Viviana, Enchantress of Books and I are super excited to welcome first time guest Liz Berry to the blog today. This is also our first time hosting Liz during Audio Book Lovin. For those who don’t know Liz let me introduce her to you.
Please welcome Liz to the blog:
Liz Berry has two passions. She is the executive director of International Thriller Writers (ITW), a trade group of over 3,000 thriller writers from around the world. Previously, she was the long-time director of Thrillerfest, the annual gathering of ITW, which happens in New York City every July.
With M.J. Rose, Liz co-founded and co-operates 1,001 Dark Nights and Evil Eye Concepts, Inc — an Internet marketing company that works to brand authors and expand readership within the romance genre.
Liz has a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Georgia and also studied at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Both areas of study have allowed her to gain twenty-plus years of experience in the ever-changing marketing field.
She proudly serves on the Education Committee for the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board, and, with her husband, novelist Steve Berry, operates History Matters, a non-profit foundation dedicated to historic preservation. For more information, visit ThrillerWriters.org, 1001DarkNights.com, and History-Matters.org.
I will now turn the blog over to Liz.
There have been many “firsts” with 1001 Dark Nights. The first author to say yes to the project. The first book to publish. The first event we sponsored. The first sale. So many firsts!
But I have to say that one of my absolute favorites was the first time I heard one of our books on audio. Totally surreal!
My business partner, M.J. Rose, and I always hoped that we’d see 1001 Dark Nights in all formats. Readers experience books in many different ways and we wanted to give them any experience they needed. So when we finalized our contract with Audible, we were both thrilled! The publishing side of my brain was pleased and our authors were super excited. The only problem was, I forgot about the fan part of my brain — and I wasn’t quite prepared for her reaction :).
We’ve often called 1001 Dark Nights “Fan Girl Central” — it’s one of the driving forces behind the creation of the project — so I shouldn’t have been surprised at myself when I listened to the first of our published audio books and went Fan Girl Crazy!
It was just so amazing to hear the words of our talented authors come to life. To feel the emotion of the story and get swept away in the rhythm of the words. To hear the narrator’s voice envelope the characters. Become them. To experience all five of my senses and then some. Wow. Just…wow. I couldn’t stop listening!
Bottom line: to me, audio is one of the post powerful formats that we, as fan girls, can utilize, and I’m incredibly proud that 1001 Dark Nights novellas are part of the audio family.
Thank you so much for having me!
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1001 dark nights is one of the best series out their!! i love all the writers, and theirs alittle something for everyone. i love that their are women who run this series!! about time women starting having say in the reading world!!!