In Stasis - Audio Book?

Remember when I said I was going to do my own audio book recording for In Stasis? Well, I started and then life happened but I swore I’d get back to it. In my mind there was no reason to abandon what I could clearly do. As you may have guessed time swept me further and further away from getting back to the project. Still stubborn I held off but as the year has ticked by I was mildly curious what narrators were out there.

So I put out a call on Threads and it received a lot of attention. I gathered EVERYONE’S information and entered them all into a spread sheet. From there I went and listened to samples on their website of every single one that had samples. There were only a few who didn’t but to be honest if it’s not obvious to be able to listen your art I question what it’d be like to work with you. People were put into categories of “Would work with”, “Maybe”, “Not this project/consider future” and “No”. I will say the biggest hurdle was weeding out the breathy, lusty female voices. It’s not Jessi and this is not a romance novel so if all the samples sounded like she was teasing someone while wearing something silky… it just wasn’t the right fit. Not saying there isn’t a possibility they couldn’t have done what I needed but if that’s all I have to go on and there’s almost 150 applicants, I'm sorry but I have to make decisions somehow.

From the 150, I narrowed it down to 10 of my top choice who were then asked to perform an audio sample of a scene between Jessi, Lucy & Hank speaking along with Jessi’s 1st person pov narration. Notes about the characters were provided so no one was left without some initial guidance. Of those 10 inquiries 7 responded. I listened to the submissions and ranked them. I am currently down to my final three. There were some tweaks to Hank’s voice from the initial audition because I had imagined educated southern gentleman ( like Calvin Candie or Doc Holliday) but had originally said low country and didn’t realize my direction was a little off. I’m so grateful for those who re-recorded Hank’s portion because their Jessi and Lucy were great.

So now what? I’m going to be reviewing these final three and have a final decision before the end of July. The plan is to listen and re-listen in a quiet place with a fresh mind as well as have my partner listen as well. Even though I stubbornly got here, I’m really glad I’ve got down this route. Fingers crossed, everything goes to plan and an audio book will be available before December for holidays.