We’re celebrating June Is Audiobook Month by hosting this lovely interview with the amazing Audiobookworm Jess. I’ve hosted so many audiobook tours with Jess (she runs Audiobookworm Promotion book tours) and since audio is pretty much the only way I read these days, I love that I can still do book tours and read fun new books.
June Is Audiobook Month is awesome because we know how much we love audiobooks. Have you celebrated JIAM in any particularly special way?
To be honest, every month is audiobook month for me, but I love that there’s a recognized calendar month for audiobook appreciation.
In addition to what I normally do through Audiobookworm Promotions, I also put together an annual audiobook bingo game.
How did you get introduced to audiobooks?
I mean, I think I’ve listened to books on tape as a child, especially during family road trips, but I don’t really count that. Audiobooks were just something I stumbled upon online around 2014. I’m the type of person who never lets myself get bored because I’m always trying new things. It’s like throwing slices of deli meat at a wall and trying to see what sticks. I think an Audible ad caught my attention and I’m always down for a free trial, so I browsed their selection and was shocked at its vastness.
Do you remember what your first audiobook listen was?
I think it was 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I was very fortunate to have hit a home run my first time at bat. That’s such an incredible audiobook. I still recommend it to people. I remember not knowing what to expect because I was already familiar with Stephen King as a pop culture figure, but I also knew that he wrote very scary stories, which I didn’t want anything to do with at the time (my tolerance for horror has since increased). But time travel and the thought of saving JFK was just too much for me to resist! I fell head over heels, not only with the story, but with audiobook listening. I wasn’t even reviewing at the time, so I don’t have my original thoughts pinned down anywhere. That was about 6 years ago. Come to think of it, it’s probably time for a re-listen…
Do you like a particular narration voice/tone?
It’s funny, but I’ve noticed that I tend to like higher pitch, chipper, energized voices during the day and lower toned, smoother, often male voices at night.
I’ve taken to listening to bedtime stories at night so that I don’t have to worry when I fall asleep on them. That’s what you’re supposed to do! I really love the Calm app. I know Audible has come out with some sleep stories as well, but I’ve yet to try those.
Are there any tones/narration styles that you dislike?
The only one that comes to mind is when a really breathy tone is used throughout an audiobook. It’s fine if a particular character or scene is voiced that way, but I can’t take 12 to 15 hours of it! I can think of two very popular narrators who use this as their signature vocal style and I make sure to not select titles from them. I probably don’t run into this problem as much as I could if I listen to a lot of romance, but it’s just very cringe-worthy to me.
Have you listened to a book and disliked it, but later realized it would have been a good book if you had only read it but not listened?
For sure. Not all books lend themselves to the audio format. Most do, but some still translate better than others. That’s not to say, however, that I don’t think all books should be translated into audiobooks. Every book deserves an audiobook!
But a lot of times, audiobooks are afterthoughts for authors. Something they don’t even think about until the book is well underway, if not already finished. That’s completely understandable because writing a book and getting published are hard.
Sometimes, a book is written in a manner that’s just meant to work best on paper.
Two popular examples come to mind: Rainbow Rowell’s Attachments and Taherah Mafi’s Shatter Me. Both are excellent novels, but seem (to me) to work better when visualized rather than heard. Attachments is written as a series of emails between coworkers. The novel was formatted in a very unique way to resemble email attachments. In audio, the novelty of this formatting doesn’t come across as well as it should. In Shatter Me, the protagonist constantly strikes through her words as she writes journal entries. Again, I love this idea, but the only way to convey it in audio was to use a scratching sound effect to mimic the protagonist’s writing utensil striking through a word. It took me a good portion of the novel to understand what was happening there.
Flipping that, have you enjoyed an audio narration way more than when you tried reading that book?
That’s tough to answer accurately, because I haven’t read a physical book in about 6 or 7 years. Ever since I discovered my love of audiobook listening, I really haven’t picked up an actual book.
However, I do enjoy revisiting stories I read several years ago, now in audio form. For example, I heard The Hunger Games last year after having read it around 2012. It was the same story, but a very different experience.
Do you prefer audiobooks to print or ebook or are you more split in your reading?
I’m 100% audio, at this point. It’s really the only way I can fit any sort of reading into my schedule.
Who’s your absolute favorite narrator?
That’s really tough, because I have several favorites. I guess the first one that comes to mind is Will Patton. He’s just got this buttery vocal tone, with a very soft southern accent. For anyone unfamiliar with him, he’s the football coach in Remember the Titans. The one who isn’t Denzel Washington. I’ve only heard a handful of audiobooks from him, because he doesn’t have a lot in his library, but everything I’ve heard him do has just been knocked out of the park. His voice and accent are reminiscent of Matthew McConaughey. He read The Raven Cycle series from Maggie Stiefvater and he’s a huge part of the reason I love it so much.
Another favorite is Katherine Kellgren. I get sort of sad thinking about this because she is no longer with us. But, my goodness, she was an extraordinary talent! Luckily, her library is much larger and I will still listen to anything I can get my hands on by her.
There are so many more, but I always come back to Patton and Kellgren, because they were the first narrators who ever really stood out to me (my first narrator crushes, if you will).
How did you get started with Audiobookworm Promotions?
Long before I ever started my own tour company, I was just an audiobook blogger looking to participate in virtual book tours with some of the larger tour companies out there. I had seen some of my fellow book blogging friends hosting tours and thought they looked like fun! The only caveat was that I wasn’t just a regular book blogger, but an audiobook blogger and there weren’t a lot of tour hosting opportunities for me. I was told by several book tour companies that I would probably only be able to participate in a couple of audiobook tours a year, because that’s all they ran. That’s when I decided it was time to draw more attention to audiobooks and the bloggers who love them.
I explicitly cater to the audiobook community, of which I am proud to be a part. I believe that, with a little creativity, audiobooks can be marketed just as effectively as traditional books.
Audiobookworm Promotions seemed like a natural progression from The Audiobookworm. I offer blog tours, review solicitation services, as well as a number of other brand management and marketing services.
I organize virtual tours for all genres and I’m always looking for tour hosts. Anyone interested can sign up here! There are also a number of audiobooks available for “adoption” in the Adopt-An-Audiobook.
If a blogger wants to host a tour spot with you, how do they start?
The surest way to get hooked up is to email me. I can always point you in the right direction. But if you’d like to read a little more about the process, I think I’ve written a pretty thorough ‘Hosting 101’ page on my website here.
If an author wants to sponsor a book tour, what do they need to know?
Authors, narrators, Publishers, or publicists can book tours here. There’s a ton of information to read there and a tour request form at the bottom of that page. Still, if you need a little more guidance, feel free to reach out to me.
Plugging you into the audio community since 2016.
Sign up as a tour host here.
