The Publishing Team Effort

My first audio drama came out yesterday, and it’s been a great team experience from start to finish.

When I was first asked to write Vox Tenebris way back in February I got inordinately excited, mainly because it meant revisiting the first character I ever wrote about for Black Library, the arrogant young Space Wolf, Drenn Redblade. Even better, it picked up the Space Marine’s story two hundred years on from that first tale, pitched him in alongside an old enemy, and placed the pair of them in the daemon-infested vaults at the heart of the ongoing War Zone Fenris saga. What more could I ask for?

Story plotting aside, working on an audio drama really brought home how many people work on any given product in the publishing industry. After my keyboard-battering my editor, Lindsey, was first port of call in explaining how, no, I couldn’t just approach this as another short story. She held my hand through the process of turning Drenn’s tale into one that would translate properly via the spoken medium. After that another editor, Laurie, took the story I’d written and turned it into a proper, fully-fledged script. Next up the voice actors, John Banks, Steve Conlin and Toby Longworth – all incredibly talented guys – brought said script to life. Howard Carter added in the sound design, SFX and music, while it was all overseen by the managerial, production presence of Matthew Renshaw. The process received the cherry-on-top via Rafael Teruel’s stunning CD cover artwork, which you can see above.

I couldn’t be happier with the way it’s all turned out. To have contributed work towards such a talented and hard-working team is something I’ve always wanted to do, and the fact that Black Library embraces all possible publishing medias shows they’re staying with the cutting edge of an ever-changing industry. Hopefully Vox Tenebris won’t be my last such piece!