Regina pair turning written word into audiobooks
W hat do books sound like? For Matt Josdal, they sound like opportunity.
The co-owner of Aurora Audiobooks is looking forward hearing a lot of books after launching the company this fall.
“The industry is growing so fast that there’s room for everyone,” Josdal said.
The University of Saskatchewan drama grad got into voice-overs and audiobook recording when he was a struggling actor in Toronto. He did non-fiction and even Homer’s Iliad — which took “longer than I care to admit.”
It filled in the gaps between roles, and he was surprised how much he liked the work.
“It’s nice to know that you have that flexibility to go back and forth.”
Now, Josdal and his Regina business partner Shannon Harasen have created their own audiobooks company at home to take advantage of a huge market.
Their first title is the novel Dead Rock Stars by Saskatoon author Wes Funk.
“I am over the moon to have my first book turned into an audiobook,” said Funk. “To hear my story read back to me is incredibly powerful.”
Titles will be sold as digital files on the company’s website, auroraaudiobooks.ca.
In time, Josdal foresees CD releases and sales through some of the big e-tailers like iTunes.
For now, he and Harasen will be the voices behind the books, but that could evolve.
“I would love to grow the company to the point where it could be a source of work for the talent in this city,” Josdal said.
There’s an art to voicing an audiobook. Your voice varies from non-fiction to fiction, and you have to differentiate each character.
“It’s storytelling. As far as I’m concerned it’s the oldest form of storytelling that we’ve got,” says Josdal.
It takes several hours of recording to come up with one hour of finished book. (Readers get paid only for the length of the finished product, not how long it took, so there’s incentive to avoid mistakes.)
There are only a handful of audiobooks companies in the country, and Josdal believes he has an edge with Aurora’s mandate — Canadian books read by Canadians. Plans are to have a dozen titles out after the first year in business.
“We’re just getting the ball rolling.”