Yellow Brick Road...Plus More – Day 174 – 2023-07-21 / Afternoon
Sedona, AZ
Audiobooks as a popular reading alternative were still in their infancy in 2007 when the first edition of The MoonQuest was published. But almost from the moment this, my first book came out, people asked me if it was available as an audiobook. In more recent years as the popularity of the format has exploded (audiobooks are now the fastest growing publishing format, thanks in part to the pandemic), the number of those requests have skyrocketed.
“One day,” I’ve always responded, not knowing when circumstances would make that day possible. In my mind, those circumstances would have to include the resources to hire an experienced narrator with access to a professional recording studio, a pricey proposition. And while there are spec options out there whereby narrators share royalties instead of getting a lump sum payment for their work, those never felt as though they would do the book justice.
I never considered recording The MoonQuest myself, especially after my two ill-fated attempts at DIY audio production. For all my research into how to produce something of professional caliber — first in 2008 with The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers and seven years later with my Sara’s Year novel — the quality of the recordings I ended up with was never good enough.
With The Voice of the Muse Companion, I instead rented an Albuquerque recording studio and the results astounded me. I had never sounded so good!
With Sara’s Year, however, I abandoned first my at-home recording, then the audiobook. A project that ambitious, one that could require more than fifty hours of studio time, was simply not financially feasible for me.
Besides, even were I able to produce a DIY recording of acceptable audio quality, I doubted I could do the same with my narration. With guided meditations, sure. Probably with my nonfiction too. I could easily see recording a pretty good Act of Surrender or The Book of Messages, for example. But fiction? Wouldn’t that require if not an actor, then more acting expertise than I possessed?
No, I couldn’t read The MoonQuest. Not for an audiobook recording. The book deserved better. I would wait until I could do it right, and that meant a professional narrator.
Audiobooks were on my mind as I drove toward Sedona two weeks days ago…but not my audiobooks. As I headed west along I-40, my mind wasn’t on my Yellow Brick Road journey. It was on fictional composer Harry Fox-Talbot, the main character in Natasha Solomons’ The Song of Hartgrove Hall. More specifically, it was on James Langton’s voice as it carried me deeper and deeper into the story.
The Song of Hartgrove Hall was only my fourth-ever audiobook. Despite all the requests I’d had over the years for audiobook editions of my own books, I’d never listened to one. Not until about six weeks ago. I don’t even remember why I downloaded that first one. Once I did, though, I was hooked. How, I wondered, had I driven so many thousands of miles along my Yellow Brick Road without them?
Suddenly, I understood their appeal.
What I couldn’t understand was why I was on my way to Sedona, the town that, in effect, threw me onto the road 160 days earlier. Although I was grateful for the three nights’ respite from my constant travels that had been offered by friends in the area, returning to Sedona didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, especially after last month’s experience on Mount Shasta when I felt so much of my past melt away into insignificance. That letting-go included the three times I’d lived in Sedona over the past twenty-six years.
I had no more clarity once I arrived. And unlike four years earlier when my Pilgrimage journey landed me in Sedona and kept me there for nearly four years, I had no sense that I was to hang around beyond those few days’ hospitality.
Three days, however, stretched to four, then five. On that fifth night, I caught a glimmer of why I had been called back.
I was staying with my daughter’s mom that night when the conversation somehow turned to The MoonQuest, a book she had read and loved. “Is it available as an audiobook?” she asked at one point.
I shook my head and shared my belief that I wasn’t up for the narration job, that I would need a pro to do the story justice.
“No!” she exclaimed. “People need to hear your story in your voice.” And her toned mimicked Na’an’s when in the Prologue she chides a Toshar reluctant to chronicle the MoonQuest adventures of his youth.
“It is not for me to boast of my exploits,” Toshar argues. “Others have sung them. Let them continue.”
“No,” Na’an counters. “It is your story to tell. It is for you to fix it in ink, to set the truth down for all to read.”
Years ago when I was living in Hawaii, a woman came up to me at the end of one of the weekly writing workshops I was then offering at Unity of Maui. As I do in most of my workshops, I had begun the class with a guided visualization.
“Your voice!” the woman gushed. “It’s incredible. It didn’t matter what you were saying. You could have been reading us the phone book. It’s your voice that was so healing, so inspiring. Just your voice.”
That moment flooded back into my awareness with my ex’s urgings.
“Is this why I’m back in Sedona? To record a MoonQuest audiobook?” I wondered with not a little skepticism. After all, even if I didn’t have to pay a narrator, I would still have to come up with the funds for a studio at a time when I was still challenged to cover my everyday expenses. And where would I live? It could take up to a month to record a 94,000-word novel, let alone have a sound engineer master the files. If I were to do this, I would need to stop in Sedona — or somewhere with a recording studio — for at least that long.
It just didn’t seem possible.
Step #6 in The Way of the Abundant Fool, the book that, as I noted on Day 49, reawakened my California dream and, in many ways launched me on this Yellow Brick Road, reads “act as though and make it so.” Could I follow my own teaching and do that? Could I act as though a MoonQuest audiobook was possible now in order to make it so?
How could I not, especially when I looked back at other of Abundant Fool’s 12½ steps.
#3. Ignite and Excite Your Passion. I’m passionate about all twenty-one of my books, and it’s as hard for me to choose a favorite as it is for a parent to choose a favorite child. At the same time, my Legend of Q’ntana novels seem to come from a deeper soul place than any other of my books…than any other aspect of my work. “These are stories,” I have written, “that have so long been such a part of my life that it’s as though they live deep within my cells. … In the end, I am more than the storyteller. I am the story.” If anything is going to ignite and excite my passion this would be it.
#4. Believe in You. If I believe in the stories, then I have to believe in me. And if I believe in me, I have to believe that I can do this…that I can, through my voice, not only create a compelling experience for listeners but manifest the resources, financial and otherwise, to make a MoonQuest audiobook possible.
#11. Let Miracles Find You. Just as I have done throughout my 174 days on this Yellow Brick Road (successfully, apparently, or I wouldn’t still be traveling that road), I can do that with this project, which will bring one of the creations I am most passionate about to a wider audience.
#12½. Reach for the Stars...then Soar Beyond Them! My current plan (if I dare use that four-letter “p” word) is to record more than The MoonQuest and more than my Q’ntana novels. I would like to see all my fiction and at least some of my nonfiction on audiobook. If that isn’t soaring beyond the stars I am now reaching for, I don’t know what is!
I had already begun writing this piece when Abundant Fool’s Step #11 kicked in: a potential housesitting gig that’s set to start next week here in Sedona. (The fact that I’m still in the area thanks to the generous hospitality of friends is another major miracle.) At the same time, I began contacting area recording studios to explore costs and possibilities, another expression of Step #6.
Then, earlier this week, even before I knew whether my “acting as though” would “make it so,” I recorded a sort of MoonQuest audiobook demo (below). It’s DIY, so the audio quality isn’t as polished and engineered as the ultimate studio recording will be. But I wanted to get some feedback on my voice and delivery. Could this be a realistic project?
Apparently, it is. Certainly, everyone who has listened to it thinks so.
For me, that’s something of a miracle.
The bigger miracle, however, showed up a few days later: One of the people who listened to my DIY recording, someone I barely knew, offered me a generous seed money donation to get the audiobook project started. My acting as though was making it so! Suddenly, I was able to book some initial recording studio time.
My first recording session is Monday. I’m super-excited...and a bit nervous, not only because of the scale of the project but because I don’t know where the rest of the project funding will come from. At the same time, I’m doing my best to trust in the miracles that have not only kept me on this Yellow Brick Road for nearly six(!) months but that have propelled my longstanding audiobook dream from the seemingly impossible to the imminently probable.
I’m excited to share this sneak preview recording with you, both to share my passion for The MoonQuest and this project (Abundant Fool Step #3) and to get you as eager for its completion as I am. The recording is on my website at https://www.markdavidgerson.com/books/moonquestaudiobook (scroll down the page a bit for the video).
The first way you can help move The MoonQuest audiobook to completion is right on that web page,, by preordering a copy. (Note that for technical reasons, I have only a limited number of copies available for preorder, so you’ll want to reserve yours right away!)
The second way is to support project with a donation that will go directly into the audiobook’s production and distribution, topping up the seed money I’ve already received and ensuring that the completed MoonQuest audiobook is available this fall. To that end, I have set up a second GoFundMe campaign at https://gofund.me/eedd421b.
These other methods also work: Zelle or Apple Pay Cash (via my cell number), PayPal, Facebook Messenger and credit/debit card (contact me for details). My aim is to raise $4,000, but any donation in any amount will move the project forward and be gratefully accepted and acknowledged.
Speaking of acknowledgment, I will acknowledge these specific donation levels with these gifts (as long as they are not made through GoFundMe, which prohibits perks, benefits and giveaways).
a $77 donation will push you to the front of the audiobook preorder queue (until the limited number of preorder copies is exhausted)
a $155 donation will get you a print copy of The MoonQuest
a $222 donation will get you a signed copy of The MoonQuest
a $444 donation will get you signed copies of the first three books in The Legend of Q’ntana series: The MoonQuest, The StarQuest and The SunQuest
a $555 donation will get you signed copies of all four completed Q’ntana books, the three Quest books and The Bard of Bryn Doon
I hope that my passion and excitement for a MoonQuest audiobook are infectious enough that you will help support this project, if not financially at this time then in any way you can. I’m equally hopeful that this audiobook is the catalyst that will, finally, propel all my Q’ntana books to the popular success I know they deserve.
As for my Yellow Brick Road, the popular success of a MoonQuest audiobook (and, hopefully, subsequent Q’ntana audiobooks) will not only keep me going but help finance that “very happy landing” I wrote about way back on Day 43.
What about Sedona? I still don’t sense that I’m here to stay (for a fourth sojourn!). Rather, I’m feeling pulled back to California and will likely head that way once the recording is (recordings are?) completed and my housesitting gig ends.
For now, I can’t wait to start recording! If I remember, I’ll ask the sound engineer to take some photos of me during the recording, and I’ll post some on social media next week.
Photos: 1/ Kyri chills on my lap in Sedona while I relax while listening to my latest audiobook. 2/ The view from the patio of this week’s host. (Wait until you see the view from next week’s!)