Saturday, January 5, 2013

Kathryn Meyer Griffith Chats About Stepping Out Into a Brave New World...Audiobooks!


Meet Kathryn Meyer Griffith:

Since childhood I’ve always been an artist and worked as a graphic designer in the corporate world and for newspapers for twenty-three years before I quit to write full time. I began writing novels at 21, over forty years ago now, and have had seventeen (ten romantic horror, two romantic SF horror, one romantic suspense, one romantic time travel, one historical romance and two murder mysteries) previous novels, two novellas and twelve short stories published from Zebra Books, Leisure Books, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Damnation Books/Eternal Press and Amazon Kindle Direct.

I’ve been married to Russell for almost thirty-five years; have a son, James, and two grandchildren, Joshua and Caitlyn, and I live in a small quaint town in Illinois called Columbia, which is right across the JB Bridge from St. Louis, Mo. We have three quirky cats, ghost cat Sasha, live cats Cleo and Sasha (Too), and the five of us live happily in an old house in the heart of town. Though I’ve been an artist, and a folk singer in my youth with my brother Jim, writing has always been my greatest passion, my butterfly stage, and I’ll probably write stories until the day I die…or until my memory goes.

Find the entire list of Kathryn Meyer Griffith's novels currently available through Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Kathryn-Meyer-Griffith/e/B000AP9HXQ/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1368805401&sr=8-1


Synopsis from Shelfari:

Maggie Owens is a beautiful, spirited Egyptologist - but she is lonely. Even a trip to Egypt on a grant to search for a necropolis beyond the Gizah pyramids doesn't make her happy. Love is missing. Then she uncovers Ramose Nakh-Min's tomb and an amulet from his sarcophagus hurls her back to 1340 B.C., where she falls for Ramose, who serves Pharaoh Akhenaton, and who she's destined to love. Maggie's mistaken for a runaway slave and stands out with her fair coloring and jinn green eyes. Some say she's magical. Evil. Some try to kill her. She's fallen into perilous times. The people, angry that Pharaoh Akhenaton set Queen Nefertiti aside and forced them to worship Aton, instead of many gods, rise up against him. And Maggie's caught in the middle of it. Desperately in love with Ramose, she must find a way to remain with him, and to make a difference in his world. Maggie has finally found love.

Coming to Audible on April 18, 2013!

Once again, I'm thrilled to welcome prolific author Kathryn Meyer Griffith, author of eighteen novels, two novellas and twelve short stories, back to Emeraldfire's Bookmark. Ms. Griffith was kind enough to write a guest post for me and here it is below in her own words:

'My Great Audio Book Adventure'
by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

I’ve been writing for over forty years and published for thirty of them and have never had one of my eighteen novels, two novellas or twelve short stories put into audio. Always wanted to, but was never given the chance or had even thought much about it until the last few months. Too busy writing my novels and living my busy life. You know how it is. And until recently I’d believed only a publisher could afford/decide to turn an author’s novels into audio books. Then I discovered ACX (a fairly new website company that connects audio rights holders with narrator/producers so together they can create audio books) and all that changed. I write horror, romantic horror, suspense, romantic time-travel and murder mysteries and have always been told my stories would make good movies. I use a lot of dialogue; a lot of suspense, emotion and crisp language. And horror has always been a good genre to convert into film and audio…case in point, Stephen King. But, as I said, I hadn’t thought too much about them because, well, I was never offered either. And I was busy…writing. Trying to get published. Stay published. A big enough chore in itself as all writers know.

Anyway, in January 2013 I’d just spent the last three years exhaustingly rewriting and rereleasing all my fifteen older (and a few were new) novels going back to 1984 through my publishers Damnation Books/Eternal Press. The owner, Kim Richards, when she’d contracted my fourteenth and fifteenth novels, had asked me if I’d like to revise and republish my other older works. She’d discovered them on the Internet – my old Leisure and Zebra paperbacks and a few others, most out of print – and had thought it’d be great to bring them all out again. I was thrilled and quickly said yes. My earlier novels needed rewrites and new covers and most of them had never been in eBooks, which we would also put them into. So with Kim and her editors’ help we rewrote them and brought them out again between 2010 and 2012. Dawne Dominique did my amazingly stunning new covers. I’m really happy, proud, with how they turned out.

After that, deciding to try something new, I self-published my sixteenth (Dinosaur Lake, a sf/horror), seventeenth (Human No Longer, a vampire story) and eighteenth (Scraps of Paper, a murder mystery) novels. An experiment still ongoing. Though Dinosaur Lake, so far, is selling extremely well and has gathered over fifty good reviews on Amazon Kindle.

Then, as I was trying to decide what to do next – write a new book or take a well-deserved rest – a writer friend of mine sent me an email. “Have you heard of a website called ACX?” she asked. “They’re new. They’ll put your books out in audio. Take a look.” Hmmm. I took a look and the website, the whole concept, really excited me. You offer up your book/books/stories (if you own the audio rights) and ACX will connect you to a narrator/producer who’ll work with you to produce a first-rate audio book of your novel. But in the end, the choice is up to you. It looked easy enough. Offer on the website a four to five minute audition script, a section of your book you believe is a good sample of the book’s heart, and other details of your novel and wait until a narrator/producer makes an offer to produce it. I thought, “Well, I own total rights to my three self-published books and all the audio rights to my fifteen books with Eternal Press and Damnation Books, so I can do that.” Then I had another idea…ask my publisher if I could use their cover art. It would save me a fortune on getting new art for the audio editions. She and the cover artist agreed that if I put a disclaimer on the audio book cover referring the customers back to its publisher for the eBook and print, I could use their art on my audio books. My cover artist, because she’s a friend of mine, also said she’d reformat them to the required square 2400 x 2400 pixel size I’d need. What a deal. So generous of them.

So I offered up seventeen of my novels (and one short story collection) on ACX in January 2013…and was shocked and pleasantly pleased when within a month’s time eight were accepted! Five narrators/producers quickly sent me five minute audition MP3’s through ACX for all eight. And the quality of the narrators and their voices, their professionalism, was incredible. It was so neat hearing my words come to life after so many years with only the written version. I accepted each one, though I was a little overwhelmed at knowing I’d be juggling eight audio books at once; so I spaced out the final deadlines to fall between the end of March through the end of July. With the largest books later in the summer. Together, my five producers and I set a 15 minute section deadline and the completed book deadlines. Emailed back and forth getting to know each other. My first novel written, over forty years ago now, and my only historical romance, a so-called bodice-ripper (I know, I know… a horror author writing an historical romance…but I was young and hadn’t found my genre, my voice, yet…that came with my second novel in 1984) was even narrated by a woman using an English accent. I’d almost forgotten the book was 15th century England so the narrator would have one. So I smiled when I first heard her audition. My words, my characters, came alive. As I listened, I couldn’t believe, at times, some of the things I’d written. The years had faded the memories and the words. But always, I knew they were mine.

The other narrators/producers were excellent, as well. Two men and three women. Some of them are actors/actresses or voice over specialists. One woman produced audio books for the blind for many years before she came to ACX. All of them have their own in-home studios and know what they’re doing; most have many years of experience. Each has been a joy to work with. So far all have met our agreed on deadlines. All have stories of their own to tell. Over the months some of them have even become sort of email friends. They’re interesting, talented people. I’ve had so much enjoyment listening to their renderings and helping them edit the final product. I’m so pleased with what they’ve produced.

My first audio book, my 2007 ancient-Egyptian paranormal time-travel Egyptian Heart, was finalized on March 31 and I okayed it for release. It went up for sale on ACX (which is Amazon.com, iTunes and Audible.com) on April 18 – and it is already selling well.

The other audio books will follow one each month until all eight are up for sale. I still have a lot of listening to do, but it’s been fun, so I don’t mind. I’m just thrilled that my novels will be out there for people to listen to on their iPods, eReaders, computers and at iTunes. And if I’m lucky, soon the other ten will be snatched up by producers as well and every one will eventually become ACX audio books. I’m working on the last chapters of the audio book for WITCHES, my best-loved romantic horror novel…it should be out by the middle of June 2013. The Last Vampire will follow the next month. Well, that’s the story of my audio book adventure…so far. Stay tuned for further updates.

Written by the author Kathryn Meyer Griffith, this ninth day of May 2013

- Kathryn Meyer Griffith enjoys corresponding with her readers; join her at the following websites:

by Emeraldfire at 6:00 AM
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