This is my stop during the book blitz for the audiobook for Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy by Paula Berinstein. The audiobook is narrated by Allan Corduner. Allan Corduner has narrated multiple books, one of them being The Book Thief and he does the voice of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter videogames.
This book blitz is organized by Lola's Blog Tours. The book blitz runs from 24 till 30 October. Every day there will be a different guest post in which Paula talks about the process of making the audiobook. You can view the blitz schedule here.
Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy (Amanda Lester, Detective #1)Written by Paula Berinstein
Narrated by Allan Corduner
Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
Genre: Mystery/ Detective
Age category: Middle Grade
Release Date Audiobook: September 27, 2016
Blurb:
A reluctant detective, a criminal mastermind, and sugar?
Amanda Lester wouldn't be caught dead going into the family business. Her ancestor, Sherlock Holmes's colleague Inspector G. Lestrade, is a twit. Nevertheless her parents refuse to see his flaws, and she's going to a secret English school for the descendants of famous detectives whether she likes it or not.
When Amanda arrives at the dreaded school, she considers running away - until she and her new friends discover blood and weird pink substances in odd places. At first they're not sure whether these oddities mean anything, but when Amanda's father disappears and the cook is found dead with her head in a bag of sugar, they're certain that crimes are taking place.
Now Amanda must embrace her destiny and uncover the truth. The only snag is that arch-villain Blixus Moriarty, a descendant of Holmes's nemesis Professor James Moriarty, might be involved, and he doesn't like nosy little girls interfering in his business.
So You Want to Make an Audiobook, Post 5: The Work
The Amanda Lester, Detective Odyssey with Paula Berinstein
At last it’s time to discuss the audiobook itself. I’ll bet you thought I’d never get there.
The first thing I did after making the decision was send an electronic copy of the book to Strathmore and a printed copy to Allan, who already had a PDF. I sent the printed copy Global Mail Express Guaranteed, which is really expensive. Ha! The package didn’t arrive as scheduled and we spent two frantic days trying to track it down. Finally, the excellent Chris Beer, production manager at Strathmore, printed a copy and couriered it to Allan’s house. The package did arrive a while later—don’t ask—and I applied for a refund from the post office. After all, guaranteed is guaranteed. (I actually got the refund pretty quickly, which made for a nice surprise.)
Anyhoo, Allan proceeded to mark up his copy and we scheduled recording to start about a week later. Chris warned me that they would want pronunciations for various words, and we briefly discussed whether Lestrade should be pronounced Lestrayde or Lestrahde. And the week went by.
Early on the morning of the second recording day I heard from Chris. He had made a list of words selected by Tamsin Collison, the producer, and Allan. How should Allan pronounce them? Oh well, this should be easy, I thought. I’ll just make a quick sound recording and shoot it back to them. How naïve I was.
All my recording infrastructure was long gone (goodbye Writing Show), I couldn’t figure out how to record on my stupid phone (thank you so much, Apple), and my husband was out of town so I didn’t have access to his copy of Cakewalk Sonar. I thought maybe there was a way to record an audio email but couldn’t find anything. So I downloaded Audacity, which is free, and hoped I would be able to figure out how to use it in the next five minutes.
Despite the fact that I’ve produced more than 300 podcasts I was rusty and could barely remember anything of what I used to do. Audacity was similar to Sonar, though, and I got the hang of it quickly. I didn’t have my good mic but I couldn’t worry about that. Somehow I managed to stammer out and record the terms, save the file, and attach it to an email. Phew.
Chris thanked me for the pronunciations but had questions. It seemed that English people would say this or that differently and oh, by the way, Allan thought something else would work better. In addition they’d found a couple of places that didn’t read well aloud, and BTW, what did I mean on page so and so and could they change it to read thus and so? I dutifully looked everything up, decided what they wanted to do was brilliant, and shot off another email.
By the time the recording was finished a few days later, Editta Sweetgum had become Scottish (she’s actually from Brixworth, which is in Northamptonshire), Professor Stegelmeyer was German, Amphora Kapoor had an Indian accent, and the pronunciation of Lestrade varied according to the speaker, all of which works so beautifully you will die when you hear it. I was thrilled and I think you will be too.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you what happened in post-production.
You can find Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy on Goodreads
You can buy the audiobook of Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy here:
- Audible
- Amazon
- iTunes
Listen to a sample of the audiobook here on Soundcloud
Get the e-copy for free!
The e-copy of Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy is free now on all vendor sites! Grab your free copy here:
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
- Kobo
- Smashwords
About the Author:Paula Berinstein is nothing like Amanda. For one thing, she’s crazy about Sherlock Holmes. For another, she’s never wanted to be a filmmaker. In addition, compared to Amanda she’s a big chicken! And she wouldn’t mind going to a secret school at all. In fact, she’s hoping that some day she’ll get to build one.
You can find and contact Paula here:
- Website
- Goodreads
- Paula's blog on Goodreads
- The Writing Show podcasts
- Newsletter
Giveaway
There is a tour wide giveaway for the book blitz for Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy. These are the prizes you can win:
- 2 audiobook copies of Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy
- 2 amazon gift cards of 15$
For a chance to win, enter the rafflecopter below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you so much for being part of my blitz, Esperanza!!!
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