I’ve never made an audiobook before!

I’ve had a lot of readers ask me about an audiobook for The Neverland Wars, so I was getting ready to put together a presentation and do some market research to convince my publisher to invest in one, when out of the blue…

My publisher asked if I wanted to do an audiobook!

We took care of a little bit of paperwork, and then I introduced me to the guy who handles the audiobook stuff. I’m having a lot of fun with it already, even though there isn’t a lot for an author to do with audiobook production… even at a house like CTP, where authors are immersed as much as possible in production and development.

My audiobook guy asked a lot of questions that got me thinking about my story in a way I never had before though, and I’m enjoying this new perspective on the book.

I realized this week, for the first time, that my Peter doesn’t have an accent anymore. He’s been running around with Americans (and believe me, I’m dying to explain why in a future book…) so I guess he’s just been straight-up Americanized. Lovely UK people, please forgive me! All my readers seemed to read him American, too, with the exception of one person who piped up and said he was still British in her head.

So when he asked if there were any accents, I was kind of surprised to tell him that we only needed someone to do a French accent for Antoine de st Exupery. (Can I just say, by the way, that I’m really sad nobody has remarked on him? For all the reviews, fanmail, and feedback I’ve gotten, not one person has yet had anything to say about my dear sweet aviator.)

It will be interesting to see how the mermaids turn out with their “aquatic accent” and the tinkling, twinkling, bubbling sound of fairy language. As a writer, I never stopped to think about the practical challenges these bizarre descriptions would pose to anyone trying to read the book aloud.

To be fair, I don’t think we have any direct fairy dialogue in the first book. This is more of a problem we face when Gwen starts to understand the fairies and doesn’t need translation.

I picked out an excerpt and sent it off to my audiobook guy, who is getting ready to do auditions with it. My biggest goal for the audiobook is to find someone who can portray children well. It is hard to give kids their whimsical, high, light-hearted energy without turning them into cartoonish voices. My publisher (because they involve me at ground level on everything) is even going to let me hear the auditions and give some say on which reader we pick. I’m really looking forward to that! I can’t imagine having a recording of someone just…reading my book. I wonder if I’ll listen to it, or be too squrimish and tired of going through this story to sit down and listen to someone reading my book cover to cover.

Any which way, I think this is very exciting, and am looking forward to giving the world yet another way in which to enjoy Gwen’s adventures.