Welcome to the world of Allan and Helen Krummenacker, authors of the Para-Earth Series. Here you will find information about our books, thoughts on writing, our adventures becoming indie authors, reviews of books we've enjoyed, and much more. So come on in and stay a while, we have much to share and would love to hear from all of you about your reading and writing adventures.
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Last night I received this comment over on my YouTube channel regarding my presentation of an unabridged version of Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol” from Barbara Ortiz…
“This version is among the best, the added images are very nice, your extra research is appreciated. Ahh, also, your voice acting is spot on.”
This meant the world to me. I hope everyone else who’s checked it out enjoyed it just as much.
And if you wish to give it a try, I’m supplying the link just below. Happy Holidays everyone and may the season bring you all the joy and happiness it can.
Link:
Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, a Joyous Kwanzaa and a Happy New Year to you all.
The holiday season is upon us, and I hope you are all enjoying yourselves. I know I’ve been on the quiet side for some time, but I’ve been dealing with some health issues (which I’ll discuss down the road, it’s still not fully resolved yet). But I’ve also been working on a special project for the last 2 years. It’s been quite a journey with this particular effort of mine, as it’s part audiobook and part video.
As you all know I’ve done a fair amount of audio work, but adding video was a whole new ballgame for me. Getting everything lined up just right, finding imagery in public domain, as well as music to go along with it, took a considerable amount of time and energies. But I feel like the results were worth it. I learned a lot along the way and may actually start doing some podcasting in the near future. We’ll see.
But for now, I’d like to present to you all to a brand-new Unabridged presentation of Mr. Charles Dicken’s classic “A Christmas Carol”. It’s up on YouTube and you can reach it simply by clicking on the image below:
Why I chose this particular work is explained in the opening of the video itself, but I’ll briefly summarize my reasoning here. After years of watching all the versions created for film and television, I finally read the novella itself and discovered that a large proportion of the story never makes it to the screen. And as I read, I found myself occasionally reading aloud in various voices I assigned the characters in my head. So, after actually doing audiobooks, I felt it was time to give Mr. Dicken’s story a shot.
So far, my beta-viewers were all pleased and impressed with the finished project. And I hope all of you will be as well.
Please leave any comments on YouTube, as well as hitting the Like button if you enjoy what I’ve brought you.
I am considering doing some more Christmas related ghost stories down the road, as I’ve discovered a trove of such stories available in the public domain. For those who don’t know, ghost stories at Christmas was a time-honored tradition over in Europe, long before Mr. Dickens created his famous novella. I’ll go into why this was so in more detail in my next post, but for now please enjoy my holiday season offering and stay safe my friends.
And as always, keep writing and recording, everyone.
Back when I was 18 (many many moons ago) I received a rejection from a college I had applied to for their Commercial Arts program. I was so crushed I didn’t pick up a pastel or pencil for over a decade.
If anyone at that time told me I’d one day be doing book covers I’d have asked what they had been smoking and did they bring enough for everyone?
Yet here I am having just finished my 8th book cover for my wife Helen (who wrote all the stories in this collection). Plus I’ll soon be voicing those stories for Audible. The journey is never a straight one my friends, but you have to keep moving forward to see where it leads.
PS: This collection of paranormal tales (which is a spinoff from her Forever Detective Series) is set during World War II will be arriving this September.
*So now you all know where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing for the last few months. This was an very involved piece for me and I was trying be more meticulous than usual in completing it. I’ve also started the audio recording process as well. We hope to have all three: paperback, e-book, and audiobook ready for release this coming September.
Until next time, stay safe and keep writing, painting, and recording my friends
A whole year of planning, working, sweating, and it still wasn’t enough.
For those who are wondering, I’m referring to my unabridged dramatic reading of Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”. My plan was to unveil the finished project as a picture book on YouTube. Besides spending hours recording voices, some sound effects, finding music in public domain, as well as dozens of images (also in the public domain) created over the last 150 years since the book’s creation… and I still couldn’t quite get it across the Finish Line. At least not in time for this Christmas.
All I have left to do is film an opening and closing to the project, but between work and other audio and writing projects, I just couldn’t do it justice this year.
Now some of you might be asking yourselves, why? Why was this so important to you? After all, there are so many versions available of the story available on YouTube, streaming services, Blue-Ray, DVD, etc.
Well the answer is, none of them are ‘complete’. There are a number of powerful speeches and even scenes that more often than not, wind up on the cutting room floor. There have also been new scenes created and added to the films that cannot be found in the original story at all. After having read the book cover to cover myself a few years back, I started finding myself reading certain scenes with a variety of different voices for each character. And yes, this is when I really started taking the idea of doing voice over work more seriously. I was having so much fun with these characters and that it took me a while to realize I was drawing upon techniques and skills I learned in my l theater class during my last year of high school. I learned so much in that one year, and I have often found myself regretting I hadn’t taken the class sooner and then taken one of the more advanced classes afterwards. Still, I thank my lucky stars and my teacher Mrs. Nina Pfeffer for all her patience and guidance. I learned so much from her.
So after Helen convinced me to bring her books to life in audio, I went back to the idea of doing the same for Mr. Scrooge and company. Helen often refers to me as her “Voice Time Machine”, since I can do so many voices of actors who are no longer with us, which allows her to ‘cast’ the characters from her books and helps her in turn bring them more to life in her writing. And believe me I drew upon a lot of voices of actors both living and dead, to my project.
And in spite of having a whole year to work on “A Christmas Carol” I could not anticipate back and hip problems which kept me from my ‘recording studio’ and sitting at the desk to edit either images/audio recordings for weeks at a time.
Then of course there were other projects that needed my attention as well. I’m wrapping up my 3rd audiobook narration as I write. I also created a couple of book covers over the last 12 months, as well as feeding 3 blogs with material as well. One of those is “The Vampyre Blogs – Private Edition” where I’ve been writing short stories involving our Para-Earths vampyre Nathan and his friends.
https://thevampyreblogs.blog/ (WordPress site – same content as the Blogger site, but I know some people find WordPress easier to work with)
With so much going on, I can’t feel too bad about not finishing my “A Christmas Carol” project. There’s only so many hours in the day, and only so much of me…
Therefore my New Year’s Resolution will be to keep being ambitious, but give myself leeway to scale back and not be too hard on myself if I can’t get all that I want to done.
And I do have plans for this coming year, oh yes indeed. Here’s a little list:
1- Re-work, re-edit, and re-release “The Bridge” in a special 10th Anniversary version.
2 – Get a complete 1st draft of “The Vampyre Blogs – Family Ties” which takes up mere weeks after the end of “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home”.
3 – Release the first volume of “The Pass” trilogy, which I wrote with my old high school friend Rich Caminiti, with some fantastic illustrations by the talented Gabrielle Callan. We will be releasing this book in hardback (yes, your read that right) and e-book formats.
NOTE: This one is a definite. The book is already written Gabrielle just getting the last of the artwork completed along with the cover
4 – Rich and I will be working on the 2nd and 3rd drafts of the second installment of “The Pass” trilogy with hopes of releasing that book in 2023.
*The 1st draft is already completed so we have high hopes of getting this to happen*
5 – Record and release Helen’s 1st solo anthology “Forever W. I. T. C. H. Hunting”, which is actually a spinoff from her Forever Detective Series and will feature characters from that series as well as a few new faces who will be appearing in future installments of The Forever Detective books.
6 – I hope to begin recording “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” with the help of Helen to bring more variety of voices for your listening pleasure.
7 – We may start adding some podcasts occasionally to this blog and maybe even to YouTube. We have the equipment and the ability to do it, so you may actually get to see and hear us once in a while.
8 – Finally, I’m starting to look into voiceover work opportunities for myself this coming year. I’m already on LinkedIn and have seen opportunities becoming more numerous, as well as over on Audible. There are apparently opportunities here in and around Santa Cruz, so I may be trying out for a few here and there. It all depends on time and how many spoons I can spare without burning myself out.
So there you have it everyone. We’ll see how much I actually accomplish, but time and life will tell. I’m not sure how easy the new year will be starting out with our regular jobs as we’re having labor issues with management this time around. So there’s a strong possibility of disruptions in our lives in the coming month. So if I go quiet for a while, you’ll know why.
We’ll see what happens. But in the meantime, we hope the holiday season has been treating you well and that you all have a joyful and wondrous New Year come the end of this week.
Stay safe, and keep writing and recording dear friends.
All three books are the entire “Forever Detective Series” to date. Helen has more stories coming and will be releasing a fourth book “Forever Festive” this November. We are hoping to have the audio ready to be released at the same time so people can have that option to stick in someone’s stocking or leave under their tree, (electronically speaking) of course. Remember, you can gift someone an e-book or even an audiobook.
Now this may not seem like such a big deal, but for someone who spent over a year researching how to create audiobooks, as well as getting the proper equipment, and learning how to use it all, this is a huge deal. In fact, I’m kind of hooked on doing audios.
For instance, I’ve already recorded Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”. On that front, I’ve only edited the first two ‘Staves’ (aka chapters). Since that one is destined for YouTube, complete with images, I’ve still got a ways to go (like adding sound effects for certain sections, adding music here and there, and of course shooting actual openings and closings for each chapter since I’ll be releasing them to YouTube one at a time). That last part is the real sticking point for me, since I would like to shoot the openings and closings in front of a more traditional Christmas setting with a tree and fireplace. But, I’m looking into possibilities.
I’m also starting to record some of the Para-Earth series of books, that Helen and wrote together. So there’s quite a bit still coming. But what I want you all to know is once you get one or two under your belt, you’ll find it easier and easier to make audios. You’ll get more familiar with all the elements like room tone, pacing your reading, watching how loud or soft your speaking, how clear you’re enunciating, and the editing tools on the Audacity recording software.
Finally, I will be doing more posts about recording and what to watch out for, as well as what’s happening with future books. Until then, stay safe and keep writing and recording my friends.
Hello again everyone. I recently had a request to the links regarding to all my posts here about doing audio recordings. As I started to gather the links, I quickly realized that they were all seriously scattered throughout the blog, as I’d done them over the course of 13 months. Plus, there were a number of other entries in between which made them even more difficult to find.
So today’s entry mainly consists of all the links for easy access to anyone who wishes to look over the details and suggestions I had about audio recordings. So far there are only eight entries, but I am planning on more in the coming months.
As you all know, I’ve been busy recording audiobooks at home. I’ve already gotten “Forever’s Too Long”, my wife Helen’s first solo novel, published on Audible where it received a 5-star review. So of course I was eager to turn another of her books into audio as well. So I began recording her second book “Forever Haunted”.
Now having shared on this blog all the technical aspects that I use to record the books, I thought it might be fun to share one or two… um… a few? Oh hell, I make a LOT of mistakes and I run into some other ‘obstacles’ that I thought might help prepare you all for some of what you might encounter.
So, here’s the first (of what I suspect will be a growing library) of my blooper outtakes…
Now remember folks, “We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical…” Sorry, I’m slipping into the “Outer Limits” show.
Anyway, you get the idea. We control how we edit our work. We can re-record, adjust the quality of the recording, cut out the ‘oops’ moments, etc. You can make a hundred mistakes, and yet still end up with a really clean product that people will enjoy.
And remember, “Never give up and never surrender….” oh, great now I’ve slipped into “Galaxy Quest”.
Keep writing and recording my friends. And yes, there will be more about the technical aspects of recording will be coming soon.
Finally heard back from ACX. Two issues came up. I didn’t leave enough “Room Tone” (silence) at beginning and end of every chapter. They want .5 to 1 second of silence before first word spoken, then 1-5 seconds of silence after last word spoken. Easy fix.
The other issue, I included the closing credits and the last chapter in one file. They wanted them separated, another easy fix.
Otherwise, they had no other problems with the files. Volume, clarity, technical requirements of the audios themselves, all of that was fine.
I will be making these corrections, if I haven’t already dealt with them on my own. After that… still going to follow our own path at this point and make CD’s and downloadable MP3’s from our websites.
and
Why?
Because Audible has an “exclusive” clause that says only they get to produce the audios, and they do not make CD’s. They only produce Audible versions, and as we’ve been told by others NOT everyone can afford the monthly Audible charges every month.
Will our path be an easy one? Not really. But we’re hoping that people will spread the word once we have the audios up for sale. We’ll have to promote ourselves, which would still be true if we went with Audible. Oh the books would be in their catalog along with 100’s of others, so what would be the difference?
Reviews? Reviews can be left at our website under the comments section for each product.
A lot of people think that just because they got their book/audio on a big company’s site that they are set and don’t have to do anything else. But that’s the BIGGEST mistake one can make. No matter where your works are for sale, YOU still have to do most if not all the promoting to get the word out. Or hire someone to do your marketing. In this day and age “If you build it they will come…” is seriously overrated. YOU have to put in the work to get people to find out about your work.
And that is exactly what I’m doing here and now. Letting people know the CD’s and MP3’s are coming. I’ll be creating a “Store” button here on this site very soon and populate it with CD’s, downloadable MP3 files, PDF’s, and the option to order a signed print copy of any of our books.
ALSO… I will be continuing the “Adventures in Audio Recording” Series, in order that those who still wish to create audios can succeed in making Audible quality files ready for submission to ACX or other audiobook outlets.
Until next time, take care and keep writing and recording my friends.
Musings Of Two Creative Minds 