Update on Conjuration Audiobook

I think I've made various promises to provide an update on the audiobook for Conjuration.  Thankfully I've finally been able to nail down  a date and the audiobook will be complete on August 20th. Sort of...

The way it generally works is that my narrator does his thing and records the audio files.  Then it's my job to listen to them and make sure everything is okay.  Unfortunately, this is a lot more tedious than it sounds because I'm not listening for pleasure; I'm listening for errors. Ergo, it takes me a longer to get through the files than the actual recording time.

If you want an idea of what it's like, visualize your favorite television show, but then imagine watching an episode of it not for enjoyment, but looking for things that are wrong.  For instance, is a character wearing a watch in one scene but not the next? If he is wearing a watch, is he wearing it on the same arm? Is the female lead wearing a different pair of earrings than she had on earlier in the same scene? Did she suddenly go from wearing heels to flats? Did a character sitting at a table in the background suddenly go from being a young boy to an old lady? 

Presumably, if you had to look for all those things in a scene, it would probably take you a while to confirm the accuracy/continuity of everything on the screen.  Likewise, with the audiobook, I'm listening for anything that might sound off.  Did two characters suddenly switch voices? Did someone speak with an accent earlier but now doesn't have one? Is there a passage where it's difficult to understand what's being said?

Long story short, when the audio files are completed, it typically takes me a couple of days to listen to everything. I then let my narrator know what things I think need to be fixed. His turnaround on those issues is usually pretty fast and at that juncture I usually approve the audiobook for production.

Looking at the timeline for Conjuration, my narrator will have things wrapped up by 8/20.  Assuming I can listen to everything within three days, that means he'll get my comments around 8/23. With any luck, all fixes will be done by 8/24 and I'll approve it.  

Historically, at that point, it would take up to two weeks for Amazon to perform its quality check and make the audiobook available for purchase.  However, over the past year or so, that time became greatly extended, with many people waiting months for their audio titles to be released.  However, Amazon recently stated that, going forward, the time-to-retail would - at max - be 10 business days after submission.  That, of course, is welcome news. More importantly, I had a friend recently create their first audiobook, and it was indeed available within the 10-day time period.

Now, when you tack those 10 business days onto my earlier calculations, it means the audio version of Conjuration should be available around 9/7.  Needless to say, I'll make promo codes available to my patrons here first, so that anyone interested can get a free copy.

In other news, I fell off the pace a little with respect to Warden 4.  I thought I'd have it done by now, but I've got three kids heading off to college this fall after a year at home because of Covid, and gearing up for that has been much more time-consuming than I anticipated.  For instance, family orientation for one school is all online. Had it been in person, I assume it would have taken a couple of hours.  However, since it's online (and no one has a time limit with respect to presentation), there is seemingly days of video to get through. (And of course it's all extremely important.) And there's also a bunch of related material to read, like housing contracts, which no one other than me seems to have looked at.

Me: Are you aware that your housing contract says thus-and-so, and that you'll have to pay an extra fee for this-and-that?

College-bound student: No - I had no idea.   Where does it say that?

Anyway, my intent is to get back on track and get the book done asap, as well as the next, and the next, and so on. The good news is that i've got the stories laid out in my head; it's just a matter of getting them on paper.