The Farmers on Audibles

Since I had a good experience putting With Summer's Songs on audible with ACX, amazon's audio company, I thought I would move to The Farmers trilogy. Although my audible sales still haven't equaled my visual book sales, it does seem to be a growing market. In fact, the story a friend told me illustrates the need for such books.

It seems that an aging woman is nearly homebound from caring for her failing husband. In addition, her own eyesight has grown so poor that she can no longer see well enough to read, which she used to love. Therefore, one of her friends calls her on the telephone each evening and reads a chapter in a book to her. I know this because my books have been some of the ones they chose. This lady definitely could use some audiobooks.

However, The Farmers project started off rocky from the start. I had the first two narrators for Promise renege. The second one had already agreed to a contract and weeks had clicked by before he backed out. The third reader started off strong but then had one thing after another come up. We'd agreed on the contract in November, and he thought he'd be finished sometime in January. By April, however, he had only finished about a third of the book and hadn't done any work for months. Now, at the end of May, I'm pleased to say that he's started again, has completed five more chapters, and says he'll be through sometime next week.

In the meantime, my female narrator had started work on Peace. She told me up front that she worked slowly. Although she agreed to be finished in April and wasn't, she's made steady progress so I haven't been worried. She's already ahead of where the first narrator is, and she started three months after he did because I wanted them to be released two or three months apart. I'm not sure how the schedule is going to work out now. We'll see.

I'm becoming hopeful enough to begin looking at producing the third novel in the trilogy, Pardon. I've messaged some narrators already. One, who didn't work out, did an audition, but I haven't heard from the others yet. I am very excited about one young man. From the samples he posted, he has the potential to produce an outstanding audiobook. As Floyd often says in the trilogy, "Time will tell."

Because of all the ups and downs and delays in producing Promise and Peace, I must say my appreciation for Elisabeth Langelee, who narrated With Summer's Songs, has increased. She did a wonderful job effectively, efficiently, and with no snags. I'm hoping there's another book that her voice will fit for I would enjoy working with her again. I'd hoped that things would get easier the more familiar I became with the process, but that hasn't proven true thus far. However, I may be announcing Promise is out on audible soon.

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