40 hours of audio narration!

I’m super proud.

In an effort to learn how to make my own audiobooks – I can’t afford a professional narrator, so I thought I’d learn to be a professional narrator – I started making audiobooks of fanfiction, which is called podfiction.

It’s a lot of fun to do, there’s a very welcoming community, and everyone involved is excited to be there, which is great. Fanfic authors are delighted to have their fic narrated, fanfic listeners get new stories to listen to while they do other things, I get to learn how to do this interesting, slightly esoteric skill.

And I have learned so much. I can look at the audio files from my first few podfics and look at the newer ones and literally see my improvement. It’s incredibly empowering, both to have done a lot of work and also to be able to see my own growth so clearly.

Anyway, today I finished and posted the last chapter in a 360,000 word (32 chapter) fanfic I’ve been narrating. I started work on it in March of 2024 and am finally done. 40+ hours of audio, many different voices (consistent ones!), and a relatively consistent posting schedule.

I think I’m ready to start working on making my own audiobooks, now. I had my husband, who listens to professional audiobooks on his commute, listen to a very short one of mine and he said it’s just as good as the pro ones he listens to.

I’m not going to stop making the podfics, even while I make audiobooks of my own novels – I really like the community and making something which people enjoy – but it feels like a huge accomplishment to have started, a year ago, with no idea how to do something and to come out at this end of the process, feeling pretty professional.

As soon as the audiobook is ready, I’ll post everywhere! (I’ll probably post snippets and comments on the process as well.)

(That photo is NOT my studio – it just looked nice in the stock photo site. My home studio has a lot more cat hair.)