I’m thinking about doing audiobook versions of my indie novels. I’ve been told I have a decent voice (though I don’t personally believe it!) and I’m pretty good at dramatizing fiction readings. However, my novels’ main character is male, and I’m female.
If you were listening to such a book, would you have a problem with it? Would it kick you out of the book? It’s not told in first person (I think in that case it would pretty much need to have a male narrator), so I’m hoping I can get away with it.
The alternative would be to have my spouse read it. He’s got a beautiful voice and he’s good at narration, but he’s having a lot of trouble getting my MC’s British accent right, and that part is super important to me. If I can get that dialed in without driving him insane with my nitpickiness, we could try that. But I admit that I would rather read them myself, since I’m intimately familiar with them and how I want them to sound, and I can blather on in my MC’s persona all day long.
So, what say you? Female narrator/male MC a dealbreaker for you?
I have frequent long drives, and listen to audio books to pass the time. In the past 5 years I’ve probably listened to over 50. Authors reading their own books is usually a bad idea. It has been fine for non-fiction works, but the few I’ve listened to that are fiction have been terrible. Now I won’t check a fiction audiobook out of the library (my audiobook source) if it is read by its author.
In general, men do women’s voices better than women do men, probably because it’s easier for folks of any gender to do higher/breathier than lower/gravelly.
By far the most enjoyable listening experiences are when the reader is a good enough actor to make the dialogue sound like it’s actually being said like in a play or movie and they can make their voices different for all the different characters so that you can listen to the line and know exactly who said it. Examples of excellent books on tape to illustrate these points are:
The Terry Prachett books, Going Postal was the first I listened to and have sought them all out ever since
Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norvelle
Example of a terribly read-by-author book:
One of Rita Mae Brown’s fox hunt books, I can’t remember the name and she has several of them. It probably was Outfoxed
Example of a decent read-by-author books (Although neither are strictly fiction):
Carsick by John Watters. Of course, he’s spend some time as an author and is very dramatic
The David Sedaris books
I’d suggest recording a chapter or two and asking someone who is happy to insult you listen to them and give their honest opinion.
I’m not vain about my voice–in fact, to the contrary, I think I sound awful. But people have told me I don’t (and not people who have any stake in making me feel good, either).
My main issue is that I really want the MC’s accent to sound the way I envision it. I absolutely need the narrator to be able to get that right. Everything else is negotiable.
I recently listened to one book that had a female narrator say the female characters’ lines and a male character do all the others. You might consider doing that.
That wouldn’t work, though, since my MC is male. If I can work with my spouse and get the accent right, I’d just have him do the whole thing (which is my preference…but only if he can get the accent right). There actually aren’t that many female characters in my book, so it wouldn’t make sense for me to only do those.
In this book you listened to, who did the the story (non-dialog) narration–the male or the female narrator?
I don’t think it matters, so long as the narrator is good at the job.
You might want to listen to a few things you can download for free from LibriVox. These are audiobooks of books in the public domain and read by amateurs who do have good voices. The price is perfect and there do have a lot of stuff you can’t find elsewhere, but I rarely listen. The difference between a dedicated amateur and a professional is night and day.
As someone who spent too much time doing community theatre, I like to think I know about these things.
