Interview With R.S. Belcher, Author of THE QUEEN’S ROAD (Audible Original)

I’m super excited to have R.S. Belcher visiting the blog today to talk about his new Audible Original book, The Queen’s Road. If you are a regular visitor of this blog, you’ll know that The Queen’s Road was my very first experience listening to an audio book, and I thought it would be fun to ask Rod about his path to publishing an “audio only” book!

Welcome back to the blog, Rod!

Thank you so much, Tammy!  It’s great to be here again.

I understand The Queen’s Road is your first Audible Original book, and it’s my very first audiobook! Since it’s sort of a “first” for both of us, I thought it would be fun to chat about the experience. The Queen’s Road is an Audible Original, which means it’s only available in audio format at the moment. How did this Audible publishing opportunity come about?

I had an idea for a new series that was more Space Opera than Urban Fantasy, but it still had a lot of connections to the contemporary world.  It had some the things in it I love to write about: fast cars and highways and it also had some elements from some of my most beloved Science Fiction and Fantasy books I’d read—stuff like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Chronicles of Amber, Doctor Who, and the Saga comic book series.  I actually wasn’t thinking Green Lantern when I was developing it or writing it, but now, after the fact, I can see why some folks are comparing them.  I love Green Lantern too, so I’m good with that.

So, I started kicking around ideas and eventually I developed a pitch for it and sent it to my fantastic agent, Lucienne Diver.  She liked it and approached numerous publishers, including Audible Originals.  We got a very nice response back from several publishers and we finally decided to go with Audible.

My first work for Audible was an audio adaptation of the 30 Days of Night graphic novel a few years back.  I’ve always enjoyed working with them and I really liked the idea of this particular book and series being at home with Audible.  It makes it feel more like a movie or an event, which I think works very well with this project.

I’m fascinated by the business side of publishing and how books are sold to various publishers, so I love hearing about how Audible ended up with your book. How are your fans reacting to an “audio only” book of yours?

It seems to be being very well-received.  I’m getting great feedback and reviews.  I do get a lot of questions about if, and when, it will be out as a hard copy book.  There is an agreement in place with an excellent publisher to produce and release The Queen’s Road as a book after Audible’s exclusivity to the title comes to a close.

Well, you do have lots of fans who love your print books, so it doesn’t surprise me that you get asked that question! Did you have any interaction or input during the audio production, and were you able to work with narrator Kaleo Griffith during the recording process?

Kaleo contacted me shortly before they began production, as did the director of the project.  I had some input in choosing him as the narrator for the book.  The samples I heard of  his previous works were outstanding and I was excited to see what he’d do with all the different characters in this one.  He’s a great guy and has been very supportive of the project.  I hope he can be our narrator for the whole series.  I’d love that!

I loved Kaleo’s narration, and I’m eager to listen to more of his work. Have you listened to the audiobook yourself? And if so, how would you compare the audio experience to the traditional method of reading a book on the printed page?

I have listened and I really enjoyed it.  I found Kaleo’s work to be amazing.  It’s a big cast, some human, those from different ethnic backgrounds, aliens, synthetic beings, aliens who talk telepathically.  He nails it.  All of it.  I loved his work on this and I feel very lucky to have had him on the book.  I hope he can do the rest of the series as well.

A few years ago, my daughter was in the hospital, out of town, about five hours away, one-way. I devoured as many audiobooks as I could to fill the travel time, and I fell in love with the format.  I do think at times you can “miss stuff” if you get distracted by other things going on around you, but I have that same problem with traditional books.  Back in the 2010s there was this concern that audio and e-books were going to mean the end of traditional books. I don’t believe that.  Nothing feels like a book in your hands, nothing smells like a real book. I think audiobooks are here to stay. They compliment and enhance our busy, “multi-tasking lifestyle,” but physicals books are here to stay too.  I’m very happy that The Queen’s Road is going to be available n both formats, eventually.

That’s a great way to think of it, that print, audio and e-books all have value in publishing. You mentioned that The Queen’s Road will eventually be published in print. Can you give us any more details?

There have been discussions with an excellent publisher to produce and release The Queen’s Road as a book.  It is an Audible Original exclusive, so for now, Audible is the only place to find it.  It will be that way with the rest of the series moving forward.  After that exclusivity period is over I can give you, and my readers more detail on when and where they can find The Queen’s Road as an “analog” book, hahahaha!

Ha ha! I can’t wait. My true love will always be print books. Are any of your other books available in audio? Because now that I’ve lived through the experience, I’m actually eager to try it again!

Audible’s done the audiobooks for some of my other novels: Nightwise, The Night Dahlia, The Brotherhood of the Wheel, King of the Road, and the Men In Black International adaptation I wrote. Audible also distributes Macmillan Audio’s unabridged audiobook for The Six-Gun Tarot, the first book in my Golgotha series of Weird Westerns, and my first novel.

The whole, current Golgotha series is also available from Graphic Audio.  These are abridged audio plays that have a cast of really amazing voice actors, a soundtrack, and sound effects.  They do an excellent job and it’s really a different experience from reading the books.  We are talking with Graphic Audio about producing and releasing the audio adaptation of the new Golgotha book, The Ghost Dance Judgement, that releases this summer. Ghost Dance is the fourth in the series, but that might be a discussion for another day. Hahahaha!

Oh wow, you have no idea how excited I am to hear about The Ghost Dance Judgement! Thank you Rod, this has been a lot of fun:-D

About the author:

R.S. (ROD) BELCHER is an award-winning newspaper and magazine editor and reporter.

Rod has been a private investigator, a DJ, a comic book store owner and has degrees in criminal law, psychology and justice and risk administration, from Virginia Commonwealth University. He’s done Masters work in Forensic Science at The George Washington University, and worked with the Occult Crime Taskforce for the Virginia General Assembly.

He lives in Roanoke Virginia with his children: Jonathan and Emily .

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Read my review of The Queen’s Road

Find Rod & the book: Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon