Audiobook DJ

Be sure and take time to celebrate our birthday today!

 

 

 

 You've gotta admit, this is one glum group! Good for them for trying to have fun with the announcement (or at least I HOPE they're having fun - it's kind of hard to tell). Thanks to GalleyCat for originally posting this info.

 Looks like 2008 is shaping up to be a good year for Simon. The message below was posted by Simon earlier today:

Now, forgive me, but I'm going to blow my own trumpet here because I think some of the people I should thank subscribe to this list:
Booklist Magazine and the American Librarians Association have just announced that their 2008 'Voice of Choice' (catchy little title for a brand new award) is... yours truly!

To all the librarians who may have had a hand in it - I thank you.  I have been asked to speak at the Odyssey awards thingy tomorrow night in Anaheim (the ALA are having their annual wing-ding there right now) and perhaps I may get to see a few of you.

 - Simon

And on  top of that, Dune won the Audies Award for Science Fiction earlier this year. I know Simon wasn't the only narrator for that title, but he definitely carried the load of the work. Congrats Simon! For those who haven't had the pleasure of listening to Simon read to you, well, you're missing out. A frequent compliment you hear fans give a narrator is that they could listen to (pick your favorite narrator) read a phone book. Now, the Dune books are not phone books, although they're certainly as BIG as phone books. But they are incredibly long and Frank Herbert can wax a little more eloquent than you might wish in places. So listening to these long books, a narrator can either grow on you or begin to wear thin. It's a tribute to Simon and the other narrators in this series that their performance is always fresh and attention-grabbing.  All in all, a prestigious award to a very deserving recipient

Lots of good Science Fiction and Fantasy coming out this summer. June is an excellent example. This month, I also included the Audible Frontiers SF publications from Audible. They're doing some interesting stuff!

 

 

 

                            Like who else would have narrated it? Neil is on the top of my list of authors who can actually narrate their own work. And believe me, that list is very short. The following is an excerpt from Neil's blog about narrating:

"I'm keeping more or less current with the proofreading of Graveyard Book in the various editions, though, and I'm hugely proud of having done the Graveyard Book audio over the last few days.
The reading was, in some ways, the hardest I've ever done. I always forget how exhausting doing an audio book is -- sitting in the same position and reading 75,000 words, and getting every word right. The concentration involved is ridiculous. I do them once a year, and admire all the voice actors who do them day after day, reading books they didn't even write! It was hard, and long and somewhere in Chapter Seven I was scared my voice would give out entirely, and then I got to Chapter Eight and it felt like I was flying and could do it forever. (When I finished, I went back and did the very first four pages again, and nailed them.)  Director Michael Conroy flew in from New York. (He replaced the amazing Rick Harris, who recently retired.) He was a fine director -- picked me up on places I flubbed, let me go when I was doing well. We started talking about what kind of music we'd like on it. "The Saint Saens Danse Macabre," I said, "...as long as it isn't a version we've heard before."

 

New audiobooks released in May. SF and Fantasy fans should enjoy some of these titles. The April video was watched more than I ever thought it would be - well over 100 views and counting. I've even had a couple of folks subscribe to my YouTube channel, which means they will be notified when the next video appears. Guess that means I'd better be making plans for next June! This is definitely a work in progress, but it is (I hope) an interesting way to present new titles coming out. Thanks to SF Site for letting me post these on their site. And thanks to SFF Audio for putting these on their site. Use this link to check it out!

Audiobooks are reaching out to new listeners all over the place. But how to get the attention of folks who will look at videos before anything else. Here's a "first try" at showcasing science fiction audiobooks published in April. With any luck, I'll be doing one of these each month for SF Site. It needs some work but better than a boring listing. Click on the YouTube video and see what you think. I had a ton of fun doing this.