A Note on Amazon's Text to Speech Audiobooks

 Some considerable time ago, Amazon starting cutting back the text to speech options on ebooks.  Very irritating to me, since I liked having my books read aloud.  You could still use to text to speech if you were using a browser on a computer, but the option became less available on most of Amazon's apps and devices.

Recently, Amazon's KDP has released a chargeable text to speech audiobook option, with certain minimum pricing requirements on them.  So a book that you could normally text to speech after buying the ebook, now has a separate 'audiobook' that is actually just text to speech.

After some debate, I've made these available, but keep in mind that, even with the $0.99 stories, there's a minimum pricing charge for these audiobooks.  If you already own the ebook, instead of buying these 'audiobooks', feel free to use a text to speech reader in the Kindle browser version.  I've made them available purely for readers who really want to listen to these books on a mobile device, even if there's an extra charge.

But in my view, this move by Amazon is a bit of a rort, and you're best served using existing free text to speech options.

[Note: any of my books that has an existing voiced audiobook is not impacted by these text to speech audiobooks.]

Get the And All the Stars audiobook for as little as 1/3 the price!

It's June is Audiobook Month, and my contribution is And All the Stars.

You can get it (and other great audiobooks) for big discounts at Nook Audiobooks, and Google Play, (and Apple's audiobook store but I don't see the discount up yet).

And All the Stars is a young adult action adventure with aliens, musketeers, Sydney landmarks, fear, surprisingly little squabbling for a bunch of teens hiding out together, and one very surreal cupcake scene.

Narrator Coralie Bywater did a fabulous job with AAtS - absolutely couldn't be happier.

Check out AAtS and these others indie deals.

Caszandra in audiobook!

And finally the audiobook for Caszandra! 

• Apple (search through Apple Books).
• Audible.
• Kobo.
• Scribd. 
• Amazon.

Also available through a host of other channels.  Check your favourite distributor to see if it's there.

In the meantime, I'm a little over halfway through Firsts (non-SFF side project).  It seems to have gotten distracted from gratuitous sex into 'friendship is magic', but is still highly entertaining for me.

COVID-19 has impacted me very little, other than my day job at least temporarily shifting to work from home, which I greatly appreciate for the extra sleeping in time.  It does mean I no longer get my excellent commute writing sessions, so I write a bit more in the evenings now.

I hope all of you are keeping safe in this very unusual year.

Listening to the stars

And here, to interrupt the Touchstone books, is And All the Stars!  Brilliantly narrated by Coralie Bywater, listening to this in audio only makes me want to see this one as a movie. :)

• Apple (search through Apple Books).
• Audible.
• Kobo.
• Scribd.

Also available through a host of other channels.  Check your favourite distributor to see if it's there.

I'm hoping Caszandra will be out first quarter next year (still in production).

That will probably be it for audio books for some time - I enjoy listening to them, but it will take quite some time to see return on investment for them.  Hope you enjoy this one!

Lab Rat Chitter

Next off the rank for audiobooks is Lab Rat One! 

• Apple (search through Apple Books).
• Audible.
• Kobo.
• Scribd.

Also available through a host of other channels.  Check your favourite distributor to see if it's there.

I've also commissioned an audiobook for And All the Stars.  While I don't think audiobooks will be a big return on investment for me, I love listening to them myself, so couldn't resist at least one more.

Glitches

Note that the last chapter of the audiobook is currently appearing after the glossary and character list. I've put in a request to fix and will let you all know.  When it's fixed, you should be able to download a correct version, but until then just skip past the character list and glossary to hear the last chapter!

Speaking of Stray...

Audiobooks are quite a process - listening, noting errors, going through a correction round, making those funny square-shaped covers...but here we are at the end of the first stage of a long road!

Thanks to narrator Stephanie Macfie, who fearlessly took on a thousand neologisms, Stray is now out at a whole bunch of different audiobook distributors, including:

• Apple (search through Apple Books).
• Audible.
• Kobo.
• Scribd.

Check your favourite distributor to see if it's there.

It should also be available through Overdrive, if you have a library looking for something new!

Hope you all like it.  Next stop, Lab Rat One!

Question re audiobook timing

So we're gearing up to actual audiobook production on Stray, and I thought I'd check in with you all as to a timing preference.

Would you prefer audiobooks to be released as they're finalised (months apart), a week or two apart, or all at once?

Still progressing toward audiobooks

Just a quick update on this, since I know some of you are hanging out for the Touchstone audiobooks.  I'm still saving up for them (I need to save up all the money first, since I don't want to risk needing to change narrators between books).  I am hoping to shift to hiring someone around the middle of the year.

Sadly the Australian dollar is very low at the moment, which means if I go with an overseas producer it will cost quite a bit more than originally expected.  Still, since I want an Australian voice for the narration, I'm looking at local companies first to see if any of them are viable.

Long-term plans for audiobooks

Audiobooks have been a not-infrequent request (particularly of the Touchstone Trilogy).  Smashwords has come out with a new audiobook model that seems accessible for Australians, and not too onerous for me to put together.  It's a big initial outlay of money, so I'll be saving up for it, but now have it on my more immediate to-do list (hopefully I'll get some tax back in July to fund at least the first book).

On the writing front, still plugging away with Snug Ship.  This is not a particularly long book, but it seems determined to progress slowly.

You'll notice the blog has been particularly quiet, and this is in part because I've been determined to get the first draft done (maybe six chapters to go [forty down - they're short chapters]), and have cut down drastically on other writing, gaming, etc.  I won't try to set a release date, since my estimates have been invariably wrong so far, but the end is at least in sight.

I like Snug Ship quite a lot, but it abandons some traditional structure concepts, so I'm not sure it will please everyone.

[I've been thinking about the concept of Chekov's Gun a fair bit, and how I prefer to make that gun barely noticeable, or leave it out altogether.  Sometimes the gun is necessary on that mantelpiece, and other times it spoils a story for me.]