JoJo Jensen, voice artist, author and entrepreneur tells the tale:
“It would be really cool if you recorded the first chapter of my book,” my friend Tom said in his easy manner.
I looked at him like he had just invented the snickerdoodle. Brilliant!
Chapter & Voice didn’t start out as a business… it began as a favor. I wanted to help Tom spark interest for his military science fiction novel. It was (and still is) a ripping good yarn, but he was stuck in marketing and submission hell and didn’t know what else to do.
As an author myself, I knew how hard it was (and still is) to market and sell manuscripts. But… I also knew that as a professional voice talent, I could record and produce an audio sample that would give Tom the attention-grabbing marketing tool he needed to sell his kick-butt, action packed novel.
The recording for his book totally rocked. When I mentioned my little endeavor to other writers, they flipped out. They wanted me to record samples of their books too! So- I did. And, here we are.
Here’s what I know now. Audio, in all its forms, is gaining in popularity and Chapter & Voice is here to help writers use this medium to get published, get known and sell books.
And with that, Chapter & Voice was born. It was a great pleasure and privilege to be a part of kicking off this project, along with Heather Henderson, Stephen Bowlby, and Jamie Muffett.
To be clear, this is not full audiobook production. We will record about 1,250 words from whatever section of the book the author would like, and send back a clean, polished “AudioTeaser,” which can then be used to promote the book to buyers and publishers. I know from talking with JoJo a number of times about this that she is very excited for Chapter and Voice to see the light of day. She definitely has a vision for this, and really wants to open up this new path for marketing books in an exciting and effective new way.
So go check out Chapter and Voice on the site, find us on Facebook, and of course follow the Twitter account @chapterandvoice. It’s definitely fun to be on the leading edge of something like this!
