A random tweet popped up on my Twitter feed, yesterday, about Cory Doctorow’s latest novel Attack Surface. The book will be the third in the Little Brother series of books. If you haven’t read Little Brother, you should definitely check it out. I can’t wait to read/listen to Attack Surface; it’s premise sounds fascinating, though it’s sure to make me feel old!
Doctorow, well known for his dislike of DRM of any kind, is particularly anti-that of Amazon and Audible. In a move to make an entirely DRM-free audiobook, he has recorded Attack Surface read by an actor from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He hopes to release it via Kickstarter (which has already funded).
The Kickstarter can be found, here. It has 20 days left to run.
You can listen to a sample recording too.
Here’s a little bit of information about the recording taken directly from the Kickstarter page:
Making an audiobook is expensive, but it’s not difficult. Publishing is such an outsource-oriented business that you can hire exactly the same people to do exactly the same job in exactly the same studio that the audiobook would be made in if you’d sold your rights to a real publisher.
What’s more, you can do better than a real publisher would — it’s your show, so you can cast the voice actors, sit in on the production, and make something really incredible. Which is what I did.
To narrate, I hired Amber Benson – author (Echo Park Coven and more), actor (Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and more) and all round excellent human being, who previously performed on the audiobook for my 2017 novel Walkaway.
To direct, I hired Cassandra de Cuir from Skyboat Media, who have produced many of my audiobooks with readers ranging from Tim Curry to Anne Hathaway.
And for mastering, I hired John Taylor Williams, the engineer who masters my weekly podcast – a polymath musician, sound engineer, brewer, carpenter and all-round brilliant fellow.
