Le Grand Tour: The Audio Book Saga | Behind The Scenes

By Andrew on May 28, 2024 • ( Leave a comment )

You might think that once you’ve written a book and it’s been published that you’d be able to sit back and relax. It never seems to be like that, for good reason. Lot’s of people have been getting in touch directly with kind comments about Le Grand Tour – I always take time to respond – and the marketing is an ongoing process. However, there is one thing that I started doing yesterday that I haven’t done before. I spent a serious amount of time thinking about and researching the options available to make an audio book of Le Grand Tour. I even had a go at recording.

Now before you get too excited, this is a long-term thing. Don’t expect an audio book to be available for many months. Yesterday I managed to record and edit just two chapters: the short prologue and day 1. If you’d like to listen, here they are:

Prologue:

Day 1: Rotterdam to Ouddorp

The main problem that I need to sort out before continuing to record is that I live in a house that is very close to a road and if you listen carefully, you can hear the rush of a car several times in the recordings. Short of moving house or persuading the local council to close the road for a while (or hire a soundproofed studio), I’m not sure what I can do. If you happen to be an audio engineer and have a potential solution to the problem, please let me know. This is my set up:

The microphone that I am using is a Shure MV7, a microphone that is highly regarded for podcasting and voice work and I am using Hindenburg Narrator software which uses noise reduction software. Are microphones available that manage to eliminate all noise apart from that produced in their immediate vicinity? Sound is sound and I’m not sure that is a physical possibility.

So, as I say, if you are thinking of reading the book and this post has prompted you to hold back in anticipation of an audio book being available soon, think again. It may well never happen…

Back to the hardcore marketing. If you are thinking of purchasing the physical book, here are a few reviews that may sway your investment:

And it’s always good to recieve readers’ photos:

Short postscript: WordPress (who host this website) have started to introduce an increasing number of AI features. Can you guess which bit of this post was generated by AI?

Le Grand Tour on a Bike Called Wanda, was published in May 2024 and recounts Andrew P. Sykes’ journey around France, into the Alps and down the Rhine in the summer of 2022. It is available as a paperback and as and eBook from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com (and other international Amazon sites). The paperback is also available from Waterstones or Foyles and the eBook from Apple iBooks.

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