Narrating the Audiobook

A Sacred Chain Story

An action shot of me reading yesterday afternoon in Nimble Wit Studio.

This week has been set aside to record the audio version of The Sacred Chain. It’s an interesting experience, and one I didn’t think was going to happen.

When I first had a conversation with the editor at Harper, I said something about wanting to record the audiobook myself. She hemmed and hawed a bit and said something like, “Yeah, well we’ll see how that develops.” When it was time for the contract, I told my agent that I wanted it to say that I could at least audition for the part (of playing me!). When the contract came it said, “If the author reads for the audiobook…” That clearly is different than saying “The author will read for the audiobook…” or even “The author will be permitted to audition for the part of playing himself in the audiobook.” But I decided not to make an issue of it then. I figured that I’d be able to convince them later.

Later, once the manuscript was pretty well finished, I asked the editor again, “So when does the audiobook get recorded in this process? I’d still like to do that.” She replied, “Yeah, I’m not sure you’re going to be able to do that. Harper Audio tends to restrict author narrations for their celebrity authors. They’ll identify a few candidates from among their professional narrators, and you’ll get to have some input into which one they end up using. They’ll do a really good job with it.”

Hmm… I wasn’t very happy about that. I wrote back saying I know I’m not a celebrity (though I do sometimes have podcast fans come up to me at a conference asking me to say, “Let’s get to the conversation”!). And I know that academic types aren’t always the most engaging narrators. But I really can do this. I’m probably a better narrator than a writer. Please just let me send an audition tape or something.

Then I didn’t hear anything for a month or two. That made me even less happy. The next message I got from the editor was informing me that she was leaving HarperOne and going to another publisher, but that I would be in good hands with the new editor. It was mostly a form email that I’m sure she sent to all her people. That kind of thing happens quite often in the book business, but it was still unfortunate timing for my project. But then I got another email from her soon after that was written to me personally. It said some nice things about my book, and then “Oh and by the way, I was able to persuade Harper Audio to let you narrate the audiobook.”

What?! This is fantastic! I didn’t even have to audition to be myself. She connected me to the recording people, who said they’d first need to find an acceptable studio. I wondered if South Bend would have one, maybe at Notre Dame? And I said I’m regularly in Grand Rapids and the Harper subsidiary Zondervan is right there; they do lots of recording with authors. OK, they said they’d do some checking around. Then the next week I got another note saying, “How about Goshen?” Evidently there is a recording studio under The Electric Brew that meets their specifications. We found some dates that would work for everyone. This is the week of those dates.

I got a scary follow-up email in which I was told I’d need to be prepared to narrate all day Monday through Thursday. I got a long list of dos and don’ts about what to wear and what to eat (evidently Granny Smith apples have an enzyme that restores vocal cords). It was noted that it’s best not to have any dairy and that lip balm helps prevent popping sounds. And it was repeatedly stressed that this is demanding work. There will be a director who stops you and tells you to reread passages if they weren’t quite right. And there is an audio engineer that watches out for all kinds of sounds like chair squeaks and stomach rumbling.

So, I was a little nervous leading up to this week. I didn’t want to blow it after claiming quite confidently that I’d be able to do it. I showed up yesterday morning with a couple of Granny Smith apples and lip balm and met the sound engineer in the coffee shop. He escorted me down the back stairs to the studio space he rents in the basement. We connected to the director in New Jersey through Zoom and he seemed pretty cool. After some chit chat, he asked me to read the first paragraph of the book “to get some levels” though I kind of think it was actually my audition to see if I really could do this. He seemed impressed. “That was really good. You have a good voice and you’re very accurate.”

We started in for real, then. Despite being accurate, it really is amazing how often you don’t actually say what you read in the manuscript. I suppose this is because in order to read naturally, you have to be reading ahead of where you’re actually speaking, and sometimes your brain fills things in differently. Then, sometimes you stumble over a word or even mispronounce something (the director has a website cued up that gives the standard pronunciation for almost every word there is… except it didn’t know how to pronounce Chagyrska — a town in Russia which comes into the story for reasons you’ll have to read to believe). And when your recording studio is in the basement of a coffee shop, sometimes the engineer breaks in to say someone in high heels appears to be stomping across the ceiling and we need to wait a second. All told, several times per page of text we have to stop and start over at the beginning of a sentence or paragraph. I’d also have to stop and take sips of water and reapply limp balm. And after a couple of hours of this when my voice started feeling fatigued, I broke out the Granny Smiths. We broke for lunch and then came back for some more (which then brought on various digestive noises that the very good microphones pick up!). By mid-afternoon the engineer suggested some tea after I started sounding a bit raspy.

By the end of that first day, I was pretty exhausted. I got home and started telling my good wife about the experience… but I had to stop talking. My throat was killing me. The corner of the internet I stumbled into told me that the best way to help fatigued vocal cords is total rest. So the rest of the night I whispered and played charades. The scary note from earlier didn’t say when dairy should be avoided, and I thought something cool would feel really good on the throat. So I had a bowl of ice cream (I have different justifications most nights for having a bowl of ice cream!). And I was nervous I’d get back to the studio today and not be able to talk.

But by this morning, the voice was feeling a little tired, but mostly OK. I decided to start with the tea right away. I think that was the right call. I ended up feeling better by the end of today than I did yesterday.

We’re making good progress, and the director and engineer are both happy with me. I’m resisting the urge (so far) to tell the Harper Audio people, “I told you so.” And it’s pretty fun. So you might want to make sure your audible.com subscription is ready to go starting in April.