Being a part of Bibliophile’s Workshop’s many different blog tours,“ will give you the opportunity to read various novels, spanning many genres and writing styles, along with helping share new, promising titles with readers all across the internet.

    Growing Up Dead  Audiobook Blog Tour Monday, April 27,2014 – Ends Saturday May 2,2015

Information About the Book:

Amazon/Itunes

SPECIAL BLOG TOUR GIVEAWAY: There’s a chance to win one of three complimentary digital downloads of the Audible.com Audiobook edition of Greg Wilkey’s Growing Up Dead.

Keep your eyes peeled for two cover images of the sequels in Greg Wilkey’s Mortimer Drake series below that  both carry  links to a special Rafflecopter Widget, from where you must complete different tasks in order to earn entries, to increase the chances of possibly winning an audiobook. All winners are chosen randomly, so your cumulative number of entries does not automatically qualify you as a selected winner.  It only increases the probability that you may be one of the chosen winners.

Fortunately, the contest is open to everyone, worldwide, since we are giving away digital editions of the audiobook, not physical CD or cassette copies as those do not exist. The contest ends at Midnight, May 2nd 2015, and the three winners will be promptly informed via email, bearing the very exciting news that they are one of the lucky winners of this dramatic audio-recording  from Auspicious Apparatus Press of the first book in Greg Wilkey’s four book Mortimer Drake series.

Click either the two cover photos of the two sequels to Growing Up Dead, to access the Rafflecopter Widget, allowing you to enter for your chance to win the Growing Up Dead audiobook!! 

 Day #3 Review of Growing Up Dead  Audiobook

Throughout my reading intensive life, I have rarely listened to audio-books. I really listen to them pretty sparingly; the only time having listened to one wasn’t really your run-of-the-mill, narrated audio-book. It was actually a full-cast radio dramatization of the Dark Horse Comic “Star Wars: Empire Rising” that I can recall most fondly, whenever I think of truly memorable recordings. Even without any cinematic scenes being reenacted or written text, that audiobook brought the story of a daunting future, for the Rebels in the Star Wars universe, within the immediate future of the events of the film Return of the Jedi, wherein the formidable Emperor Palpatine returns to wreak havock on the rebels. The story was wonderfully recorded; it even included some new musical compositions, written by John Williams. It was truly fantastic, and left such a deep impression on my mind, from that day on. Sadly, not every author has the type of finances to support a radio drama with a full-cast, therefore publishers and authors are limited to  hiring out singular audiobook narrators to play all the eclectic roles of the characters, and also serve as a narrator. The notable difference between a radio dramatization and audiobook is that the radio dramatization normally involves an extended cast of different voice actors/actresses to play each specific role, where an audiobook is limited to just one strong narrator. It also has an abridged script, modified to fit the more tightly-edited format of a radio broadcast.

For this audiobook recording of a highly suspenseful, strongly written story like the first of the Mortimer Drake novels, Growing Up Dead, a relatively unknown, though skilled in his own right, actor, by the name of Maxwell Zenner, took up the task of serving as the audiobook reader. There was some adjustment for me as the listener, as I again am not an avid audiobook listener, but the experience of hearing the story read once more to me, in a wholly different way, was very much as vivid, exciting, frenetically-paced, and truly action-packed, as I remembered the experience of actually reading Growing Up Dead  was.

For an audiobook adaptation, Growing Up Dead‘s narrator Maxwell Zenner has fairly good diction, and a good grasp on the slight nuances in enunciation and intonation for different types of characters. He characterizes even lesser known characters like the school nurse with the right degree of slight irritation, with soft undertones of cantankerous feeling. Mr Lee, as well, has just the right tone of being stern, though conscientious of the students at the middle school,h where the main half-vampire, half-human character Mortimer Drake attends. Sometimes a few of his other accents are not really that varied from some of the other characters within the story, but for a first attempt, it was very well done, well-polished, and very easy to listen to, and immediately sink immediately into the story. His dramatic voice does provide a great storytelling voice that really makes the experience of listening to Growing Up Dead a mostly enjoyable, engrossing experience.

Sometimes, the chapter breaks feel a bit awkwardly intoned, when Maxwell Zenner reads the number, and yes that’s a ridiculously persnickety spot of criticism, but I cannot help but feel the transitions between chapters thus felt a little jarring, and lacking of the right dramatic vigor behind it. Otherwise, it’s a fairly competent, enjoyable recording, which actually sounds like a very professional recording, which makes you wonder whether larger publishing companies should be concerned by the stiff indie-publishing competition out there. Many of the audio-books of self-published novels, such as Greg Wilkey’s Growing Up Dead, are receiving comparatively high-quality, robust audiobook recordings that might prove to make publishing professionals feel a tad bit disconcerted.

Much like the story, it was hard to turn off my Ipod, once I pressed “Play,” and though my preferences still remain higher for radio dramas, with a full cast, I still can understand the appeal of audio-books, and certainly found this to be a strong offering from Auspicious Apparatus Press. If you have a forthcoming car trip, you may want to add this to your Ipod for the long car ride ahead of you. Just don’t get too distracted by the story, as I have found listening to it on the train, may make you forget where you are (I am really not good at the whole, listening to something, even while sitting, and needing to be semi-attentive thing…How do people drive and listen to things like music or audiobooks, at the same time??)

   If you are interested in learning Todd Bareselow’s (owner of Auspicious Apparatus Press) outlook on the emerging market of audiobook adaptations of self-published stories, check out the first post of this week-long blog tour, celebrating the release of Greg Wilkey’s audiobook adaptation of Growing Up Dead.

    Tomorrow’s post will include an interview I conducted with the author of the Mortimer Drake books, Greg Wilkey, as the blog tour continues till Saturday of this week!