Friday, February 14, 2014

Hollow World Audiobook Available for preorder




I'm very excited and pleased to announce that just like the print edition, anyone who pre-orders the audio book will receive the ebook version (in whatever formats you desire) for FREE!  This is one of the reasons I retained the ebook rights to this title. I feel strongly that if you have purchased a royalty producing version such as the print or audio book, then you already compensated me and I don't want you to have to pay twice to get the book on your ereader.  But the thing that is even cooler...at least to me.  Is if you pre-order then you get that free audio book a month before the official release.  Yep, for those that can't wait they can get their ebooks on March 15th rather than April 15th.

For those that are REALLY anxious, you can get the extended preview (first four chapters) right now.

Some people may be a bit shocked not to find Tim Gerard Reynold's name as narrator. Don't be. This in no way reflects any break or displeasure with Tim who is without doubt "The Voice of Riyria."  In fact, we are already talking to Tim about some future projects and we love him and the amazing work he does.

The issue is that Hollow World is a very "American" book. It's main characters are from the midwest and while Tim's accent adds a great flavor to the fantasy world of Elan, we wanted someone that reflected the setting of this book.  The really cool thing, is when signing this contract we negotiated narrator approval. For Riyria we got REALLY lucky that Tim was assigned to the project, but we weren't sure that such lightning would strike twice.

When we finally got the compiled short list one name was at the top: Jonathan Davis...and we were thrilled when he agreed to join the project.


To say Jonathan is experienced would be an understatement.  Here is just a few of his accomplishments

  • 10 Audie Nominations (the "Grammys" of audio books)
  • 3  Audie Wins (2007, 2009, 2011)
  • Narrated 30 audio books of the Star Wars franchise, including several iconic movie tie-ins
  • 267 Audio books available on Audible.com
  • Earned accolades from The New York Times, Publisher's Weekly, American Library Association, Booklist, Audiobook Publishers Association, AudioFile Magazine,and USA Today. 
  • 2009: Ben Franklin Award nomination for Blindness by Jose Saramago
  • Narrated  films and programming for National Geographic Television, National Geographic Channel, VH1, NOVA and PBS.
  • His voice and image was used in the Max Payne video game, Star Wars Old Republic, and several others
  • A small sample of the authors whose works he's recorded include: Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, Cormac McCarthy, O. Henry, Neal Stephenson, R.A. Salvatore, Glen Cook, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Hugh Howey, Paolo Bacigalupi,   C. S. Friedman, Fritz Leiber, William Gibson, Drew Karpyshyn, Matthew Stover, Mike Resnick, Timothy Zahn, Sean Williams, Greg Keyes, Tobias S. Buckell, D. B. Jackson, Jodi Picoult, Jackie Collins, Junot Diaz, David Baldacci,  Michael Connelly
In fact, his recording of The Descendents by Kaui Hart Hemmings (made famous by the movie starring George Clooney) is current the #1 bestselling title on audible.com.

A few weeks ago Robin and I went to New York to meet with Jonathan, and we sat in on the first two recording sessions of Hollow World.  More on that in the near future.

So if you are an audio book enthusiast and interested in Hollow World, go pre-order now then send me a copy of your receipt to michael.sullivan.dc@gmail.com.  I'll send you the full ebook on March 15th.  I can't wait to hear the full completed version.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for the awesome promotion! One quick question before I head over to Audible to buy the pre-order: will the ebook you provide be "Whispersync for Voice" compatible? No worries if not - free is free and this is still super generous of you - just curious. Great narrator choice, too! (although I though Reynolds was awesome, but agree that he's the voice of Riyria) Looking forward to hearing this new story!

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  2. Unfortunately it will not...it's only ebooks you buy directly from Amazon that has this coordination between the audio and the ebook. I agree with you both narrators are exceptional, and I'm glad you're looking forward to the new story.

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  3. Hi Michael, I pre-ordered on Audible and emailed you a copy of my receipt on 2/27/14 but never received my full eBook. :( I know you get a LOT of email so no hard feelings if you missed it. I am super excited about the audiobook!

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