Author Archives: Jason Brenizer

50 Critical Questions
Discover Audiobook Producer

Are you an author or publisher who owns the rights to written works? Are you looking to leverage your intellectual property for multiple streams of revenue?

If so, 50 Critical Questions: Discover the Perfect Audiobook Producer (Narration & Audio Production Demystified for Authors & Publishers) is just for you.

This guide contains all of the critical questions you need to know to turn your books into amazing audiobooks.

This primer was born from the frequent questions I field from authors and publishers who want to understand this mysterious and growing industry niche.

Find the producer who knows nuanced performance, stellar techniques for recording & editing, and modern marketing & channels distribution.

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I love acting and dreaming up character voices to match an author's imagination. I love shaping audio performances through the power of recording and editing. And I wanted to share my passion and knowledge with the world...

TURN CUSTOMERS INTO RAVING FANS

In this book I will teach you 1) what makes a phenomenal audiobook producer, and 2) how to discover the perfect one who will guarantee your audiobooks are loved by fans.

Magnify your audience and massively increase royalties!

WHAT THIS BOOK HAS TO OFFER

50 Critical Questions: Discover the Perfect Audiobook Producer contains everything you need to know about creating and distributing phenomenal audiobooks.

The Art of Narration

What makes a good performance? How can you trust that what worked for one book will work for yours? What kind of experience is the right kind? You get answers, not just questions, from a unique producer who is also an author.

Audio Engineering & Editing

I share key technical questions and cover the right kind of answers so you know you aren’t being snowballed by jargon. You’ll even get enough technique to try recording and editing your own titles.

Discover Audiobook Producers

This books gives methods and resources to help you find fantastic narrators and producers. It also covers traditional versus independent audiobook publishing, and how modern audiobooks are distributed and marketed.

How to Gauge a Studio

I cover some basics of sound isolation and the audio chain (microphones, pre-amps, A/D converters, etc.) without getting too deep into the weeds.

Time & Money

You’ll get an analysis of the time it takes to properly turn you book into an audio masterpiece. You’ll also get a handle on what it will cost and how much you stand to make.

A Quick Read

At 12,000 words, this book has only the essentials, without all the fluff. Read it in one sitting, and go back to questions for a refresh as needed.

Do you have an audiobook version of your book?

Click below to get Jason’s free 1-page PDF on how to choose the perfect narrator!

Morgan Freeman Narrates

Morgan Freeman NarratesIt’s always good for everyone to be on the same page when covering a new topic.

So let’s define the different players in the audiobook slice of the book publishing pie.

 

AUDIOBOOK PUBLISHER:

Let’s ask the question, “With whom does a publisher shake hands?” A publisher usually has negotiated with a creator’s agent for the rights to intellectual property. The book (in print, ebook, and audiobook) for an author. The song for a musician. That’s a handshake (or contract).

Shaking HandsThe publisher then turns around and shakes hands with a distributor. In the print world, that distributor then shakes hands with book sellers. In the digital world, most distributors are also sellers.

Digital distribution for audiobooks is relatively new, so there is no tried and true way that this all shakes out. A publisher might cultivate relationships with digital distribution sites directly. Or it might leverage the distribution contacts of a large audiobook producer.

But the bottom line is that a publisher is usually in charge of collecting money from all the different sellers, then disburses money due to the author (and potentially others) in the form of royalties.

The publisher takes a healthy cut of each for managing all these relationships for the author.

PRODUCER:

Alpha dogA producer oversees all the aspects of turning the author’s written word into a spoken story.

This can mean leasing a studio (if they do not have one in-house) for recording. It can include hiring narrators, audio engineers, and audio editors.

It is also possible for the producer to wear everyone of these hats herself. That’s why this term can get so confusing.

If it takes a pack of players to create an audiobook, the producer is the Alpha Dog.

And a producer who can land an A-list actor, like Mr. Morgan “Gravitas” Freeman, deserves an almighty paycheck.

NARRATOR:

Jason Brenizer - NarratorThe person(s) who read the words of your book aloud, both the narrative or action, and the dialogue. One actor or performer can read the entire work, or various actors can be hired to play different parts.

There are equal parts acting and craft to narration.

It’s the actor’s job to be vulnerable, play, and perform the descriptions and dialogue with truth and non-judgement.

It’s the craftsman’s job to understand the techniques of microphone performance.  Can he maintain energy throughout a multi-hour session? Is he consistent with character voices from beginning to end of the book? Does he have control enough to avoid ugly mouth noises or heavy breathing.

AUDIO ENGINEER:

Voice Over Studio 101This professional sets up all the gear to capture the narrator’s performance through a microphone and record it onto a computer with optimum quality.

A recording is only as good as the weakest link in the chain.

A good engineer knows how all the links work together–from mic to pre-amp, from compressor to A/D converter–and can troubleshoot glitches quickly.

AUDIO EDITOR:

Adobe Audition Clean NoiseThe audio editor is like a film editor. She takes the raw performance, selects the best clips, and stitches them together.

This is where the shape of a performance can be fine tuned. A good editor will think in terms of pacing.

She can create suspense by withholding a reply longer than expected. She can create tension and even confusion by speeding up a performance.

If there are extraneous noises, those will be removed with a variety of special techniques.

The editor is often also in charge of exporting the final files in the format requested by the distributor.

DIGITAL DISTRIBUTOR:

audiobook Digital DistributorsThis business interfaces with the fans, usually through a website that makes it simple to search for titles. Audible.com is a perfect example.

Smart distributors will spend the lion’s share of their energy on enhanced marketing campaigns to maintain a strong relationship with their customers.

 

Audiobook Producer - Jason Brenizer

Jason has produced and narrated a variety of top selling audiobooks, including titles in Mystery, Science Fiction, and Fantasy.

Tell Me More>>

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow.

Since I started producing and narrating audiobooks, I’ve been asked a lot of questions by authors and publishers who know very little about how best to get their books into this amazing format. I’ve fielded questions at local author meet-ups, answered email queries, and even participated on a panel at the Bouchercon crime, mystery, and thriller writers convention. How does an author or publisher discover the perfect audiobook producer or narrator?perfect audiobook producer 1

I’ve been a little surprised about how foreign this form of media is to the book world. But then I’ve been playing and recording music since the mid-90’s, so the complex mixture of art, technology, and science that makes for quality recorded sound is almost second nature to me now. And I’ve acted in film and theater, so I have a feel for—from trial and error—what rings true and what sounds flat and false.

Over a post-Bouchercon, convalescent lunch, a publisher friend suggested I take some time to write down everything I know about audiobooks. Since I had very few brain cells firing after the four days of non-stop networking and partying, I said I’d think about it later. Then I promptly forgot about it by the time my plane landed back in Austin. I had a novel coming out in a month’s time, and another to outline, and this, that, and the other thing. In other words, life happened, as it happens to all of us.

perfect audiobook producer 2Fast forward a month and half. I found myself replying to another query about an audiobook that I wasn’t planning on adding to the production schedule. The book looked amazing, but I had too much on my plate already. The timing for me was off. Yet I wanted to help the author find another producer who would do her book justice.

And that’s how 50 Critical Questions: Discover the Perfect Audiobook Producer was born.

The words poured out of me. I hand’t realized I had so much to share. So while I put on the finishing touches, I thought I’d set the stage and give a little hint of what’s to come. The following introduction may still change a little bit in the edit, but you’ll get the idea of what’s in store.

I have a goal to have this new book published in ebook format by December 31, 2015. Maybe early in the new year, I’ll turn it into an audiobook about audiobooks!

INTRODUCTION to 50 Critical Questions: Discover the Perfect Audiobook Producer

This primer is for people who own or control rights to works of the written word—authors and publishers. If you wish to leverage your intellectual property, you can increase your income by reaching a totally new audience through audiobooks.

A little history lesson is useful here. I promise to keep it short.

We all know the music industry was one of the first to be disrupted by shifts in digital technology. CDs initially gave way to mp3 delivery, and now we have streaming subscriptions to the world’s entire music catalog.

Hard media continues to go the way of the dinosaur. No longer do you need a DVD or BluRay to watch a movie at home. (Let’s skip the discussion about the merits of going to the movies or seeing a band live. That’ll take us on a tangent, and I want to hold to my promise.)

Now, consumers of entertainment subscribe to Netflix or buy whole seasons of TV shows from iTunes or Amazon. These digital titles are saved for you on your Cloud account. Not too long ago, we used to be tethered to a physical location for our entertainment. These days we get to watch and listen On Demand, wherever we are.

Print media has gone digital as well: magazines, newspapers, and of course books. Your friend can tell you about the latest Stephen King book and you can jump onto your smart phone, order it, and start reading it immediately. Hooray for eBooks!

The barriers have been removed, and so, more and more, we expect immediate gratification. In the early years of the new millennium you had to drive to a bookstore and browse. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy that experience even today. But more often than not I couldn’t remember the title or author of that amazing book my friend told me about when I walked through the doors..

Next came the online bookstore. Searching and filtering made finding just the right book that much easier. I could order it and have it shipped to me in a matter of days. This got us used to partially delayed gratification.

Then the eBook was born and the publishing industry spun on its head.

We have a nearperfect audiobook producer 3ly infinite library at our fingertips anywhere on the planet. Yet modern societies are on the move like never before. More than ever, I hear people complaining, “I don’t have time to read.” Life is too fast. Their daily commute—whether by car, bike, bus, or subway—eats up hours of their day.

These are the people who need your audiobooks. The people who multitask as a way of life. Do they clean house or train for marathons or walk the dog? Well then they are your perfect customers.

It seems that everybody and their grandmother knows about eBooks. But strangely, they don’t all know about the modern audiobook. Sure, they vaguely remember “books on tape” and that old image is stuck in their minds like a discolored Polaroid photo. (If you don’t know about Polaroids, just know that there used to be physical, chemical printing for photographs too. The leader in this space was a company called Kodak, which was bigger than Apple is today, but they didn’t shift with the times and were disrupted right off the face of the planet.)

Books on tape—or books on CD for Gen X—were expensive and cumbersome and people mostly bought them for big road trips.

Smart devices changed everything.

To the current generation, “owning” media doesn’t make much sense. Growing up with both a pacifier in your mouth and a smart device in your hand naturally shifts the way you interact with the world. The concept of ownership gives way to the concept of paying for instant access. The new breed purchases a license to the content.

Legally, that’s what we’ve been doing with print books all along, but we got confused because we were holding a physical product in our hands. We thought the transaction was the same as buying a head of lettuce.

The latest media to enter the “Wild West” stage of digital disruption is the audiobook. It’s a rapidly growing market, but still in its infancy. That means there is no better time for authors and publishers to do all they can to enter this space now. It’s not that crowded yet, so getting your titles into the ears of your listeners can massively increase your income today. And don’t forget, digital media is forever. Your audiobook will never go “out of print”. The royalty tail is a long one indeed.

If you can shift your thinking from “I write books” to “I tell stories”, you’ll be on your way to expanding your fan base and growing your revenue.

Jurassic World Logo

Jurassic Park (I)

Jurassic Park LogoThe monstrous success of Jurassic World, so many years after the first book hit the shelves back in 1991, made me wonder why Jurassic Park worked then and still works today. Michael Crichton, the author of the two Jurassic Park novels, knew how to write a riveting thriller with science at it’s center. He’s done it time and again. Man versus monster is a tried and true theme. But buried deeper in this story is this question: is humanity destined to cause its own downfall? If our drive to know how the universe works reveals that we can do something, will we be compelled to bring that something into reality?

 

Let’s see our track record so far:

Nuclear bombs? Check.
Biological weapons? Sadly, check.
Genetic modification of plants and animals for short term gain? Check and check.

And that’s just the 20th century. (17th and 18th centuries too, if you count giving vermin infested blankets to indigenous peoples during imperial conquests.)

It’s a universal theme. The Bronze Age Greeks asked the same thing in their stories. They called it hubris. Arrogance before the gods.

Jurassic Park First SightingBut there are plenty of books with similar themes that never took off like Jurassic Park. But then Crichton was more than just an idea man. He was a quality craftsman. He gave us page turners while all the while teaching us something about the dangers blocking the path toward a healthy future for humanity. And at the heart, in Jurassic Park he gave us a handful of people in conflict with each other as they navigate external strife with monsters.

Some critics of his work say his characters are made of cardboard. They accuse him of writing people who are little more than archetypes. Maybe this is true. But critics are paid to find elements to critique. I think the readers are better suited to gauge the resonance of a work. And readers voraciously devoured his books throughout his career.

Jurassic Park Flare

JURASSIC PARK, 1993. ©Universal/courtesy Everett Collection

Michael Crichton co-wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park with David Koepp. It comes as no surprise that the major beats of the film align with the spine of the book, though changes were naturally made. As a respected film director and TV show creator in his own right, Michael Crichton was intimately familiar with the differences between print and visual media. Many novelists without a screenwriting background have been beaten down by the medium. I think the first Jurassic Park film hit such a deep chord with audiences in part because Spielberg assembled such a spectacular team, including the author of the original story. Worldwide the movie has earned $1,029,153,882. That’s over a billion dollars. And it cost $63 million to make. I hope Michael Crichton and his heirs got a sizable cut of the revenue.

The Lost World (II)

Lost World LogoMovies rarely match the books which gave them life. There are many good reasons for this. Imagine trying to mash a five hundred page book (with dense text and lots of exposition) into a one hundred and twenty page screenplay. Many things have got to go. Big tech-laden monologues must be jettisoned. Globe trotting thrillers have so many damn characters and locations. How can a movie going audience keep them all straight? A reader can set a book down and take time to mull over what just happened. You can go back twenty pages to remind yourself who did what to whom. A movie reel just keeps rolling along until you reach the credits.

Most books have to be cut down to size to fit into a standard time slot in the theater. Three hour movies are rare, and even these can’t fit in every twist and turn of most novels. But in The Lost World, Spielberg made an odd choice; he decided to go with more story, not less. Perhaps he thought the setup and payoff were too similar to the first book. It’s also possible that the filmmakers said, “We can’t have two movies where everything happens on an island.” Other rumors suggest Spielberg wanted to direct a Tyrannosaurus Rex rampaging an American city, and although he thought that would best be explored in a third film, he decided to jam it in because he never expected to direct the third film in the franchise. Hopefully that story of Spielberg’s boyish wish fulfillment was untrue.

I’ve recently read Jaws and re-watched the film. Spielberg improved on the book rather impressively in that instance. And there were extensive cuts.

Furthermore, there’s often a magic in a first book (or film) that can’t be replicated in the followup story. I think it’s because in a first book we are exploring the unknown. The world setup is unique and fresh. Was Jaws II anything close to as good as the original? Before Jurassic Park, can you remember another dinosaur story other than those early 70’s cavemen films with stop motion Pterodactyls?

The antagonists of the first book — the rival company wanting to steal In-Gen’s proprietary technology — are also the antagonists in The Lost World. BioSyn’s rep Dodgson is out to steal eggs and baby dinosaurs again.

In the film, they’ve instead gone for internal strife. Hammond wants to send in a research team to observe how the dinosaurs on island B have survived without human intervention. Hammond’s nephew, in a bid to take over In-Gen, heads to the island with a massive team to capture dinosaurs for a zoo in San Diego.

Why this change? The outward elements are the same. Bad men want to take dinosaurs off the island. In the book there are two sets of people we have to follow in parallel lines. That is hard to pull off in a film. In the movie, once the dinosaurs get the upper hand, the two teams must quickly join forces to get out alive. That’s a clever way to tighten a broad story.

In both the book and film, a Tyrannosaur baby is a key ingredient. A stow away child increases the stakes. The villain meets his demise at the mouth of the baby dinosaur he covets.

More often than not the filmmakers went for one liners over realism or consistency. I won’t argue that a little levity can do wonders to relieve tension.

Lost World San DiegoBut one of the strongest through lines of the book got stripped away, and the film is so much weaker for it. Crichton’s Lost World gave us a female hero. Dr. Sarah Harding’s intelligence and bravery saved the day again and again. Where the men gave up, she forged ahead. And what’s more, she acted as a strong role model for the girl who questioned her own worthiness and capability.

Kelli, the girl, did have a moment of triumph in the movie, but sadly she defeated the physical threat with physicality instead of her critical thinking. She employed her double bar gymnastic routine which failed to win her a spot on the squad back home.

Dr. Sarah Harding’s exuberance and curiosity in the film undermined her status as THE authority in carnivore behavior. She kept wearing her jacket which was covered in baby tyrannosaur blood, yet the animal was supposed to have a sense of smell more powerful than a turkey vulture, as she herself admonished another character a few scenes earlier. It made for a scary set piece, but Crichton didn’t write these sorts of inconsistencies.

Gone is the primacy of scientific knowledge and ingenuity. David Koepp, the screenwriter, must have been asked to simplify the story. I say he dumbed it down and reinforced negative stereotypes, while adding undue complexity in the form of a hundred “red shirt” extras that offered visual opportunities for carnage and mayhem. But if I don’t know a character’s name, I really don’t care how he gets eaten by a pack of velociraptors. Spectacle so often dissipates the moment the lights come up in the theater.

And still, versus its production budget of $73 million, the movie has earned $618 million worldwide. No wonder they keep making them.

Jurassic Park III

Jurassic Park IIIWith the next installment, the number of (credited) writers increased to three. It’s my opinion that the longer the list of screenwriters, the more the producers are working from a place of fear. And when fear takes over the storytelling, you get bland, tired tropes. You get set pieces that work by themselves, but fail to follow through down the storyline. Playing it safe increasingly means leaning on spectacle and forgetting about plausibility.

In flawed movies like this I am often more impressed by the actors (good actors in bad movies). I readily admit I’ve acted in poorly written and directed films. I’ve had a tough time pulling off hammy lines and acting out terror when I knew the monster was just a man in a rubber suit. The Jurassic Park movies, however flawed, never miss the mark with casting. The studios hire consummate professionals who have extremely healthy imaginations and a willingness to take risks.

But with each subsequent link in the franchise chain, we see fewer scenes which require emotional vulnerability and more that rely on visual effects. Crunch, stomp, destroy, explode, kill, and rampage.

This installment hinges on the same story setup as book 1:

The external story: save some kids from man made dangers (dinosaurs).
The internal story: Selling one’s ethical stance to fund good works.
The hook: Dr. Grant’s latest theory is that velociraptors have the ability to communicate verbally with each other. More intelligent. More dangerous.
The Fatal Flaw: taking eggs from the velociraptor’s nest.

If this is starting to seem like a formula, don’t worry about second guessing yourself. Eggs and babies. It’s always eggs and babies.

Michael Crichton stopped writing the book series after the second novel. He moved on to new ground. For him, the idea of dinosaurs being brought back by man had been explored thoroughly and completely. There are a lot of scientific discoveries out there making waves for our future. Why ride the same rollercoaster again and again?

But increasingly the film industry relies on rehashing the same worlds. I can understand this stance. A book costs the time and energy of one person. A movie costs millions of dollars and the time and energy of hundreds of people. So an author naturally can afford to take bigger chances than a screenwriter for hire.

Supposedly there was never a finished script for this film. The director Joe Johnston is quoted as saying, “We shot pages that eventually went into the final script but we didn’t have a document.” Imagine building a skyscraper without a blueprint or plans. And yet the movie pulled in $389 million worldwide. Compared to the first film, this was a flop. But taking the $93 million dollar budget into account, this film was still a resounding success. Why put that much more energy into making the story better when you get returns like that? ROI first, art second, is the business of making movies. Studio executives will make that choice all day long. I hate to admit it, but I might have too.

Jurassic World (IV)

Jurassic World LogoYears have passed and Crichton’s ideas have once more been resurrected. Is there room for a fourth story in this world he created? Those Costa Rican islands aren’t very big after all.

The studios, of course, say yes. They cite brand recognition and an excellent monetary track record. Star Wars is still a force to be reckoned with. Star Trek continues to travel to places where no one has gone before.

So what do we find in Jurassic World?

Hubris. Greed. Kids in danger. A lone voice of dissent that points out the dangers to which others are blind. (Why does it always have to be the male voice?) A love story subplot where opposites attract. All these we’ve seen before.

This story does have some new ideas, though. Well, new to this franchise. Hammond’s dream has finally come to fruition. An island park is fully functional and running like clockwork. Like the successful Terminator 2, the devious monsters from the earlier stories are now on the side of the heroes, though it’s a shaky alliance. The big bad killing machines, the Tyrannosaurs, have been modified, upgraded, and given unnatural abilities, because the patrons are already bored by resurrected relics. They continuously demand the next big thing. In this sense, the whole of society is to blame, not just a few greedy directors of the board. And there are no eggs to steal this time.

Training VelociraptorsYes, we’ve seen many of these plot points before. But they do dovetail nicely. The story is surprisingly compact. In that regard, it’s very much like the original Jurassic Park, which came out twenty two years ago! (Go back and watch it. It still holds up.) If you were a kid when it busted your block way back in 1993, you likely have kids of your own now. And beyond the solid script, fresh cast, and dedicated director, I think that timing is the biggest factor for its runaway success. Sharing the magic of your youth with your own children has to be one of the most satisfying experiences a forty-year-old could ever have. To see your son light up next to you in the theater and say, “Did you see that dad, when the velociraptor jumped over the…”

It’s 2015. One would hope that Michael Crichton’s vision of strong, intelligent women saving the day was commonplace. Alas, it’s not the norm. There are positive outliers, like The Hunger Games Trilogy books and films. But Dreamworks failed on this front yet again by playing it safe. Likely the producers cite their target demographic — 13 year old boys — as the reason why 95% of the characters of substance are male.

I don’t buy it. Way back in 1977, Alien broke through that stereotype and gave us Ripley. She was smarter and stronger than her crew mates and the monster. And we all know how well the Alien series has fared. Several of Crichton’s books exhibit a female main character of integrity and brilliance. That’s the Jurassic film I want to see.

The latest film cost twice as much to make as the others — $150 million — but in less than six months, Jurassic World has brought in $1,668,889,431. That’s $1.67 billion! So far, it’s the third highest grossing film of all time. Supposedly there is already a sequel to Jurassic World in the works, and with these numbers it’s no wonder.

Jurassic World HuntA story concept dreamed up way back in 1991 still has solid legs. In a world where technology advances exponentially, one would expect Michael Crichton’s science to be dry as fossilized dinosaur bones. That we are seeing just the opposite shows just how far ahead of the times his ideas have been. Sadly, our medical science hadn’t progressed fast enough to cure him of the cancer that took him from us way too early.

There are new authors out there taking up his mantle. Markus Sakey’s Brilliance Trilogy is a great example. Andy Weir’s The Martian has shown us that stories with science at their core can launch into a bestselling orbit.

In my small way, I hope to carry on in Michael Crichton’s tradition of exploring how science can both help and harm humanity. I’ve even tried my hand at putting a female heroine dead center of my novel The Distance Between and having her run circles around the men in the story.

Humans explore. We create. We can’t help ourselves. What we choose to do with our creations is our daily choice for good or evil. I for one think those themes are worthy of further digging.

(Full Disclosure: Many of the links in this article lead to products at Amazon. If you make a purchase by following the link, you will be helping support my writing and blog through their affiliate program. I get a tiny slice of each sale, and every little bit helps pay for my hosting service. Thanks!)
The Distance Between
The Distance Between

These are exciting times! The first installment of The CUBIK Conspiracy Series is now available for immediate download exclusively from Amazon.  If you already pre-ordered, THANK YOU! Your eBook will be delivered to your Kindle or Kindle App on your smart device automatically.

If you are still deciding when to dive into the CUBIK universe, there’s no better time than today. Please help me move up in the ranking by ordering The Distance Between today and leaving a fair and honest review on Amazon.

In about a week, the print version goes live. So if you like the smell and feel of freshly printed books, I’ve got you covered. The ebook and print cover designs (by Damonza Book Cover Design & Formatting) were exactly what I was hoping for.

There were a few iterations of the design before I settled on the motif above.

Distance6 Distance1 Distance3B Distance4

Lately, I’ve been asked a lot of questions about this particular story and also the CUBIK world. Below you’ll find a compilation of some of the Q’s followed by my A’s.

Q&A with the author of THE DISTANCE BETWEEN:

Q: Where did you get the idea to make a female grad student the center of a revolution that breaks out in the heart of Silicon Valley?

A: I started my career in physics and engineering, and I had worked with several extremely intelligent women who, sadly, had to scrape and work that much harder to get the recognition they deserved (my wife among them). As a man, I have no shortage of heroes in fiction. So I wanted to place a female hero squarely in the center of the conflict and give her a chance to run circles around the men of the story.

Q: There’s a fair amount of physical conflict in The Distance Between. How does Lexi know how to handle herself so well?

A: You wouldn’t expect a post-doc at Stanford to know martial arts or survival tactics. That’s part of the mystery of this story. Lexi can do things that she’s been hiding from everyone at college. Especially her boyfriend Kyle. At every turn she has tough choices–to protect the people around her, she has to reveal parts of herself and her past that she’s gone to great lengths to bury. That makes her vulnerable, and for someone who likes control, that’s agony.

Q: You lived in Southeast Asia for awhile writing and producing films. Why did you move from filmmaking into fiction?

A: I love filmmaking. I can’t deny it. But it’s expensive to get a film off the ground, not to mention getting it properly distributed in theaters. You can write a screenplay and even sell it to a big studio only to see it sit on a shelf for ten years, never to be produced. And a screenplay is like a blueprint for a house. It’s not the final product. With fiction, I have a much more direct connection to fans, and I can write in an earthquake if I want to and not worry about blowing out the budget! One film we did get made was the award-winning CUBIK, and I loved the characters so much, I just had to discover more about them by writing The CUBIK Conspiracy series.

Q: The subtitle of this book – The CUBIK Conspiracy Book 1 – suggests more to come. Who will make it to the second installment and how many books can we expect in the CUBIK universe?

A: You are absolutely spot on. There is much more I intend to explore.  We had come up with so much backstory for CUBIK the movie that was never going to make it into the film. I kicked around the idea for a TV series, but here again there are so many people involved and capital needed it just made sense to explore the characters and ideas in long form writing. I love the freedom. I can write a side novel for any character I want. The limitations are removed. That said, if I told you who makes it to Book 2 and beyond, I’d be giving away too much. As for the number of books, this is bigger than a trilogy, I know that for sure. Books 2 and 3 are in the outlining phase, a finished short story will be published soon, and I’m already halfway through writing a CUBIK Conspiracy novella. These are exciting times.

When you read THE DISTANCE BETWEEN, you’ll feel like you’re watching a movie!

This story has been a long time in the making. Process is different for every writer. Some are “pantsers” who start on page one and figure it out as they go along. The others, the “planners”, work out details to the n-th degree. I fall somewhere in the middle, and draw heavily on my screenwriting background. What you get is an intricate plot with surprising situations that give the main characters a hell of a lot of grief.

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A jovial comparison between two of the world’s top mystery conventions.

What’s in a name? That’s my question for the day. Contrary to popular belief, you can actually start to judge a book by it’s cover, and the name plays a prominent role. Earlier this year I attended Left Coast Crime, the western United States’ premier author and fan convention for crime, mystery, and thriller books. In autumn I made my way east to Bouchercon, the biggest mystery convention in America.

First, what’s a Boucher and why is it so important that it has it’s own con? Boucher was a who, not a what. Anthony Boucher helped found the Mystery Writers of America, founded widely read genre magazines, wrote book reviews for the New York Times, and penned seven of his own novels. The man helped raise respect for genre fiction, and so has been rightly honored by the community. If you’ve ever seen “Anthony Award Winning Novel” on a book you’ve read, that’s him too.

Bouchercon 2016 Mystery ConventionUsually when someone shortens “United States of America” to “America” I begin to wonder what brand of jingoistic rhetoric will follow. What makes the U.S. inherently more important than Canada or Mexico? They both reside in North America, in the very same continent. Both have relatively large areas. Each has a unique and rich history. Then there’s Central and South American countries to consider. So I apologize for using the concatenation to America (when I say the festival is the biggest mystery convention in America), but it is apt. The Bouchercon festival is big. They completely book out not one, but two high rise hotels. Not just the rooms for attendees, but also all the conference rooms for panels, lectures, and awards.

Like Jack Reacher, the famed ex-military police hero of author Lee Child’s best-seller thriller series, both these conventions land in a new city each year, with a new cast of characters driving the plot, and novel problems and adventures to navigate. Nonetheless, in “America” there’s enough space for these conventions to never come into direct conflict. Bouchercon actually claims to be “THE world mystery convention”, but I thought that sounded hyperbolic. To be fair, the convention periodically lands in Canada, and has twice been held in England. Regardless of their respective claims, the conventions smartly choose to be “frenemies”. They occur in different seasons and avoid being in the same region. You stay in your city, I’ll stay in mine, and we’ll have no problems, okay buddy?

Now we come to Left Coast Crime. The name tells me a lot. Whereas Bouchercon requires a conversation to explain what it is to your mother, Left Coast Crime takes a stab at saying exactly what it is. At the very least it lets a person know where and what it is. That said, it’s not wholly accurate. Is Phoenix on the coast? Not yet. We have to wait for “the big one” to get
George Strait’s vision of ocean front property in Arizona. But Phoenix is essentially LA without the water, so I won’t quibble. Crime is clear, even if it doesn’t cover all the genres represented.

Left Coast Crime 2016 mystery, crime, thriller conventionI’m dubious of the first word, “Left”. I’m a globally minded individual. I’ve lived in countries other than the land of my birth. The points of view of another country’s citizenry differ greatly from those of your own countrymen (and women). Many “Americans” so annoyingly call the USA “the best country on earth”. Hubris I say. France has a deep and rich history that cannot be ignored. The term lingua franca, used by English speakers I might add, roughly translates to “the common tongue”, the bridge language utilized by different groups to effectively communicate. I also lived for several years in Southeast Asia, in Singapore. The 15th century Sultanate of Johor, which encompassed the island of Singapore, was a beacon of modernity when Europeans rarely bathed and medical care meant being bled by a barber.

I say all this for perspective. For point of view. Reference point matters. Look at a map of the world. Go ahead. Find one on the internet. If it was fabricated by someone in the USA, you’ll find north America squarely in the middle. The north pole will be at the top of the map. This is why Left Coast Crime is Left. Left of what? Left of east, of course. The Californians needed a catchy phrase to let people know they were just as culturally relevant as easterners in New York, Boston, and Washington D.C. To be honest, I think a lot of New Yorkers would say theirs is the best city in the world, but that’s a fight for another day.

Imagine that you are Australian. Perhaps you don’t have to imagine, if you, fine reader, are an Aussie. Everyone else has to engage their gray matter. Put yourself down in Sydney, down under as they say. Then ask yourself, “Under what?” Bring up a vision of that map in your mind, or just look on your computer screen. I’ll wait… Australia is down under that big red horizontal line that divides the map in two. You already had the equator in your head before I had you look at the map, didn’t you? Alright, I’ll speed along.

Australian Perspective of the WorldSo we come back to reference frame. As the earth goes around the sun in an ever-so-slightly elliptical orbit, it spins on an axis that roughly goes through the north pole and south pole. So up and down make sense when we’re talking about the poles. To be accurate we’d have to take into account an offset between the axis and the magnetic poles, but you get the idea for this argument. (Shush you scientists.) If you were playing a sport that uses a ball, what would up or down mean on the ball? Not much. It’s a sphere. It’s the same no matter how you hold it. The same thing goes for earth.

The Australians have maps that are flipped on their heads. Australia is no longer down under. It is up above. The south pole is at the top. And you know what that does to California when compared to New York? Yes, you get it. It’s now the Right Coast, which has marketing appeal, with it’s double meaning.


Next year, I’ll be headed to Thrillerfest, in addition to Right Coast Crime and the Anthony Boucher Honorary World Mystery Convention, to hang out at the bar with other authors, launch another book, and hopefully be asked to be on a panel to discuss the rise of audiobooks, like I did this year at Bouchercon. Thrillerfest never roams. It stays in the hub of worldwide publishing, New York City. The home of the Big 5.

But wait. You’ve heard that Amazon has it’s own publishing arm. And aren’t ebooks taking over? That, my friends, is a beast to slay on another day.

It’s time I got back to writing Funeral Rights, my next installment of The CUBIK Conspiracy book series.

Thank you for checking out my brand new Podcast series called DIGITAL-TALES!  Stay tuned to this space to hear these upcoming Podcast shows:

DIGITAL-TALES Inflection Point: I’ll be interviewing scientists and entrepreneurs who are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for an abundant future, while sharing active research for my novels.

DIGITAL-TALES Story Digitizer:  I’ll interview authors, along with narrating their short stories.

DIGITAL-TALES Sound Bytes:  Listen to serialized novellas written by me and also round-robined with other authors.

Do you have an audiobook version of your book?

Click below to get Jason’s free PDF on how to choose the perfect narrator!

Directed by Jason Brenizer
Written & Produced by Jason Brenizer & Stefan Fanthome

A trailer for the 32-minute award winning film that sparked THE CUBIK CONSPIRACY book series.

A re-imagining of the Singapore underworld which follows the exploits of a young woman torn between living up to her familial expectations and finding her own passions in life.

Film festivals include WorldFest Houston IFF, HollyShorts FF, Action On Film FF, Singapore Short FF, and Cincinnati Film Festival.

CUBIK won the Grand Remi at WorldFest, the same as Steven Spielberg’s first award.

Singapore is notoriously strict. If you are found with a firearm, you’ll see serious prison time. Fire that weapon, it’s even worse. Stefan and Jason wondered how the technology of protection would be distorted under the pressures of such an efficiently run society.

We teamed up with members of LucasFilm and ILM to transform our independent film into a feast for the eyes.

On the flip side, we engaged cast and crew from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, India, the USA, and the Philippines to give the story a true flavor of Southeast Asia.

In San Francisco, rising seas have claimed the districts lining the bay. The streets have decayed into a twisted version of Venice. The people scrabbling in these Zones have been abandoned by the government, while the wealthy sit protected in their pristine Rezident Enclaves and tell jokes about Canalo Alto and San Weteo. The Zoners have had enough. They want revolution.

And for some reason, they want Stanford post-doc Lexi Huang, too. She’s had a sneaking suspicion for weeks that someone’s been stalking her. But when the voice of the revolution, Mr. Megaphone, calls her from the riot brewing outside her campus lab, Lexi goes on the run, with boyfriend Kyle in tow.

She’s been preparing for something like this her whole life. In fact, her family insisted on it. Now, to weather the political hurricane, she must rely on concealed talents, while hiding their origins from Kyle to keep a promise. And the Zoners aren’t the only ones tracking her.

To survive, she’ll have to violate her values and jettison her dreams of a simple life far from the shadow of her Singaporean family. She’s the city’s most wanted. She’s the key to the revolution. And when she crosses your path, devastation is only one step behind.

[The Distance Between is Book 1 in the CUBIK Conspiracy Series]

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Want to see the film that inspired THE CUBIK CONSPIRACY?

Click below to watch CUBIK the MOVIE online free!

Narrated by Jason Brenizer

1. clairvoyant; able to see into the future
2. to do with or related to fairies
3. fated to die, or having a foreboding of death

Major Vince Lombard, Galactic Marine Corps (Ret.) is a professional gambler, slowly working his way back to Earth, once gambling station at a time, when he finds himself at the center of brewing storm. Someone has taken an interest in an old Earth legend, but for what purpose, no one seems to know, exactly.

The fate of the Fey has always been tied to the fate of humanity, but they have been content to stay in the background for ages, without worry that human-kind is destined to continue on into the foreseeable future. Humanity has forgotten their very existence, as well as their role in the destiny of both races.

But now, after the better part of two millennia, one of the Fey pops up again, and in the most unlikely place: Many millions of miles away from Old Earth, on a space station that serves as a gambling casino.

A decorated war-hero, Vince finds himself at the center of a brewing storm, as humans and aliens alike begin to see the potential uses a fairy can be put to. It’s not just that everybody wants one. Everybody wants THIS one, and it won’t be easy to find a path through the problems ahead, keeping his new Fey friend out of the hands of the government, and the aliens, alike. But an old veteran like Vince has a few tricks up his sleeve, still. Could that be why the fairy came to him?

Fairies are capable of things that humans have no explanation for. But they can’t do everything, and sometimes, even a fairy needs a hand. Who better than a Galactic Marine to help, when some good old human ingenuity is called for? Maybe Vince has found a friend for life, in his Fey companion. If he can save her life, that is.

“Fey” is a sometimes-whimsical, fun, and light fantasy/sci-fi adventure story.

Available at Audible.com, iTunes, and Amazon.

Listen Now!

Do you have an audiobook version of your book?

Click below to get Jason’s free PDF on how to choose the perfect narrator!