Category: narrators

Audible · Author · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective · narrators

Wait…What?

Joe Hallett2 Comments

The first novel I wrote took me nearly 10 years (it turns out you actually have to write to finish a novel; who knew?) to complete. I muddled around and figured out how to hire editors and artists for the cover, publish, and all that, and then put together the bucket list of having an Audible version available. I found a Narrator, Kevin Perkins, who nailed the narration.

Skip to the future. I wrote a sequel, “Emergence Ascended,” and published it (with much more ease and confidence). Then I kept writing, and to be honest, moving on from my first novel, I kind of forgot about it.

Last week, I got an email from Kevin that said that Audiobookreviewer.com had awarded “Emergence Collective” the best science fiction in the metaphysical genre for 2024! Holy crap! 3 years after publishing I won an award! I am blown away! (It looks like I have some bios to update for the “Award-winning author.”

Check me out on threads, I spend most of my time there @joseph.hallett.author. And you can find all my stuff https://linktr.ee/jshallett

Please leave a like and feel free to comment!

amazon · Audible · Emergence Collective · narrators

Audible update: Major announcement!

Joe Hallett5 Comments

As promised, I did not abandon you!

In the “you win some, you lose some” category, I added my Audible project to the list. I will summarize the story for the new folks (Hi, I do notice and appreciate it!) Being poor and starving author and artist with a goal of have my books on audible, I decided to record my books myself (because I am free labor, I can exploit all I want). So I bought some equipment and made myself a nice little corner in the closet to record.

Notice my mouse pad?

I started recording and was horrible, sight reading is a skill that I didn’t know I needed. I got better, improved my sound quality, and started to feel pretty good about my narration (I was even told that I am pretty good, translated to my ears are “you don’t suck”). Skipping ahead, with slow progress, I uploaded a sample to ACX (Audible production) to test the audio quality. I got 4 out of 4 flags on my audio, I could almost hear ACX asking if I was deaf or stupid) It seems that my minuscule knowledge of audio engineering was not enough. Go figure.

On a side note, Amazon prime credit should have never given me a card. I signed a contract with a narrator to produce Emergence Collective! Tentatively, it should be released sometime in May 2024. So stay tuned for more on that!

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. As always, please like or comment! I love comments and do my very best to respond to every one!

30-minute shivers. · about me · Audible · Author · blogging · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective · Horror · Instagram · NaNoWriMo · narrators · readers · reading · science fiction

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Joe HallettLeave a comment

I have always liked that saying. I don’t know why. Maybe I enjoy duality. As I poke my head out of the cave of 2023 into the dawning of 2024 I am looking ahead for a great writing year. I have some great intentions, both long-term and short-term.

I will pause here and do my obligatory reflections of 2023. I’ll start with the fun stuff, I published another novel “Emergence Ascended.” I Wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo, which was a bucket list item. (Now I feel like I can legitimately say I am a Novelist.) I Did an interview on Youtube to promote my new novel (It didn’t help, but it was a fun experience). If you follow my social media accounts you may notice that I do not do the random selfie post as I prefer to stay in the background (Introvert stuff) but in the spirit of self-promotion I powered through.

There is probably more highlights of fun things in 2023 but sometimes I want to keep things for me. That being said there was some interesting things in 2023, just to keep it spicy. The big one is a series of events starting with a road rage incident, our vehicle got a nice bullet hole. Sent it to the bodyshop for repair, of which there was a break in and OUR vehicle was stolen to commit a crime. It was recovered a month later with a group of homeless occupying it in an alleyway. Toxicology report deemed it hazardous and it had to be ‘totaled’ by the insurance (we didn’t want to drive a Meth car anyway.) Replaced the vehicle with a new one from the insurance money. Whew. But that is not all. A month later a windstorm took out a tree, causing it to fall onto our home, and, Guess what?… The new Van. Yup. Lucky it was a glancing blow and our Insurance (again) fixed the repairs for that (No we did not take it to the same bodyshop) But wait there is more. Our upstairs bathtub cracked and flooded the garage. SO now we have a shiny new bath room remodel (that we are still paying for at the cost of 400$ a month)All in all, though it was a financially and mentally stressful year, we survived, and I still think the good outweighed the bad as far as 2023 goes.

Whats next? I have some very good intentions for the year coming up. First on my agenda is to finish “Yellow Man.” the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo. There are some good bones in the story, and I am working on fleshing out some details and adding things I missed or neglected in the first rough draft. Who knows how long this process is going to take me, but I am optimistic I can get it finished soonish.

I have several more stories I want to get down. Most are just thumbnail thoughts, and don’t have names yet. The “Bigfoot” story is next after Yellow Man. I love Cryptids and am excited to get that one rolling. I have two possible endings rolling around, I guess I will decide when I get there. Another one is the Will-o-the-wisp story. I want to get that one done before the BIG project. The Big Project is a storyline that will turn into a series (more than likely) with some vignettes here and there. There is a great setting that I thing I can create a small little world around with different adventures to play with. But this one I am going to give a lot of thought while I finish the other three stories. I want to get those out of the way because I predict that the big project will consume a few years (at the least, unless I get bored or distracted, which is probable)

Of course I will keep on keeping on with the blog. I will jot down some more short stories for your enjoyment. I am still compiling short stories for my book “30-minute Shivers.” A collection of short horror stories.

The Audible project, I intend to start recording (for realz this time) on Sunday mornings. I can enjoy my new “recording studio” and give you my least cringy narration to Emergence Collective on Spotify.

Thank you for spending your time visiting my blog; I sincerely appreciate it. I love interacting and building friendships, so feel free to comment and like. You can follow my socials and other projects by clicking the linktree. https://linktr.ee/jshallett

Audible · blogging · Emergence Ascended · Horror · NaNoWriMo · narrators · Podcasting

Im not stalling really.

Joe HallettLeave a comment
Yellow Man

I have been reviewing what I wrote during NaNoWriMo, the novel Yellow Man. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it since I wrote it so fast it felt like it would be a trainwreck. Overall, I am happy with the story. There is a lot to edit, no lie, and I missed a few crucial relationship interactions that I wanted to get in (I started a storyline between two characters but forgot about it halfway through). Since I barely met the word count goal, it’s technically not an entire novel, so I am glad that I forgot the extra content, and now I can take my time and add it in. I am also on the fence about the very, very end; I exposed maybe too much. I like to assume the reader is intelligent, so I try not to make some things obvious or point things out. so I might change it. If anyone wants to beta-read it and give me an opinion, That would be great! I am reluctantly starting the editing process (not my favorite part of writing) and I might share excerpts from it.

On the Audible update: I will resume recording Emergence Collective on Sunday and share it on Spotify. The studio is ready to go so I am going to start from the beginning, chapter one, since the sound quality has much improved since the first recordings. Would you prefer pure book content, or would you like commentary before or after the episode? I might keep it pure. I dunno.

How is the new release of the book going? Slower than the first. I don’t really know how to grow an audience, this is my broad stroke attempt (the blog), other than that I think I have only one copy sold to a stranger the rest of the six copies sold are the three I gifted and my close family. My severe introversion seems to be a roadblock. I guess when I die I will start selling books, I cant wait! just kidding, but maybe if I do get famous, after I die, you can say that you were here when it started!

Thanks for stopping by Give it a like and comment! I

Audible · Emergence Collective · narrators

Audible update: A new space

Joe HallettLeave a comment

A quick Audible update. I got my recording area set up for the most part. It’s a little ghetto, but it functions. I did a quick audio test, and it sounds a lot better. I still pick up a lot of household noise, but I like to record Sunday mornings when it’s still quiet, so I do not think that will be an issue. I plan on recording a chapter tomorrow just to break in my space. I also made a decision to re-record the first chapters, which had unbearable sound quality.

NanoWrimo : I am keeping up with the word count that I need to, to finish on time. I feel pretty good with how its going so far. The story is starting to flesh out.

Emergence Ascended is still under construction, last round of editing is going well, I suspect it will be ready in the next couple weeks, and the Art for the cover is coming along as well, ETA is undetermined, but I am hoping it will coincide with the editing and get published before December.

Audible · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective · narrators

Audible update:Stasis

Joe Hallett3 Comments

I bet you have wondered why I have not posted an Audible update lately. That project is on pause. It has been challenging to get clean recordings, and the amount of editing made the project bigger than it should have been. It is much work for a crappy outcome. OK, I was getting better at it. You can still listen on Spotify to my progress at narrating; the sound quality was also improving. (It was pretty cringy the first few episodes.)

So I was recording in my dining room; it is wide open to the kitchen and living room with vaulted ceilings, so everything echoes, and (5 cats) are noisier than they should be. So, I am waiting for a space to carve out for a permanent recording area. In the next few months, I should have a niche to call my own, and I will resume recording then.

In the meantime, I continue to chip away at Emergence Ascended, on chapter 30, with just over 50 thousand words, so I am nearing completion. I started my research on the ghost story I am writing next. I have been corresponding with a paranormal investigator group in the UK, so I look forward to some spooky tales to flesh out my insane idea. If you are or know a ghost hunter or paranormal investigator, send them my way!

Thank you for taking the time to check out my blog; feel free to leave a comment or drop a “Like” my way; I sincerely appreciate it.

Audible · Emergence Collective · narrators · readers · science fiction · spiritualism

Audible update: A few more chapters

Joe HallettLeave a comment

Ok, today I recorded 3 chapters of Emergence Collective. My chapters are short enough that I had the time get more than one recorded. Be sure to check it out on Spotify! Hope you enjoy!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5aOh0b0QLOz5h5Jj300f9K?si=2e0f8a8550564cd8
Audible · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective · magic · narrators · readers · reading

Audible Update: Articulate and enunciated

Joe HallettLeave a comment

These are two of the things I could not do. As you can tell, I did not record the next thrilling chapter of Emergence Collective this weekend. What I had thought were allergies had ultimately become a full-blown head cold. (I still can not hear from my right ear, it’s still congested.) I rarely get sick enough to miss work, but I missed two days this week if that is any indication. I felt well enough; I just couldn’t actually speak clearly enough to make a decent recording. Well, I could make the most of my convalescence and get some writing on Emergence Ascended done. That too, fell flat, and I am disappointed that I lacked the gumption to do anything meaningful. I was, after all sick, but I wanted something to show for my time and writing is not physically demanding. I know one day I will get around to finishing this book.

The weekend is approaching, and of course, no promises, but I will make an attempt at getting Chapter 10 recorded. I am especially eager to get back to it. The story starts picking up speed from here on out, and even to me, it’s exciting.

Author · blogging · Emergence Ascended · Emergence Collective · magic · narrators · science fiction · spiritualism · voice acting · writing

Go with the flow…

Joe Hallett3 Comments

Another quick Saturday note(In the US, a quick nod to my “down under” audience}note. (I have noticed that when I post on weekends that there is less traffic overall, but eventually, someone will read it, right?) After having a bit of mild to moderate writer’s block, I managed to get back on track, and I am happy with the progress I am making. Chapter 28 and most of 29 of “Emergence Ascended” are down with a meager 38000 words. I estimate it’s just under half complete, but I am a discovery writer, so I don’t know where it will end, somewhere between Doctor Suese and Tolkien in length.

If you are one of those that are listening through my narration of “Emergence Collective” on Spotify, I expect to have chapters 10 and maybe 11 recorded tomorrow, so stay tuned for that! As always, thanks for stopping by. Give it a like or comment (I love comments!)

Audible · Author · Emergence Collective · magic · narrators · science fiction · spiritualism · voice acting

Audible Update: Chapters 8 and 9!

Joe HallettLeave a comment

I just recorded Chapters 8 and 9. they were short, so I decided to combine them into one episode. I fixed the technical difficulties that prevented last week’s recording and fiddled with some settings that have improved my overall sound quality. As far as the story goes, things really start picking up speed, and gets pretty crazy from here on out. If you haven’t started listening, you’re missing out. Of course you can read it for yourself (Link embedded on the cover art). Feel free to comment or just say hi! Id love to hear what you think so far!