The Day Detroit Went Dark Audiobook

The Day Detroit Went Dark hit retail yesterday on audible.com and on iTunes.

Getting the book into production was a lot of work, mostly on the narrator’s part, Stephen Marsden, PhD. Steve is a great voice talent and his work ethic is unparalleled, making the whole process painless.

Before an audiobook goes into production deadlines are agreed upon, and Steve hit them way in advance. I think the worst thing that could happen is that someone, either the rights holder (author or publisher) or the narrator slacks. The disaster scenario is that the contract is voided and the rights holder starts the audition process all over again. This could set the production back by many months.

The System – A Detroit Story is categorized as “headed for retail” in the production process and will be available soon, both on audible.com and iTunes.

Steve has agreed to narrate Reckoning in Escobara which makes me very happy. Here’s the new cover:

Having a quality narrator is more than just a good voice. A voice without a professional behind it is the equivalent of a pretty face with no brains behind it. One tires of that in a hurry. I got lucky.

New Thomas Edison: RESURRECTOR Cover

I’ve refreshed the cover for Thomas Edison: RESURRECTOR since I felt it needed a change. Here it is:

I took the photograph inside Edison’s Menlo Park lab at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

Also just got word that The System- A Detroit Story and The Day Detroit Went Dark are ‘headed for retail’ on Audible.com. They should appear on Audible any time now. The covers had to change, since Audible requires square covers (just like CDs) instead of rectangles.

Diego Rivera Mural Studies at the DIA

One of the gems at the Detroit Institute of Arts is the Diego Rivera mural. The main panels depict workers at the Ford Motor Company River Rouge Complex. The murals, painted in 1932 and 1933, were considered controversial at the time, partial due to Rivera’s Marxist views. Also, some clergy members were offended by what they perceived to be blasphemy, and petitioned to have it destroyed.

It stands today as one of the DIA’s most significant works and represents Rivera at his best.

The controversy was so great, during the Joe McCarthy years the DIA posted this disclaimer:

“Rivera’s politics and his publicity seeking are detestable. But let’s get the record straight on what he did here. He came from Mexico to Detroit, thought our mass production industries and our technology wonderful and very exciting, painted them as one of the great achievements of the twentieth century. This came after the debunking twenties when our artists and writers found nothing worthwhile in America and worst of all in America was the middle west.”

“Rivera saw and painted the significance of Detroit as a world city. If we are proud of this city’s achievements, we should be proud of these paintings and not lose our heads over what Rivera is doing in Mexico City today.”

I’m wondering where the Rivera mural will wind up if the DIA eventually closes…

To see the rest of the photos go here: http://stefanstudios84.wordpress.com/dia-rivera-mural-studies/

To learn more about the mural go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Industry_Murals

and here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103337403

DIA Photographs

We visited the DIA (Detroit Institute of Arts) this morning and got some shots. What a cultural gem this is. We plan on visiting and photographing what we can while there’s still time.

Check the photographs out here: http://stefanstudios84.wordpress.com/the-detroit-institute-of-arts/

 

DIA Deathwatch

The next step in liquidating the Detroit Institute of Arts collection was taken last week when a group of Detroit banks, bond holders and the AFSCME union filed a motion to allow independent evaluation of the collection. They stated that Kevin Orr is not acting “aggressively enough to monetize the art”. The collection is supposedly worth billions of dollars.

Back in August I posted the following on this blog.

Recently a tri-county (Oakland, Macomb and Wayne) millage was passed to keep the DIA open. That will be invalidated if the artwork is sold, wiping out $23 million in operating funds which would probably force an immediate closure. Here are a couple of quotes. The first is from L. Brooks Patterson, the Oakland County Executive:
“If Kevin Orr (Emergency Financial Manager) moves in any way to reduce the quality of the DIA’s collection, I can absolutely guarantee we will go to court to seek suspension of that tax, which was imposed to support the museum as presently constituted. We are not going to pay once some of the finest works are sold.”

The second quote is from Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel:
“Why would we continue a millage for something that no longer exists?”

We’re witnessing cultural bankruptcy and sadly, the DIA is under a real deathwatch. Get to the DIA soon, before it inevitably closes and the art is auctioned off.  

Check out the DIA here: http://www.dia.org

The Day Detroit Went Dark Audiobook

The audiobook production for The Day Detroit Went Dark is complete and approved. We’re very happy the way The Day Detroit Went Dark turned out and it should be available on Audible.com soon.

The System – A Detroit Story – starts production tomorrow.

Winter is Coming to Detroit

Winter is coming to Detroit. I plan on producing another photo essay book entitled Broken City, Big Hearts. It will be about organizations in Detroit that help people survive, especially during the winter.
The entire essay will be shot in grainy black and white. I took these test location shots today.

 

I’ve begun shooting this month during late fall…

 

…and plan on shooting and developing the narrative throughout the winter.

Heavy shooting will take place during December, January and February where the chances for surviving in the city hits bottom.

 

 

 

Audiobook Production: Help Your Narrator

Here’s something I learned fast working on audiobooks for audible dot com. Help your narrator.

The audible dot com process works like this. You upload a section of your book, and unless you’re a professional voice talent and plan to narrate the book yourself, narrators audition for you. You provide a small segment of your book and the voice talent narrates it. If you are the rights owner (either the author or publisher) you choose the narrator. Once you’ve selected a narrator, you or your publisher negotiate a royalty agreement.

There is no guarantee that anyone will audition for you. Narrators gamble their time and talent on your book and its anticipated sales. If you find a narrator that you click with, latch onto them, for now and in the future.  A big thing to consider is brand consistency, especially if your books are a series. Having the same person narrate your books presents a consistency to your work, literary voice, and brand.

What’s the first thing you can do to help your narrator, which helps your final product? Provide them with a detailed character summary. When listening to the auditions you might be surprised that the characters DO NOT sound the way you envisioned, in tone, attitude and rhythm. Put yourself in the narrator’s place. All they have to go on is the short segment of text you or your publisher provided. They make their best guess and interpretation. If it’s wrong, it’s not their fault. It’s yours.

This is where the character summary comes into play. Having a cheat-sheet of sorts prepped for your narrator helps immensely. They know who the protagonists and antagonists are and they know who persists throughout the story and who doesn’t. They know  who must be liked and who needs to be loathed. This helps them invest their time and talent in the characters that require it.

You, the author, will learn a lot about your book listening to the auditions. I learned an old trick from another author a long time ago. You’ve probably heard of it. To accurately proofread your book, say it out loud. That way it’s almost impossible to let a grammatical errors slip by and is a means for correcting awkward passages. You’re listening to your own voice. When you hear a professional narrator recite your book. It’s cool and puts a new, unique light on your work. To get to where you want your book to be, do all that you can to help your narrator get it right. A solid character summary will go a long way.

Covers for Audiobooks

Here’s something I didn’t expect at the onset of producing an audio book with audible dot com. The book covers need to be reformatted or recreated. You might think this is no big deal, but to complicate things, the cover must be square like a CD cover and not rectangular. No big deal? That’s what I thought before I dove into the details. The cover specifications are simple and must be adhered to, otherwise the cover will be rejected.

You can’t just scale your current book cover from a rectangle to a square. The aspect ratio will be askew and will be rejected. Besides, it will look squashed and amateurish. You cannot add white space by adding a border to the sides of your cover image. This will be rejected also. If you scale up or zoom your image to fit the square format chances are it will be rejected since there will be too much noise and pixelation.

Here are the format specifications that audible dot com requires: the native or default size is 2400 x 2400 pixels with a resolution of 72dpi. Squashing down your existing cover may be difficult or downright impossible. So what to do? Create a new one.

What about brand continuity? I look at this a little differently. Audio books are unlike print or eBooks, so why not give them their own identity? Check out some of the covers on audible dot com. The ones that catch my eye are the ones with the big print with simple covers, and not the ones that take a portion of an existing cover and trim it or expand it.

I decided to redo my covers from scratch. I also decided to keep them relatively the same for at least the first two books. Why? Brand identity, specifically tailored for the audiobooks. If this works I’ll do it for all the books that appear on audible dot com.

Here’s the original cover for The Day Detroit Went Dark

Here’s the audiobook cover.

Here’s the cover for The System – A Detroit Story –

Here’s the audiobook cover. Pretty much the same thing.

The Day Detroit Went Dark Audio Book

Sealing the deal and kicking off the audiobook production of The Day Detroit Went Dark. The audiobook will be available on audible.com, targeted for December 1st, 2013. Narrating the book is the voice talent Stephen Marsden. I’ll be posting progress reports here and what I’ve learned throughout the course of this project. It’s kind of like being a movie director (without making a movie).