With this post, I end a series of three updates about my discoveries on the path to getting my second novel, Dead Letters, published as an audiobook.
Yes, it’s finally happened: Dead Letters, narrated by the wonderful Jez Sands is available from Audible and Apple Books. Even if you’ve already read the book, I highly recommend checking it out, as Jez’s narration raises it to a whole new level. And if you’re not an Audible subscriber, if you sign up and select Dead Letters as your first download, I get a little bonus. What more motivation could you need?!
Now that I’ve got that plug out of the way, let’s get back to the story of how I got here. I left off the last blog having approved the first 15 minutes and with the ball squarely in Jez’s court to record the rest of the book. All nine hours of it. It was time for me to be patient…
We had agreed a delivery date for mid-January, and Jez delivered right on time. Then, it was up to me to review and approve the audiobook. Here’s a screenshot of the interface where I could download and listen to the different chapters.
Listening the Dead Letters was a revelation. I was hooked. It probably seems a bit odd for me to say this, given that it was me that wrote it, but I think this came down to two things:
1. The quality of the production. Jez’s reading is astounding. I picked him because he articulated the voices of the main characters well, and rarely missed a beat with the narration, but this was something else. I was blown away when we got to chapter 6 (which introduces a bunch of new characters) and chapter 10 (which breaks the fourth, fifth and sixth walls, if there are such things). As he read these, they made such sense, and I felt that the ideas I’d had for them had finally been brought to life.
I guess this must be how screenwriters feel when they see their script lifted from the page and made real. Only I didn’t have to deal with a director having changed it all in the process.
2. This was the first time I had gone through Dead Letters without an editing hat on. I could just sit back an enjoy it for what it was, without getting drawn into an editing session. As a result, I got through it in a couple of days, and spotted a couple of consistency issues, which I’ve now corrected.
I asked for a few small things to be re-recorded. Jez turned those around in under a day. Then, it was up to me to press the ‘Approve’ button and pay up, before Audible put the whole book through a quality check. They say it takes up to 10 days, but I think it took about 5. They check the cover, metadata, quality of the recording and something else I’ve forgotten.
Then, boom, it was on sale – and I’ve been running to keep up ever since!
It’s been a wonderful experience getting Dead Letters made into an audiobook. I would definitely consider it for my other books – but let’s just see how the sales go, as I can’t say it’s been an inexpensive business.
So, here are those links again, for you to support the P.J. Murphy audiobook fund:
Next stop: Yesterday’s Shadow is available now for pre-order and comes out in a few weeks. I’ll see you then!
P.J. Murphy's Writer Site 
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