Welcome to episode six of the The Rebel Author Podcast where I’m talking to Renee Conoulty all about how indie authors can DIY an audiobook.
In the Introduction
This week I was delighted to be on the Alliance of Independent Authors fiction and nonfiction podcast with Orna Ross. We were talking about all things marketing. Specifically answering the question Who is Your Reader and Why Should You Care? If you’d like to catch the episode you can right here.
I’m even more delighted to announce that I’ll be a regular guest on their podcast going forward. Every second Monday of the month, I’ll be hosting the fiction and nonfiction podcast episode with Adam Croft. We’ll tackle all kinds of writing, marketing and publishing questions. So subscribe on your podcatchers so you don’t miss out.
I also have a book recommendation for you this week: Dear Writer, You Should Quit by Becca Syme grab a copy from Amazon UK, Amazon USA
Listener Rebel of the Week is Renee Gallant
@thewriterenee on twitter or @thewriterrenee on instagram
If you’d like to be a listener rebel, then email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or tweet me @rebelauthorpod
If you’d like to get early access to every episode you can by clicking the image below.
Today our lovely guest is hosting a giveaway to win 1x ebook and 1x audiobook copy of Narrated by the Author.
How to DIY an Audiobook with Renee Conoulty
How Indie Authors Can DIY Audiobooks with @HeySaidRenee #selfpublishing #IARTG #ASMRG #amwriting #writingcommunity #writetip Share on XFind out more about Renee on her Website, Facebook, Instagram, Podcast, Author Services.
Grab a copy of Renee’s book Narrated by the Author here.
If you’re interested in Renee’s course on audiobook creation, you can find that here.
Last, we talked about a narration resources page which you can find right here.
How to DIY an Audiobook Transcript
Sacha Black
Hello and welcome back to the rebel author podcast. Today I am with Renee Conoulty. Renee is an Australian Air Force wife and mother of two. She writes stories of dance, romance and military life including heart swings, catching onyx and swinging through life. If you run into Renee at the shops, make sure you wave to get her attention, because she’ll likely be listening to an audiobook or lost in a daydream. Renee Welcome.
Renee Conoulty
Hello, Good morning or good evening. I’m not sure where we are today. We’re all over the world.
Sacha Black
We are I love it. I love that technology can connect us from quite literally thousands of miles away you are in the future. Tell me what happens in the future?
Renee Conoulty
The sun comes up. That’s about as far as I’ve got coffee still works. And that’s about where I ‘m at so far today.
Sacha Black
That is the two most important things the sun rose and there is still coffee in the world. We’re all good. So you thank you very much for getting up super early for me it is very late here. But, you know, hey, we’ve made it. And that’s the important thing. So tell me a little bit about your author journey and how you got to where you are.
Renee Conoulty
Well, unlike most people I hear who have always wanted to be to be authors. That was never something on my radar, I’d never dreamt of being an author. I was always an avid reader. And I’d put authors up on this godlike pedestal that they were up there and amazing creative beings. And that wasn’t me, and that could never be me. But it sort of all happened by accident. One thing led to another which led to another. I see it really triggered off when my husband joined the military. And we had to move from the town we’re living in across the country up to Darwin, which is right up the north of Australia, and I’d never been there before. I didn’t know anything about military life. So the avid fiction reader that I was I went looking for books and stories set in Darwin or stories with Australian military life. And I couldn’t find any. So it was after we moved up to Darwin. And I’d been reading more I’ve joined an online book club to try to make friends and then got into book blogging so that I could get more books, because there’s never enough books. And through those connections, I actually met some authors and discovered that they’re actually people.
Sacha Black
Well I mean that is a bit of a stretch.
Renee Conoulty
It took me by surprise for a while it took a little bit of getting used to that they were normal people like me, I was a person too, and maybe it wasn’t out of the realms to be able to write a book. So with a bit of prodding from a few online author, friends and other bloggers, I signed up for camp NaNoWriMo, which is like NaNoWriMo in November which is the month people try to write 50,000 words in a month, which I found way too overwhelming. So camp NaNo, you’re allowed to change the rules, make them yourself.
Sacha Black
You already sound like a rebel!
Renee Conoulty
I’d just change the rules and do it my way. So I set a 20,000 word goal and hit it. And then I figured, okay, took it going, and I haven’t looked back.
Sacha Black
When was the first NaNo that you did?
Renee Conoulty
The first nano I did was in 2015. So it took me probably about a year to get through the first draft of the first book, because I got that 20,000 words. And then I thought, okay, I better take this seriously and go and actually read some writing craft books because I have no idea what I’m doing. So we did a bit of research and did some online courses and kept writing and came back and kept writing and got to a point where I needed to know my character’s backstory. So I just wrote it, and then copied and pasted it out of the novel because it didn’t need to be in there and turn that into a short story. So that’s Now the prequel to the novel that I first wrote, which is actually currently in limbo, because I’m in the process of having my rights returned from the publisher that I worked with.
Sacha Black
Ahh, so you’re traditionally published?
Renee Conoulty
I’m a bit of everything published. I’ve worked with three small traditional publishers, so three small publishers, all over Australia and the US. And it was earlier this year, I just decided I’d rather do it all myself, I really like
Sacha Black
Yeah, come to the dark side.
Renee Conoulty
I’ve self-published a few other books and it’s like, I want them all back, give me all my books. So I just emailed everyone and asked really nicely, can I please have my rights back to everything? And everyone’s said sure. And so it’s just taken a bit of time to go through the process.
Sacha Black
Gosh, you’re so lucky.
Renee Conoulty
Once they’re back I’m going to be launched them all.
Sacha Black
That’s fantastic. You are very, very lucky that they’ve they all said yes, that is fantastic. So how many books are you getting back.
Renee Conoulty
I’ve got a children’s book back, which I just launched a couple of weeks ago, relaunched a couple of weeks ago from a small publisher in Queensland, and then I’ve got a novellette back from a publisher in Perth, that’s they’re still selling it as part of their anthology. So I said they can still have the rights to include it there. But I’d like the rights to sell it as an individual. And ebook, paperback and audio, of course, we have to do everything. And the other one is a novel and then there’s some associated short stories with that. And then I’m writing a couple more novels because that’s a whole series.
Sacha Black
Amazing.
Renee Conoulty
The series is in limbo at the moment and I’ve got sort of a few other short stories and children’s books that nonfiction books out there.
Sacha Black
And the nonfiction or at least one of the nonfiction books is the reason that we are here today. So we are here to talk about creating audiobooks and specifically empowering indies to create their own audiobook. So tell me, tell me how that came about how you decided to record your own audio book.
Renee Conoulty
I listen to audio books more than read with my eyes these days. I’ve always loved audio when I got my first book published. Most people are sort of dying to see their book sitting on a bookshelf somewhere on a in a shop. I wanted an audiobook. That was my goal. That’s what I wanted. That’s why I chased up a publisher in the US because I couldn’t access ACX. And I wanted an audiobook. But with the initial cost of the audio book, The novel wasn’t selling enough to rationalize spending that on the audio at that point. So the audio just kept getting pushed back and not happening. So I thought, well, I just want an audio book. That’s all I want. That’s my goal. Damn it, I’ll do it myself.
Sacha Black
I love it.
Renee Conoulty
I thought about it sort of tossed around the idea for a little while and thought no, I can’t do that I’m not a voice actor I don’t know what I’m doing. And I’m did all that sort of doubtful self talk that we all do. But I looked at a few things online I read a couple of books. And then of course, my laptop died, which was a very sad day and I had to go into the shop to buy a new laptop. So while I was in JB Hifi I kind of wanted ran to the other end of the store. Just have a little look at the microphones.
Sacha Black
Fatal and absolutely fatal
Renee Conoulty
I walked out of there with a laptop. Yeah. So it’s like, well, I’ve spent the money now I better turn it back and go make some audio books. That’s how it all started.
Sacha Black
Amazing. And so did you was your first one fiction or nonfiction.
Renee Conoulty
I started with fiction. I started with one of my flash fiction collections and short stories that are published because as a beginner narrator, I didn’t want to jump into a full length novel. I didn’t actually have the rights to do the audio on my full length novel anyhow. So I started with catching onyx, which is a 3000 word short story. That’s my permafree short story up everywhere as an E book, just sort of, to get my name out there, that sort of thing. So I did the audio for that one. And then I’ve got two flash fiction collections. They’ve got about 10 or 12 stories each in them. So then I’ll work through those, and then work through the children’s books and then work through the nonfiction sort of went all the way through that the nonfiction happened because I did those first, probably three books. And I had people online like other author friends saying, how did you do that? And after the 10th person said, How did you do that? And I tried to explain things in Facebook comments. I thought, look, I’m just gonna write a blog. Send people a link and then I don’t have to repeat myself. So I sat down, open the laptop thought I’ll just do it in a Word doc, and then I can format it and copy and paste it in later, I’m four hours later, I was still writing. I did about 6000 words and decided, I don’t think it’s a blog post anymore. And I still had more to say. So I wouldn’t had a break myself a cuppa and come back and kept going. And over the next sort of… I had to take a break, and go and be responsible for children and things. So I got back to it the next day. And I finished off and I ended up with just over 10,000 words, which was a brief sort of breakdown of this, you do this, and this is why I did it. And this is like all the different steps and here’s all the technical stuff. And this is what it means. And I sort of kept breaking it down because I go, Well, I know what that means, but nobody else would. So I’d have to go and add a bit more detail about this and to explain concepts. And I went okay, well now it’s a book and I go, and I suppose I better narrate it.
Sacha Black
Yeah that would be ironic.
Renee Conoulty
Well it was amazing. I’d gone looking for so many books on how to narrate audio books and do audio and I couldn’t find them in audio. They’re all in ebooks. I thought well if I’m going to make a book about audiobooks, I’m going to make it in audio.
Sacha Black
And so for listeners I have both listened to the audiobook and then loved it so much I immediately brought the paperback as well because I you know, I like to hand write notes in my nonfiction books where I’ve learned loads of things. I have to say I think it is one of… I would say my top one of my top two books for writers that I have read this year. It is absolutely fantastic because it is so instructional and it literally takes an author from you’ve got an idea you want to put your book into audio to completed published audio book. I just, I’ve never seen anything like it. That’s why I was so desperate to speak to you because like you say, there are no instructional books out there. There are you know, like I listened to one on how to have startup podcast, I think it’s called So You Want to Start a Podcast. It was great. And it was but you know, it was very blue sky and strategic and not very tactical. And everybody’s afraid to do these tactical books. So I just I loved it. And I really urge anybody who’s even considering doing an audiobook to go and buy it. So. So, tell me, how difficult is it really to record an audio book?
Renee Conoulty
I don’t think it’s difficult. It’s time consuming. But if you can write a novel, if you can sit there and figure out how to edit a novel, if you can do all your basic things and use a laptop computer, you can do it. You can narrate it if you can talk and people could understand what you say. You can make an audio book, it’s just there is a learning curve. You do need to spend some time practicing because it does take some time. And you get better as you go on if you listen to my first audiobook compared to my latest one you probably hear a difference. So I missed the first podcast to the latest podcast. There’s always a difference you get better as you practice.
Sacha Black
Exactly. Yeah.
Renee Conoulty
With your ability to do a podcast there’s you could absolutely do it audio book.
Sacha Black
Yeah. Well so the funny thing is I did record and I got all the way I think I had one more recording session on my first nonfiction book. And unfortunately, the person that I was working with had their equipment stolen, and so I lost everything, which is very unfortunate and made me very sad. But it sort of made me even more determined to do it myself and myself only. Because then I it’s just augmenting my control freak nature. If we’re being honest that’s really what it’s about.
Renee Conoulty
I self-teach everything. It’s like, well, I want to know how to do that. So most people would outsource it. I’m like, well, I’ll just do it myself.
Sacha Black
Yeah, yeah,
Renee Conoulty
I’m at the point where I have more time than money. If it gets to the point where I have more money than time, then I’ll possibly outsource more things as long as people do them the way I want them to do them.
Sacha Black
The very second and nanosecond of silence Yeah. So okay, so you have said that it’s time consuming. How long does it really take?
Renee Conoulty
When when you talk about audio books, people talk per finished hour. So that means when you’re listening to an audio book, it might be say five hours long. So that’s, that’s the finished hours, the amount of time that goes into making that five hours of audio is definitely more than five hours. So if you’re looking at one finished hour of audio, that’s usually around nine to 10,000 words of text to get the hour, so You would spend probably two hours recording that because you’ll say everything, you’ll make a mistake, you’ll take a break, you’ll go and you’ll repeat yourself, you’ll have interruptions, the dog will bark, at the postman. Guaranteed something is going to happen like that. Or the other day the dog would bark at the neighbor’s cat, you’ll open the front door to chase the neighbor’s cat away, the dog will decide to attempt to chase the neighbor’s cat as well. But since the screen door was shut, we’ll go the other direction and try to go through the front window. And then you’ll have to pack your audio equipment up and get the Glazier around to replace your front window.
Sacha Black
Oh my Goodness me. And that’s obviously just completely made up on the spot.
Renee Conoulty
Oh, no. Yeah, that’s imaginary. That’s not on my front window that I forgot to take off. But yeah, things happen. So you have to allow for that. But usually you look at say about two hours in the recording. And then when you go back to edit that you’ll have at least the two hours because you have to actually play back everything you recorded. Plus you’ll have another hour or two where you’re cutting and deleting sections out, and then re listening to make sure it flows through those sorts of things. So that the most time consuming part is the editing. The most people are scared of is the mastering. And that’s where you get all the sound levels, right. That is definitely the most technical part. But it’s the quickest. That really comes down to a couple of clicks. And it’s done in a couple of minutes. If you know what you’re doing.
Sacha Black
Yeah, that’s definitely definitely true of me as well. So, I having just done a few podcasts already. I have to clip audio. And I suppose I am a little bit scared because I know that when I was recording the audio book the first time I had to speak a lot slower because naturally I speak quite fast. But the thing that scares me is you know, when you do make a mistake and and it’s not the clipping the technical clipping, it’s making sure that the words and sentences still sound like they’re flowing and like there wasn’t a mistake that you’ve just cut out there. But I suppose that’s just about being slow enough that you leave enough space between your words instead of rabbiting on like I normally do.
Renee Conoulty
totally relate to that one.
Sacha Black
Yeah just shut up sacha.
Renee Conoulty
If you do make a mistake, go back and repeat the whole sentence.
Sacha Black
Yeah, yeah,
Renee Conoulty
Don’t try to sort of pick up halfway through a sentence because you will find the words will flow together. And then as you’ve seen when you’ve done the editing, you’ve got the sound waves. And they will blend together if you’re speaking your words together. So it’s much easier to cut a section if you pause at the end of the sentence where you’ve got your full stop. Yeah, yeah, actually take a break. So go back if you if you notice you’ve made a mistake. Go back and repeat the whole sentence. And then it’s much easier to clip out the one you don’t want.
Sacha Black
Yeah, and the interesting thing is, as well, after staring at audio for long enough, you can actually recognize sounds in waves. So I know when I’ve taken a breath in when I’m looking at the podcast audio, I know when I’ve taken a breath because I can see it and it’s, it’s almost like I breathe exactly the same every time, which I probably do. But it’s sounds ridiculous. Because I’m like, what surely sometimes I take a big breath or whatver. But yeah the sound waves, are the same.
Renee Conoulty
I can recognize the P sound. Interesting. Yeah, because if it gets a bit too plosive, if you’ve blown into the microphone too much, it gets really big. And what you can do with that as you highlight that little P section and then you can amplify it with a negative number. So the amplifier still there. You can just make it a bit quieter if it’s if it’s popping in your ears too much. There’s little tricks and things like that. I don’t think I’ve actually put that one in the book because I’ve come up with that little tip since I wrote the book. Writing nonfiction books, something always changes after you publish it.
Sacha Black
Oh I know.
Renee Conoulty
But I do have a link to a resources page at the end of the book which I can pass on to you and you can pop that in the show notes if people want to have a look straight through to their and any little extra bits that I come up with. I pop it into that website.
Sacha Black
Perfect. I will put that in the show notes. I suspect people will probably have just heard pen scribbling because I was definitely writing that down. Now one of my favorite tips, or actually I preferred it in the audio for obvious reasons was… what do you do when you make a mistake, please do demonstrate.
Renee Conoulty
Well, I play back everything. So when I’m listening for flow and things like that. So I hear all my mistakes. But a lot of people, if especially if you’re doing a big lot of a audiobook will make a sound or something to show where the mistake is so that you don’t have to play back the entire thing, you can just sort of skip through to the spots where the mistakes are. So you could make a click noise and that will give you a straight up spike, or you can go make a loud noise. It doesn’t a high spike, you can click with your tongue. I started doing that and then I sort of ended up blowing raspberries *raspberries sound blown*
Sacha Black
*giggle*
Renee Conoulty
And that’s also a sound that you can identify as you’re scrolling through. And I do find when I’m listening I often have to edit out swear words and hysterical laughter because I’ve repeated the same sentence about four times and I still haven’t said it correctly.
Sacha Black
Yes, I’m laughing because I recall when I was recording it the first time and having to re-say certain things about 100 times. However, I know that Joanna Penn when she is recording her audiobooks will go back and edit ebooks and paperbacks in order to make them.
Renee Conoulty
I’ve done that too. Yes,
Sacha Black
yeah, yeah. And I think I might end up having to do that as well. I recalled one particularly tricky sentence that I was like I can fucking change it, you know. And that is the wonderful thing about being an indie author, you can. Okay, so this will, I guess, probably only be correct at the time of recording. But what basic kit and equipment will an author need to record an audio book?
Renee Conoulty
A laptop, which most of us would have if we’re in an indie author. The thing that I had to spend money on was the microphone. So you do need a good microphone. You do need an appropriate type of microphone. I go into bit more detail in the book about that. The microphone I ended up buying is called a road NT USB microphone. It costs me about $150 Australian dollars from the shop in town. Other microphones people talk about or a Blue Yeti. What microphone do you use?
Sacha Black
And I was just looking I had a feeling you’d ask me that. I have the AT 2020, which I know is another common one that lots of people use.
Renee Conoulty
Yeah, that’s another one. I think I’ve linked on the resource page. So all those microphones, the thing they have in common is that I don’t pick up sound from everywhere you’ve got. Some microphones are designed to being on stage and picking up singers in a band and they and they’re going to pick up all the sound. You don’t want a microphone that picks up all the sounds you don’t want, like a lapel mic that’s going to pick up too much stuff. You need a microphone that you can put in front of your face and it picks up the sounds from you and your phone dinging in the background if you leave it on like I just did. So it’s it’s more directional, it will get this down from you or the other style I talk about his cardoid. Which is a weird name that made me think it was some horrible technical thing. All cardio it means is that it’s the sound pattern that it picks up, which is scoops around in front of you and it doesn’t pick up the sound from beside. So that’s just some things after reading lots of audio blogs and watching YouTube videos and I understood what we’re talking about. And that’s what I’ve got. That’s what you’ve got. That’s what most people who are podcasting would have a microphone like that. Anyhow, if you’re going to look at doing dictation, a lot of people are doing that as they’re writing as a different style of writing. It’s the same kind of microphone that would make that really useful too. So investing in a microphone can be useful for other things apart from audiobook narration.
Sacha Black
And so I’m guessing well, software, but you can get free software, can’t you? I know I use free software.
Renee Conoulty
I’m using audacity, yeah, right? That’s open source software. So there’s a lot of information and help on how to use that and little plugins to download that you can add in there that give you extra technical things you can do. So I’ve got a plugin I use, that’s called ACX check. And it’s designed that you click that button and it checks your audio to see if you’re within the ranges that ACX requires. Just for handy.
Sacha Black
Yes, I’ve also written that down.
Renee Conoulty
A look in the book, I’ve actually linked to the page that you can download that in the resources section. So okay, I’ll make sure it’s in the resource on the resources page when I send you the link.
Sacha Black
Amazing. Now that so there’s only there’s two other things that one segues but the other thing that I use for podcasting is an arm and it would depend entirely on where people are going to record but I have my mic attached to my desk because the amount of conference calls and podcast interviews I do I do not want to be packing my microphone away. So I have Yeah, I think they’re called a mic arm or mic swing arm is or something like that. Yeah. So if you if you are intending on recording a lot of audiobooks and or even going into podcasting, then I would also recommend one of those. Now the only other thing segues into the next question, which is blankets and or anything to muffle the sound So, yes, the thing this is the only other thing that terrifies me is getting the setup of the room correct. Now… How? Because I know that lots of people…
Renee Conoulty
Everybody talks about the wardrobe.
Sacha Black
Yeah.
Renee Conoulty
The wardrobe issue I had when I started I was living in a in a another house, a defense house on the other side of town. And I had this lovely walk through wardrobe and you’d have the hanging clothes on both sides. You’d have a door on either side you went through to the bathroom, so I shut the door. I got a couple of broomsticks and put them across the little shelves at the back and hung blankets down I had this great little room for recording. And then we bought a house on the other side of town that didn’t have that. So I was a bit stuck. I’m like, right what do I do now? So I ended up in the master bedroom I had the the wardrobe doors open beside the bed and I dragged in a clothes rack and I hung some blankets over that and I grabbed a pile of pillows and stick them up on the bed and I totally built a pillow fort and climbed inside that I did discover though that it’s not a good idea to use beanbags as the base for the pillows on the bed because things tend to tumble over and squish you. So use sturdy pillows as a base to build a pillow forward. Since then my husband’s a carpenter. So I sent him to work and he said, what do you want for your birthday? I said, I want a recording booth, can you please build me one. But because as a military spouse, we, our family moves around every three years or so we’re due to move after Christmas this year. So I couldn’t build anything permanent. I need to have something that I could pack up and put away especially because we’re in a small house. So I designed something and got hobby to build it. So it’s basically it looks like a room divider, if you can imagine like two pit panels hinge together and it sort of fold them out. That makes the corner and I’ve gotten two sets of those so I can just fold them out and put them together to make a big square. And then I can just fold them up, put them up against the wall. They’ve got packing blankets stapled to them. They’re timber frames with just moving blankets stapled to them for now. When I have some more money and can afford some acoustic blankets because they’re a little more expensive. I’ll upgrade my blankets. So for now, yeah, I’ve built a little movable room.
Sacha Black
So does somebody have to have a small compact space or could they for example use their office and if they, if they have an office how… do they need to staple blankets to the walls or? I have a bookcse behind me should I drape blankets over that? I mean, like how how blanket do we need to go here?
Renee Conoulty
Well, what the blankets do what the idea of all these things is to cut down the echo and cut down the external sound. I did try with my little folding things that my husband made me I did try setting them up in the little shed in the back garden or we’ve got a little garden office shed we’ve renovated and put insulation in the walls and everything. But it’s still a tin shed and every time a bird flew past I could hear the birds wings flapping little line the squawks it was making. It wasn’t going to cut that sound out. Whereas being inside the brick house with the big roof that cuts a lot of that external sound out. So you want to be able to cut some of the like the road noise from traffic outside and cut some of that external noise so you need to be inside of a room. You can’t do recording outside and all the blankets and things we use all those to cut the echo because sound works in in sound waves and as you speak, the sound goes out in front of you and it bounces off any hard surfaces and comes back and that’s how you get an echo in the microphone. So you want to cut that echo. You can hear it yourself. If you go and stand in your bathroom and you talk you can hear the echo come back off the tiles. You can hear the sound is different compared to if you go into probably your bedroom and you speak you might still have lots of exposed walls but a lot of that sound gets soaked up by all the soft things like the mattress and the pillows and the clothes. So what you need is something in that room, you can use a larger room but you need something in that room that’s going to absorb the excess sound waves and not bounce them back. If you’re recording in your office if you just need lots of soft things in there, so particularly in front of your face, like behind your microphone, you want something so things are going to bounce off that wall. So even if you popping up some pillows or some foam or blankets or whatever you’ve got, it’s not like softer, thicker things are going to soak up more sound than just a thin blanket. So even just throwing a few cushions on the floor in the other side of the room is going to help soak some things up. But it’s mostly the sound from in front of you in the sound from behind you that you want to stop
Sacha Black
So also then I’m guessing you shouldn’t have your laptop in front of you.
Renee Conoulty
I don’t have my laptop in front of me because my laptop has a little fan inside. That goes to BUZZZZZ. And the microphone will pick that up. So I’m actually sit my microphone on the table I’ve got like a three meter cable that comes with my microphone. So I set myself up a bit further away. So I get to edit out all the little running backwards and forwards from the microphone to the laptops as I’m pausing. But plenty of people do you have the microphone in there if you’ve got you have the laptop in with you, I know Joanna Penn has it in with her in her little area, because if you’ve got the mic set up in the right direction, you’re not going to hear the fan too much. I just get paranoid about things like that.
Sacha Black
Okay,
Renee Conoulty
But another thing you can do is buy them online or you can create something that’s just more like a like just a small, foam lined cardboard box I’ve seen people do to sit up behind the microphone so that as they’re speaking the excess sound goes into something smaller so you don’t necessarily have to get inside something that’s going to make you feel claustrophobic. You just need to arrange things to absorb the sound from the directions that you’re speaking.
Sacha Black
Yeah, yeah.
Renee Conoulty
And the best bet is to set it up, record a few things then do the little sound check to check what the background noise is and that sort of thing.
Sacha Black
Amazing
Renee Conoulty
They’re little steps that I’ve broken down in the book if you want to know exactly how to check those things,
Sacha Black
I have written down about 4000 notes already. So what mistakes did you make in the in the process that other authors could easily avoid?
Renee Conoulty
Forgot to put the dog outside. But those background noises it’s much easier if you can eliminate them to begin with. So make sure you put the dog outside or in another room. Or wait untill your husband goes to work so he’s not trying to watch the telly or those kinds of things. Making sure that you’ve got some quiet moments where you’re not going to get interrupted. Put your phone on silent.
Sacha Black
Yeah!
Renee Conoulty
I read from my phone. I mean, I don’t like turning pages I don’t like the page turning down. So I put the e pub or the word doc or whatever I’m reading from on my phone and I’ll scroll through there that way I’ve got a backlit screen because it’s often a bit dark by the time you buried yourself under a whole pile of blankets, so at least you can see what you’re doing. Another thing is to try to slow down I speak too fast. But that’s my natural speaking voice. It just means that you’re not going to have to speed my audio books up which I do when I’m listening to everybody else.
Sacha Black
I listen on to speed on 2x speed as well and I know that I have listened to
Renee Conoulty
You don’t need to chipmunk me
Sacha Black
No I’m already sufficiently chipmunked. I have got to listen to only tiny snippets of this podcast just because once I’ve edited it, I’ve heard enough of myself anyway. But I do sound like I’m on crack so it’s ridiculous.
Renee Conoulty
Yeah, that takes a bit of practice to slow yourself down. Yeah. Especially when you get interested in caught up in your own story, which is a good sign as far as I’m concerned if I’ve gotten so caught up in my own story that I’m getting excited about telling it. It can’t be that bad. Don’t speed me up and you’ll be all right.
Sacha Black
Yes. And also, I think we know where the intonation and when the expression comes. So I think it becomes quite, you know, I know certainly when I was recording the nonfiction book, I did get very excited because I’m quite sarcastic and I make up swear words. So I was getting to say all of my swear words in the voice I wanted to say. Right, so obviously, I’m a huge fan of your book. I have recommended it already on this podcast, and I have recommended it again today. But do you have any other recommendations, you know, resources generally that other authors might find useful.
Renee Conoulty
As well, as well as the April paperback and audio book, I do have an online course. So if you prefer to have that visual instruction and watch somebody actually doing the things if that’s something that appeals to you, I do have an online course version,
Sacha Black
which we will link to in the show notes.
Renee Conoulty
Yes, because I’ve already sent you that link obviously, If not I’ll do it now. I’m a fan just scrolling through YouTube. And and listening to people speaking with one of the books I want to do. I’ve very sensibly written in a character who has an accent that’s not Australian. Which I’m never doing ever again. That’s another tip just don’t write accents into books. So I’m currently scrolling YouTube, listening to people who have that accent to try to get a little bit of a handle of how I can give that flavor. Because with audio, if you don’t, if you’re not a voice actor, you don’t want to sound like you taking the piss, you know? So yeah, you need to give a flavor of something without overacting.
Sacha Black
Yeah.
Renee Conoulty
If you’ve written somebody with an accent, or a speech impediment or something, you don’t have to go over the top with it because you will just annoy listeners, or at least me. So you need to find that balance where you can get that flavor whether you have that come through in just a few words or something like that. So yeah, practicing with that one. But you mentioned Joanna Penn. She is a fabulous resource because she’s totally all over this at the moment as well, which is where I’ve got a lot of the inspiration to get out and how to go and do it. So Joanna Penn’s got a podcast as well, The Creative Penn. And she’s had quite a few interviews lately with people in regards to audio book, production and that sort of thing. So you can have a scroll through hers. I know she’s got a book coming out soon. She’s been talking about around all the audio stuff.
Sacha Black
I think that’s a course.
Renee Conoulty
She was talking about a course, and I think she’s… on her last podcast, she was saying it was supposed to be a course but she had sore shoulders and then something else happened and something else happened and probably going to be a book now. But it’ll probably turn into a course as well. That’s what I would do anyway. We’ll make it everything.
Sacha Black
Yeah. We’ll just assume.
Renee Conoulty
Just We’ll see. I know she’s got a few resources there. Anyhow, she’s got some blogs. Post as well. And I was very excited to see my book mentioned at the bottom of one of her blog posts.
Sacha Black
That’s fantastic.
Renee Conoulty
My other claim to fame is David Goldberg mentioned me in my in his one of his emails.
Sacha Black
No way. That’s fantastic.
Renee Conoulty
Yeah, I was totally fan going over that one. So yeah, there’s there’s some other people that are talking audio at the moment to keep an eye on. Yeah, there’s an audio book that Joanna mentioned that I went and had listened to that’s called Storyteller How to be an Audiobook Narrator. That book is only available as audio. And the women who produced that audio book, do a lot of demonstrations of how to use your voice. So it doesn’t really work as an ebook so well. So that’s a great one to listen to, if you want some tips on how to use your voice, because you can pick up a lot of the other tips from reading. But those sort of things you really need to hear them. So I found that one way useful to hear those sorts of things.
Sacha Black
Absolutely. Because there are different techniques for, you know, reading quotes or for internal thought even changing your tone of voice for things like that, versus, you know, air quotes or whatever else. We ignorant writers don’t consider when we are penning our fiction forgetting where they’re going to be audio. Perfect. So this is my favorite question always but this is The Rebel Author Podcast. So tell me about a time you unleash your inner rebel
Renee Conoulty
Okay, this was the scariest question for me because I’ve always been like that rule following the straight-laced do everything the right way kind of person.
Sacha Black
Lies. You did your own audiobook.
Renee Conoulty
This is this is me. This is me who said I’m not creative even after I’d written and published a novel I still didn’t see myself as creative. It took a bit of slapping around the face to say you are creative. Look at all these other things that you’ve done as well. I used to make up my own patterns and crochet things and do all kinds of stuff. But I didn’t think I was creative until probably last year, I realized.
Sacha Black
You are so creative. Oh my goodness.
Renee Conoulty
I know but we can’t see it. Anyway, I go, I’m not a rebel. I was like, I remember when I was 14, in in class at school, when the entire classroom broke into applause because I’d had my name written on the blackboard for talking and I was gonna have to stay in at lunchtime. They literally clapped because I’d never been in trouble before and they thought it was hilarious. I then proceeded to get my name rubbed off the board and didn’t have to stay in lunch because I was good for the rest of the class. But this is me, I’m not a rebel. And then I looked in the mirror this morning and went well. I do have an asymmetrical haircut, six tattoos and a body piercing that I can’t tell you about. So a lots happened since I was fourteen. Maybe I might have become a little more rebellious.
Sacha Black
I love it what tattoos do you have?
Renee Conoulty
I have an iris on my back. A great big pink, sweet pea on my thighs and a daisy behind my ear. So I’ve got three flowers. I’ve got a little koi fish down on my ankle. And on my forearms. I’ve got the words forever and a day, which is lyrics from the song that my husband and I danced to at our wedding. Which was like, a traditional Thai Buddhist waiting in Thailand we had a destination wedding. Which is also a little rebellious
Sacha Black
Girl, you’re in so much denial. I’m not creative. I’m not a rebel. You are both of those things.
Renee Conoulty
Yeah, and the other tattoo is a couple… like a swing dancing cartoon couple on my right fore arm. I want a book tattoo. I need something that book related but I haven’t come up with a design I like yet. Once I think of something I’ll have another one.
Sacha Black
Yeh I am a rebel. That’s what you should have tattooed. I am creative. I promised myself I would get a tattoo when I quit my job and worked for myself and I still want to have the tattoo I do have one. However, I let me caveat this by saying I am not afraid of needles. However, I have a very bad habit of fainting every single time I’m injected. It’s horrendous. If I’m in the dentist, they give me the anesthetic stuff but it has adrenaline in it and most people are unaffected by that, but it speeds up my heart I have a very sensitive heart and I tend to get a bit fainty and every time I’ve had a piercing I have had a number of piercings. Every fucking time I will faint. Every single god damn time.
Renee Conoulty
When I got my ears pierced and like that was my first time that I was like actually deciding to be a rebel because I’d grown up very strict Christian upbringings and it was very frowned upon to wear jewelry and so getting an earpiece was like, that was terrible you don’t do that. So I was in my early 20s just broken up with a guy and had sort of started stuff not going to church anymore and I thought… I’m going. The next day I had had half a day off work I didn’t have to start till after lunch and thought right I’m going to get my ears pierced because that’s what we do when we break up with someone we go and dye our hair or chop it off or get a piercing or something ridiculous. So I went right that’s it, I’m going to get my ears pierced and I rang up all the pharmacies around the place that could do it and nobody could do it that morning. Everybody had somebody coming in the afternoon or the next day or something like that. So I got in the car, and I drove up the road to the local body piercing tattooing place. And when in there and thought rightio, I will just get my ears pierced. So I got it done with the needle in the and I was fine getting it done set back in the chair and like it pinched a bit. But I was okay, I felt fine. And I got up after probably 15 minutes and I’m standing at the counter I just paid for it and I was asking the woman about the self care what do I need to do? And my hands felt a bit tingling. I thought nothing of it because I’d never fainted before. But I’m standing there and I’m sort of rubbing my hands on my pants. So I feel a bit tingling and I put my purse on the counter. And next minute I’m sound asleep in my bed. And I’m lying in my bed and I’ve woken up and I see this woman like two inches from my face. And if you can imagine a woman who works in a body piercing tattooing place, has very many piercings on her face. So I’ve come to to this strange woman who’s covered in body piercings. Two inches from my face and the thoughts run through my head is who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in my bedroom? It took me another minute or two to realize that lying on the floor in this tattooing place.
Sacha Black
Oh my god I love it
Renee Conoulty
I waasn’t actually at home in bed. Yeah, so I then took the rest of the day off work but it took me another half an hour to pull myself together enough to drive home called in sick to work and geez I copped shit for calling in sick. They didn’t let me hear the end of that for a while.
Sacha Black
In my defense I have incredibly low blood pressure which I which inherited from my mother. So I am actually prone to fainting anyway. But yeah, I’ve had many… Well, I won’t tell you all of the things that I’ve pierced. But I’ve had a lot of things pierced. The worst one was when I had my tongue pierced and I collapsed on the stairs, walking down the stairs, which was actually pretty dangerous, but I survived. So that’s
Renee Conoulty
I survived the other one. But I did pass out the first time I got acupuncture. So I had had needles put in the back of my neck, but I was having a lot of sinus issues. So they sat me in a chair, but these things in the back of my neck, put a heat lamp on me. And of course, I ended up passing out in the chair. Okay, perhaps that’s not a good idea. The guy said, come back, we’ll do acupuncture again, but you need to do it long down. So I had to do it lying down on the bed. He said it was something to do with the energy flowing up and down your body that makes you pass out and if you do it lying down, then you’re alright. Because it’s the energy is flowing horizontally, not up and down.
Sacha Black
Hmm, very interesting.
Renee Conoulty
I found that interesting. That seemed to work alright for me. He said it works for the big biker guys like the big strong tough guys that come in and reckon that they’re find and they’re always the ones that passed out with acupuncture.
Sacha Black
And, okay, so tell everyone where they can find out more about you. Your books and your audio books.
Renee Conoulty
Okay, my website is heysaidrenee.blogspot.com. I figured that was easier to spell them Conoulty. If you can spell conoulty, which is CONOULTY, Google that need to find me pretty much everywhere. There are no other Conoulty authors out there at the moment. So if you punch Conoulty into Amazon or Kobo or wherever you get your books, you’ll find all my books that way quite easily. I also have a podcast starting in November.
Sacha Black
Do you?
Renee Conoulty
I do. If you want to have a listen to my stories without pain, boredom. You can have listened to Fun Science Fiction. I’ve called it so all the episodes about five minutes there’s one little short flash fiction story that’ll be coming out weekly starting in November. So have a listen to them. And if you do like them, there is an option that you can make a donation buy one of them. So, yeah, social media on pretty much Facebook is where are most active or Instagram. So I’ll put the links to those in the show notes too.
Sacha Black
Perfect. And so as part of this podcast, you going to run a giveaway, aren’t you?
Renee Conoulty
I am, I’d love to give away an ebook copy and an audiobook copy of my nonfiction book called Narrated by the Author. So if you’re interested in learning how to narrate your own audio book, you can enter the giveaway and have a chance at winning one of those. And if you’re lucky, you can go and buy one.
Sacha Black
And all of the information on how to enter that will also be in the show notes. So thank you, I think we are just about out of time. So thank you very much for talking to me today. Thank you to all of the patrons supporting the show if you would like to get early access to any of the episodes, you can do that by going to www.patreon.com/sachablack and that is Sacha with a C. Thank you to everybody listening. I am Sacha Black, you’re listening to Renee Conoulty. And this was The Rebel Author Podcast.
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