I’ve received my copies of the audio book version of Dancing for the Hangman. It’s unabridged and published by Soundings. Until a couple of years ago, the audio versions of my novels were on cassette tapes. Now they are in CD format – a sign of changing listener preferences.
Many of my audio books have been read by the excellent Gordon Griffin. This time, because the story is told in the voice of Crippen, an American, the reader is Jeff Harding, who has a number of notable audio books to his credit.
The reprinted UK paperback edition of The Coffin Trail is at last available and I’m really pleased with the look of it. The new cover design that Allison & Busby have come up with really appeals to me. One change which I hadn’t anticipated was the switch in size – this version is larger than its predecessors.
My previous paperbacks have been in ‘A format’, and until a couple of years ago this tended to be the format used by publishers for crime novels. There has, however, been a move towards the larger ‘B format’, which was in the past more typically associated with mainstream ‘literary’ novels, and the publishing director at Allison & Busby, Susie Dunlop, felt that it would be good for the design and style of my books to move in that direction. I’m very pleased about this, and pleased in particular that those readers who were keen to get hold of a fresh copy of the first book in the Lake District series will again be able to do so.
13 comments:
Oh how terribly exciting Martin - not only do you have physical copies of your audio book but I have just checked and it is available on Audible too AND they'll sell it to me in Australia. I can't tell you how many UK authors I try to get from Audible only to find them unavailable or that the publishers haven't worked out a deal to sell in Australia. So you've already sold one copy of The Dancing Hangman in audio format - I shall download it tonight. Now, can you get them to include some of your other titles in audio format at Audible (only The Arsenic Labyrinth and Waterloo Sunset are available so far)?
Martin - These really are quite nice! I like those covers very much. Thanks for sharing them.
That's really cool. So is the American reading the book with an American accent?
ann
Thanks
I love the cover, Martin. And I'm not at all surprised about the CD format--that's what's in cars these days and most people like to listen to audios in cars.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
This is really good news! - and I agree that the new cover for The Coffin Trail is very appealing and tasteful!
I can't resist saying that CD players for listening to audio books will soon go the way of the cassette deck - and I think it will happen more quickly. My own car is 13 years old so it doesn't count but the car fleet where I work, in which there is no car older than 2 years, has few CD players left. Almost all of them now come with some kind of dock/port for mP3 players and they don't bother with CD players at all.
Thanks for these comments. Bernadette, I know this sounds like a naive question, but what exactly is Audible - a form of mp3?
How rude of me Martin to assume everyone is as obsessed with audio books as I am. Audible is a website - http://www.audible.com/ - which sells audio books in the downloadable format of your choice. Most people I assume use mP3 (for iPod etc) but there are also other file formats for use with other devices (there are special devices for blind people for example). You can buy books in one of two ways - either just as you would expect (one at a time for the listed price) or by membership. Depending on your membership level you get one or two 'credits' per month and you can get a book with each credit. Gold membership is one credit per month and costs $14.95US a month and platinum membership is $22.95US a month and gets you two credits. As books (including audio books on CD) are extremely over priced in Australia (RRP is about double what it is in the UK for example) I don't buy too many audio books here but even with the exchange rate the audible membership works out to be a very reasonable price for me to buy audio books. The thing about audible is that you always own your library so that even if I lost my iPod with my downloaded copy of a book on it I can go back to audible and re-download it. My one problem is that quite often I will search the site and find a book I want then load it into my shopping cart only to find that they're not allowed to sell it to me here in Australia which assume is due to territorial copyright deals that publishers have. I do hope that you authors get your fair share out of books sold via audible because I'd hate to have to stop using it.
Oh and I did indeed buy The Dancing Hangman last night and am looking forward to listening to it.
I'm glad to hear that The Dancing Hangman is out in an unabridged reading - abridged versions are my pet hate, especially as some publishers and online retailers don't always make it clear that the book has been abridged. Since abridgement can mean that you end up with barely 40 percent of the original book, I think this borders on sharp practice!
I still prefer books on cassette: I listen while walking, not driving, and low-tech as it may be, a cassette player is much handier to carry and operate than a CD player. Like Bernadette, however, I have also begun to download books from Audible (the UK branch). The Dancing Hangman will definitely be one of them!
Bernadette - many thanks for this info.
Martina - greetings! And I hope you enjoy the story.
I thought I'd pop back and tell you how much I enjoyed Dancing for the Hangman in audio format Martin. A terrifically intriguing story (I knew nothing about the case) and a great narration too. I garbled on a bit more on my blog if you want to read that
http://reactionstoreading.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/review-dancing-for-the-hangman-by-martin-edwards/
Very kind, Bernadette. I'm delighted by your enthusiasm for the book, which I found truly heartening.
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