Managing Audiobooks

 In addition to my own audiobooks, I have also managed them for several of my clients. They are time-consuming but fun to work on. It is different to hear your words spoken by others. As an author, I often see something unexpected when someone else interprets my stories.

My first venture into the world of audiobooks was Ghost Writer back in 2015. I was fortunate to get a very good producer off the bat. The producer is the narrator of the book. This is NOT just a reader. The person had to have the right tone and be able to act out the story using only her voice. Jean’s audition sounded perfect. We have since worked together on three other books, and I am currently working with her on another. She has agreed to produce the last three of the romance anthologies.

The next audiobook was The Memory Keeper. We actually started this project in 2014 before Ghost Writer and had several people audition for it. The person we chose was a teacher born in Wisconsin who lived in the south. However, we wanted the story told by someone who had a slight Spanish accent. This was also a challenge because we had several Native American (Acjachemen) words. Aaron worked very hard to get them just right. The effort was worth it because we ended up with a terrific audiobook as a result. This one took quite a while to complete.

Aaron went on to record Larry’s short story collection, Lakeview Park, as well as the first two books in his sci-fi series, The McGregor Chronicles.

Our memoir, 31 Months in Japan: The Building of a Theme Park, proved to be a major challenge. It contains Japanese words, and we really wanted two people to produce it. I had worked with a couple on the terrific recording of our friends Leonard and Luanna Rugh’s book, Promises Kept: How One Couple’s Love Survived Vietnam. (They were technologically challenged, so I took care of the production process for them.) We waited for the producers to complete the Rugh’s book before they started on ours.

When they were about thirteen chapters in, I suddenly had no contact from them. They did not answer emails and wouldn’t respond to messages on Facebook. After a year, we gave up and cancelled their contract. (I still don’t know what happened, but the guy got a divorce, and his subsequent posts on Facebook were a bit strange.)

We tried putting the book back out for audition with little success. The couple of people who auditioned could not pronounce the Japanese words correctly. Finally, we found Andrew. He had lived in Japan for a year and aced the language. After a long wait, this one was finished in 2018, and we are pleased with the result.

In the meantime, I had edited an anthology of short stories set in Hawaii called Passion, Paradise, Murder. I worked with a wonderful producer on that audiobook. So, when it came time to turn our mysteries into audiobooks, I turned to him.

Since he lives on Maui, Paul knows how to pronounce all the Hawaiian words. He recorded Murder…They Wrote and Murder in Paradise, and we are delighted with them.

By the time we were ready to record The McGregor Chronicles: Book 3 – Alien Invasion, Aaron was no longer available. So, we hunted for another producer. We found one we liked very much. He did about nine chapters, then we didn’t hear from him for quite a while. When we did, he wrote that he had been in a serious auto accident and could no longer manage the recording. We were sorry for him and wished him well. So, the hunt began anew.

Finally, Dan auditioned. He was truly the answer to our prayers! He had a warm and engaging voice, and we have enjoyed working with him. Our most recent audiobook is The McGregor Chronicles: Book 4 - Kaùsan’s War.

A fun experience was working on the production of our grand-niece’s YA fantasy novel, A Wolf’s Magic. This book was published on her twelfth birthday, so we needed a young-sounding voice for it. We were lucky to get Traci, and she did a fabulous job!

 In addition, I have managed the production on several other audiobooks for my clients, and I’m currently working on two more for them.

 Audiobooks are challenging, both for the author and for the producer, but they are also very satisfying when they are finally completed after all the hard work!

 Do you listen to audiobooks? What do you look for in an audiobook?

Interview With Larry K. collins

Today, just for fun, I interviewed my partner in life and in crime (novels, that is), Larry K. Collins. You might enjoy some of his answers.

What started you writing?

I’ve always created stories in my head. From four until age twelve, I stuttered badly. Talking to others was so difficult I stopped speaking and retreated from the outside world. When I was seven, TV’s Space Patrol and Commander Buzz Corry held my fascination. For Christmas, I got the official patrol space station model, complete with two-inch high plastic spacemen (Buzz, his crew, and several villains). My imagination provided many hours of adventures.

At ten, it was Disney’s movie Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I constructed a complete scale set of the Nautilus out of wood and cardboard. I always made up stories, plots and characters. I liked mine better than what I saw on TV. I just never put them down on paper.

In my sophomore year of high school, my English teacher was also the writing club sponsor. For his class, each Monday morning, every student had turn in a story with any subject, a minimum two pages, single-spaced. Most of my classmates hated the course. I loved it. I began to write down the imagined adventures from my youth. Two of my short stories were published in the yearly school literary magazine, The Silver Pen.

What are your writing goals?

Two years ago, Lorna’s anthology, Directions of Love, won the EPIC eBook Award for best romance anthology. Since then I have had to live with an “award winning author”. Someday I hope to even the score.

What is the hardest thing about the writing life?

I’m a plotter. But I live and write with a pantser.

I spend days in thought. I know the story arc, character progression, and have outlined the logical story path to the end, often before words go on paper. It makes me a slow writer. If I can get a chapter done in two weeks, I’m doing well.

Lorna always knows where the story will end, but her characters lead her on a merry chase through strange and unknown pathways to arrive there. She writes fast and trusts her voices to show the way.

We’ve totally different styles. Yet, somehow when we coauthor, the magic still works.

Do you enjoy blogging? Why or why not?

I have to admit, I’m not big on blogging. I guest occasionally on Lorna’s and others’ blogs, but that’s about it. As I said, I write slowly.

Are there any other genres you’d like to write?

I read and love science fiction and fantasy, but I’ve never written it. That genre tends to be on a grand scale, with all-encompassing stories, saving the universe, or protecting the shire from Sauron. I tend to write smaller stuff. One detective solves one case, or saves one person.

But someday, I just might try it.

What is your favorite of your own books, so far? Why?

The genres I’ve written in are so different, it’s hard to choose. My collection of short stories Lakeview Park is my latest. Each of the fifteen stories stands alone, but they are linked in that they all take place in and around a small urban park in a large city. Writing it gave me a chance put down my observations of people I noticed while walking in a real park, and to go back to my favorite, slice-of-life, short story style.

What are you working on now? Where did the idea come from?

The current book in progress is historical fiction, The Memory Keeper. It takes place at Mission San Juan Capistrano between 1812 and 1890, as told by a Juañeno Indian.

A lot happened during the period: earthquakes, a pirate attack, two-wars, statehood, bandits, epidemics, floods, and droughts. Lorna and I have spent more than a year in research and expect it will take another year to complete.

We have lived about three miles from the mission for the past twenty-five years and became fascinated with the period. We also obtained the help of the San Juan Capistrano historian and a Juañeno storyteller to help us get our facts straight.

Just like all our books, whatever I’m working on at the moment is my favorite.

Thanks, Larry. Even I learned a few things I didn’t know! You can read more about both of us on our website http://www.lornalarry.com.

Creating Characters

We’re often asked how we create characters. Do they just appear or do we make them up? The answer is “YES”!

The truth is that we sometimes start with a plot, and the characters emerge from that. At other times we ‘cast’ them based on friends or celebrities. Here are a few examples:

AGAPÉ JONES

We were attending the Maui Writers Conference when Larry got the idea of writing a mystery set at a writers’ conference. So Murder… They Wrote began as his brainchild.

The next day, we met Love Smith and talked to him about ten minutes. As we walked away, I said to Larry, ‘We have to write that guy!” Thus our protagonist Agapé Jones was born. He’s loosely based on Love. However, whenever we see him, we discover that we’re writing what he’s actually doing! So maybe we’re channeling him… And here we thought we were creating the whole story.

AMY & DAN

For my novella, “Winter’s Song” in the anthology, Seasons of Love, I decided to use our friends Amy and Dan as the inspiration. He’d been after me for years to write their story, and this was the perfect opportunity. (I used their real first names with their permission. Find out what happened after the story here: )

Of course, I fictionalized most of the story. At least I thought I did.

Amy’s mother is a member of our writing group. Several times we’d read a chapter and she’d say, “How did you know about that?” I’d answer, “I thought I’d made it up.” Then she’d proceed to tell me the real story which was eerily similar to what I’d ‘made up.’

COUNTESS ELEKTRA ROZANSKA

For Murder… They Wrote, we decided to create an older lady as one of the suspects. Larry’s speech teacher in grammar school was Countess Elektra Rozanska. I said, “I’d love to use her real name!” “So would I,” he said. So we tried to locate her family without success.

We decided to use her name anyway since she was long gone and she’d have loved being a suspect! So we wrote the character based on her with a few embellishments. (Find out why she was so important to Larry here: http://bit.ly/cERPQc)

A couple of years after the book was published, we were contacted by her grandson. He was delighted that we had written her as a character, and he agreed that she’d have loved her role. He later contacted us to let us know that, although she’d convinced Larry that her title and exploits were all true, she had actually made up not only the name but also part of her back story! Still, we’re so happy that we could pay homage to this very special person in Larry’s life.

LOVEY JONES

Another special lady in my life was Lovie Cooper. (You can see her photo and read about her on our website (http://bit.ly/LBSdjM). When we created Agapé, we decided he needed someone to confide in. Thus was his dead mother, Lovey created, based on our own Lovie. She’s really easy to write since I just close my eyes and imagine her talking to me.

KIMI MCGUIRE & JASON NAKAGIRI

When we first discussed our anthology, Directions of Love, I knew I wanted to take the west. I love Hawaii and wanted to set at least some of my novella there. So “Finding Love in Paradise” was begun. I also decided to take advantage of our own experiences even farther west: Japan.

In this case, Kimi grew out of the storyline. She had to be at least partially Hawaiian so she had a connection there. I’ve seen many lovely Hawaiian girls in our many trips to that special place. We also know many young Japanese women. So Kimi’s appearance was based on a composite of them. Since she was raised in the US, her personality, speech, etc. were easy to write.

Her love interest, Jason, needed to be Japanese/Hawaiian for the story to work. Again, he grew out of the story. However, one night we were watching “The Mentalist” on TV, and Detective Cho (Tim Kang) walked onscreen. “That’s Jason!” I exclaimed. From that moment on, Jason looked like the actor.

However, that wasn’t the end of the story. A couple of years later, we were visiting Oahu and decided to spend a day at Queen Emma’s Summer Palace. We were assigned a docent, and when she appeared I gasped. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But you look exactly like a character I created for a book.” I went on to describe “Finding Love in Paradise” to her. It turned out that this young lady shared many characteristics with Kimi. Both were Irish/Hawaiian. Both studied anthropology at UH. Kimi was a docent at the Bishop Museum, and this one was at the Summer Palace.

And once again I wondered just how much I’d made up.

NAN BURTON & MAX MURDOCH

The character of Nan Burton in my new novel Ghost Writer is loosely based on the young ladies I worked with at my last job. I tried to capture their speech patterns and language since they were close to her age.

Max Murdoch, the ghost, was really based on some of the characters portrayed by Clifton Webb in his old movies, particularly Three Coins in the Fountain (http://bit.ly/JucuHy). He is an old curmudgeon, egotistic, and insensitive. He’s also a bit arrogant and British like the character Jonathan Harris Played in the TV Show Lost in Space (http://bit.ly/5n79q).

Even though I think I made them up, I have a sneaky suspicion that, given my record to date, I may actually meet people like them someday.