Introduction

Creating an audiobook can feel overwhelming for many authors—especially when you’re navigating unfamiliar equipment, new technology, and the challenge of bringing your characters to life through voice. In this candid and entertaining piece, authors and audiobook producers Susan Rogers and John Roosen share their real-world journey from curious beginners to successful audiobook creators of Dead Man’s Pose, Cobra Pose, Tree Pose, and Warrior Pose.

Susan and John provide a behind-the-scenes look at the trials, laughter, mishaps, and surprising moments that shaped their audiobook experience. Their story is a reminder that creativity often flourishes through experimentation, persistence, and a willingness to “give it a go.”

Whether you’re considering producing your first audiobook or simply curious about what the process looks like from the inside, their journey offers both encouragement and inspiration.

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By Susan Rogers & John Roosen

Almost four years ago, we knew nothing about how to produce an audiobook.

After reading our book series to each other (about 50 times each), we knew we wanted to try and create a quality audiobook.

It’s almost undefinable what drove us to start this new and complex project. Some would say we’re addicted to writing. Our children and friends complain that we don’t answer the phone or respond to emails.

“Time choices” we say to them.

Our real passion is telling a good story … but it must be wrapped in the best art of storytelling. Creating an audiobook and producing it? Well, that’s an entirely different story.

Blending two styles.

To begin with we are two completely different personalities. We met in Officers Candidate School in the US military. Our last names started with the same two last letters, and we stood beside each other – it was destiny ‘At attention’ of course.

John is tall, a long-distance runner and a person who is good at predicting future events. Susan is a slender woman, who is like a firecracker full of action and a long list of things that must be done today!

On most topics, we see things differently, and our ways of expression are a stark contrast. 

How could we come together and write as one voice? By necessity, we’ve had a lot of practice. Through our wide-ranging occupations and projects over the years in multiple countries, we’ve learned to blend our styles to make a unifying approach for most things …including cooking.

John cooks, and Susan says how great it is. [“Such a deal,” Susan confides.]

Producing a DIY audiobook.

You know all those Experts who say: “Do It Yourself’ is soooo EASY”?

We now wonder if that is AI speaking.

We did try to create an audiobook ourselves. There are all kinds of articles, videos, podcasts and influencers trying to influence you one way or the other in creating your own audiobook.

We bought all the equipment from a local electronics store.

“Ever done this before?” the salesperson with the crew cut asked.

“No, we haven’t,” we enthusiastically replied.

‘It’s Non-Refundable,’ he reminded us.

We crafted our closet into a sound stage leaving our clothes there to absorb sound and hanging up a wool blanket to cancel echoes.

We sat in our bedroom closet with our sound equipment perched on our sports clothes and the mike hanging from wooden coat hanger but could still hear the street traffic. 

Extra blankets were borrowed from a neighbor who wanted to know what we were doing in the summer with the blankets. Duct tape sealed the door jam. The door chimes were disabled. And we decided not to answer the door … for anyone.

We thought about calling the airport about all those aircraft landing at a nearby airport. We didn’t think we’d have much success with that.

Then there were the thousand dogs that seemed to have recently moved into the neighborhood. That became a never-ending mission of negotiation and dog treats.

Finally, we resorted to using camping mattresses and five sleeping bags over windows and doors to create our sound set. It sort of sounded quiet. But we felt like we were in a small igloo in Antarctica.

We listened to the playback. John’s voice was scratchy in places. Susan sounded like a sultry 1930’s movie star vamp with a heavy breath delivery. We considered other possible use for her voice. 

We listened to more playback and knocked over one of the cabinets in the closet—

we laughing so hard.

“This isn’t working,” John suggested.

“Let’s hire a narrator,” Susan replied.

The World of Narration

There is a bountiful number of narrators ‘out there’. They are called lots of things:  narrators, readers, voice performers, voice actors, golden voices, storytellers and relators to name a few.

Actually, the first person that gave us a sample of their voice performing talents WAS our real estate agent.  He was interested in changing his career, so he didn’t have to depend on the ups and down of the real estate market. We avoided mentioning his sample for almost two months, until we broke down and said he was such a great agent and the market was clearly picking up.

In the interim we subjected ourselves to 20 digital voice demos per day from everywhere on the planet until we were hearing voices … even when we weren’t listening. It felt like the Chris Young’s country western song where he sings, “I hear voices all the time”.  After a few months, our neighbor, who is a psychologist told us to put pillows over our heads and hope the voices would go away. 

AI Enters the Marketplace

When Artificial Intelligence started making a greater debut, it seemed like a possible option. We listened to dozens of AI generated voices who clearly could mimic anyone, but never really had the same type of feeling that any of the organic human narrators or voice performers could conjure up.

It was like your car telling you to check the back seat when you were leaving the car … and about as romantic. The worse part was AI didn’t know how to deliver a line the way we envisioned it. 

“It’s doing, but not feeling,” John said.

“Duh,” Susan strongly responded. “It’s not feeling anything and never will.”

We Have a lot of Characters

The truth is—we have a lot of characters. Anyone reading to our books will see and know we delight in creating a wide spectrum of characters.  They are from every demographic, every age and every personality. 

Each book has a smorgasbord of these characters. The challenge of course, is to make each character seem authentic and multi-faceted. This includes characters that may have quirky characteristics that allow them to be visualized in the reader’s mind. We also rely on the readers’ imagination to mold our characters to the people they might know or think about. It is part of the partnership of willing participation between us and the readers.

How could we get that same type of quirky emotion into the audiobook version?

And worse, our stories do have a few killers, psychopaths, sociopaths a serial killer or two running around. There are heaps of romantic scenes, sprinkled with all the tension, suspense and thrills that we can wring out of any given page.

How was anyone going to act out all that?

After year of listening to all these voices, we decided one day that it would be our last day of searching.

The Voice

We were living in Sydney, Australia at the time. The day began with an ominous thunder and lightning rainstorm. We had difficulty with our internet. And power was sporadic. Perfect for trying to communicate with the last handful of people we wanted to connect to narrate our books

We held our communications dongle out the window for our very last call of listening to voices from around the world.

When the connection wasn’t happening, John decided hanging out the window further while holding a Wi-Fi device connected by a wire to a power point during an electrical storm was A-okay.   

“Don’t worry Susan. I’m heavily insured and there’s always that military burial,”

Rupert Degas picked up on that last call. This extraordinary voice performer, who only works with you if he ‘likes your stuff’.  We sent him a copy of the first book … and He liked our stuff!   Sat up and read the entire book all night.

And in what was total irony … it turned out that Rupert Degas was living in Sydney, not far from us.

We so love irony.  It was “The Voice – at first listen”.

Give it a Go

Have we had fun in all this writing and producing of Audiobooks?

You bet … we certainly have met that goal. And while there are moments of tension and frustration, Susan suddenly stands up, signaling we must practice the kissing scene again so we can describe it just right.

“Rupert will need this description so he can act it out during the audiobook performance,” Susan suggests.

“Alright Susan,” John says. “I’m happy to Give it Go.”

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