Tag: Derek Doepker

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

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Audiobooks: My New Adventure!
My Books · My Thoughts

Audiobooks: My New Adventure!

Larada Horner-Miller7 Comments
Girl listening to audiobooks

Audiobooks? Do you listen to them? Seven years ago, after I published my first book, my cousin asked me if I had thought about producing an audiobook—that she would love to hear my words in my voice. I bought a mic and played with it, but I realized I needed more instruction. Then I got busy with writing five more books, and I forgot about audiobooks.

For the last couple years, I’ve heard repeatedly I needed to have my books in audiobook format! So, I jumped in!

Here’s Some Interesting Audiobooks Statistics:

“More than 45 percent of American adults responding to recent annual surveys now claim to have listened to an audiobook at some point in their lives. . .”

https://www.statista.com/topics/3296/audiobooks/#dossierKeyfigures

“In 2020, the association’s report says, more than 71,000 audiobooks were published in the United States, up 39 percent over 2019.”

APA Cites 12-Percent 2020 US Audiobook Revenue Growth

My New Effort

So, in December 2020, I bought a video training program to learn how to do audiobooks, Audiobooks Made Easy, by Derek Doepker. Excited, I viewed the first couple of videos. One of them identified what equipment I needed, so I bought it all immediately:

  • Microphone
  • Microphone stand
  • Music Stand
  • Pop filter
  • Ear phones
  • 2 TB external hard drive to save to because my laptop has limited space

The boxes came in and I gathered them together in a pile in our walk-in closet. Then my new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? took over my life! Every time I walked by the stack of tech supplies, I winced and thought, “I have to do the training so I can get going on my audiobooks.” But I had no extra time.

Then this summer, Lin, my husband, gingerly asked one day, “When are you going to use that stuff?”

Embarrassed, I defended my time commitments with my new book and then promoting it and promoting my other books.

He encouraged me, saying, “I was just wondering.”

That became the impetus to get me going. I set up a schedule to finish the training and wrapped it up.

I had been mulling over in my mind where to record. We have a large walk-in closet off of our bedroom, so the back end became LHM Recording Studio (Lin’s name suggestion). I had 3 seven foot poles I used in a Native American unit as a teacher to make a lifesize teepee for students to read inside. Remembering them, we used one to hang up a quilt to cut down the size of the space.

Quilt I hung to record audiobooks
LHM Studio

Next, I recorded several two-minute samples to send to Derek to see how my sound was. Yes, I said several, because it was a learning curve. After a couple of samples, Derek suggested I review the videos on editing, so I did, and it helped tremendously.

As I continued, I had an embarrassing moment. The microphone has a blue light that comes on whenever I plugged it into my laptop. Because of the blue light, I thought it was on. I had never checked to see if it was on. No, it wasn’t! How it recorded any sound was mind boggling, but it did faintly.

Then when I set up my pop filter in front of my mic, I followed the picture on the box of the pop filter. It had the mic pointed straight up, so that’s what I did. I took pictures and sent them to Derek. He questioned why I had the mic pointing up instead of towards my mouth!!

Larada recording audiobooks wrong
See mic pointed straight up instead of towards my mouth!

Finally,

I sent a sample to Derek, and he gave me the go-ahead! Yahoooo!

I plan to finish Let Me Tell You a Story, using a schedule of two chapters a day. Then I will record my current book and hopefully do a couple more of them. Two of my books—A Time to Grow Up: A Daughter’s Grief Memoir and Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo are too long for the audiobook format.

Another great resource: Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasts and Voice Technologies by Joanna Penn.

What’s your thoughts? Would you be interested in one of my audiobooks? Let me know!

Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? meme

Visit my website to find out about my new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? and my other five books and three cookbooks: https://laradasbooks.com

Cyber Monday/Black Friday Sales Ad

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