still questioned myself as a writer.

2014—For family Christmas presents after mom died, I self-published From Grannie’s Kitchen: Pies, Cakes & Christmas Candy, Volume 1, and family members said I needed to sell them.

2015—I edited, revised and self-published When Will Papa Get Home? Which I wrote thirty years before.

2015—I created another family Christmas present and self-published From Grannie’s Kitchen: Beverages, Bread, Cookies, Meats, Vegetables, Mis. & Records of a Rancher’s Wife, Volume 2. Mom had too many delicious recipes to put in one cookbook, so I created a three-book series.

2016—I re-released/self-published Let Me Tell You a Story, originally released in 1993.

2016—For another family Christmas present, I self-published From Grannie’s Kitchen: Casseroles, Mexican Dishes, Relish, Sandwiches, Salads & Desserts, Volume 3.

2016-2017—Giving myself a couple years after my mom’s death, I edited, revised, and self-published A Time to Grow Up: A Daughter’s Grief Memoir.

2017-2020—I interviewed, edited, revised and self-published Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo.

2021—Because of the coronavirus pandemic, I edited, revised and self-published Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better?.

2021-2022—I recorded, edited, revised and released my first audiobook, Let Me Tell You a Story.

2022—Enjoying my first audiobook so much, I recorded all thirty-one chapters of Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better?, then I edited and revised six chapters for the audiobook, but shingles stopped me initially and then the neuralgia afterwards.

2022—After learning so much from writing Marshall Flippo’s biography, I started writing I Said Yes!: How I Learned to Write a Biography, but shingles stopped me on this project too.

Looking to the future, I have the following projects lined up:

  • A Colorado Country Christmas: A Collection of Memories
  • An Extreme Costa Rica Trip: A Travelogue from 2020
  • 3 books poetry series
  • 1 Haiku poetry book
  • Eye Witness to Life—a novel I wrote in 2016

How does a writer start? Kind words, encouragement, years of trying? As you can see, my start came years ago. Have you read any of my books? If so, which is your favorite?

If not, why? Wholesome, family-oriented stories! Country-life, nostalgic stories and poetry about a simpler life—try one!

News, News, News!

~For me, it’s Christmas all year long! Here’s a variety of Christmas greetings from Flippo & Neeca, featuring his song, “When It’s Christmas Time in Texas”: https://youtu.be/mpJCUGffU3A

Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? meme

~My new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? WON the 2022 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards in the Body, Mind & Spirit Category. Have you bought your copy yet? Vist my website: laradasbooks.com

Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marsahll Flippo

~Have you bought a copy of Flippo’s biography yet? Believe it or not—it’s been two years. Go here for your hardback or paperback: https://www.laradasbooks.com or at Amazon.