Nancy Lee Badger’s 1st Audio Book and Giveaway

My_Honorable_HighlanderWhen I discovered how enjoyable it is to listen to audio books on my smart phone, I decided to see what the process required. Creating an audio book is not as easy as sitting in a quiet room and reading into a microphone. I contacted ACX.com, which is owned by Amazon and known as Audible.com to the general public. I decided on my bestselling book according to their guidelines. My Honorable Highlander is the first of my six Scottish time travel novels.

I posted a short excerpt, a description of what type of narrated voices I needed, and waited. Several people auditioned for me, meaning that they read the excerpt and posted it to my ACX account. After I chose one woman, I sent her the pdf of my manuscript along with a suggestion of what my characters looked like and sounded like. Example:

Kirkwall Gunn, our Hero
Scottish accent (deep and regal): 30 yr. old, dark auburn hair, blue eyes, 6ft. 4”, square chin, tanned, reddish chest hair, scar running from left lip up cheek. Laird of his small clan from Keldurunach (Kell-dure-ann-atch) near the Sutherland border.

Haven MacKay, our heroine
Modern-day American from New England: 25 yr. old, black hair w/wispy curls, pale green eyes, 5ft. 5”, born in Lincoln, NH. A friend of Jake’s. She has a small apt. and worked part-time at aunt’s herbal store & part-time at newspaper, photographic memory, named for ‘nymphs of the ash tree’.

Cameron Robeson
Scottish accent (comical, a jokester): 30 yr. old, wavy blond hair & golden eyebrows, amber eyes, weathered skin around mouth, 6’5”, tan. Kirk’s cousin, Nordic ancestry (think Vikings). Thinks of Haven as a raven-haired Goddess; has a feral glint; meaty fists, lusts after Haven.

The narrator was to start recording chapters, return them to me, and I would listen to them as I read along with my book. ACX gave her two months to complete the 10+ hour project. She asked for a two month extension, and then another without giving me one measly chapter. I fired her, and went back to asking for auditions. The second narrator I chose, Tracy Marks, was professional, competent, and came in under the two month requirement.

The Book Blurb: Bumbling present day herbalist, Haven MacKay, gets more than she bargains for when her love spell goes awry, is cast back in time, and meets her true love — Laird Kirkwall Gunn. Kirk’s plans go slightly off course when he falls in love with a woman wandering through the Scottish Highlands. After all, he has pledged to marry another, from an enemy clan, in order to end a century-old feud.

Buy Links: Audible Audio Book Amazon Audio Book iTunes Audio Book

To Celebrate Nancy’s 1st Audio Book Release
Three People will WIN a Free Download Code!
*Contest Ends July 13th

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