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You might wonder what Iron Maiden has to do with the production of my audiobook The Door - a manual for panic, anxiety and depression. Well, it all started when my anxiety and inner darkness began to grow in early teenage years. I was eleven years old when I went pretty wild. I started to smoke, changed my looks, hung around with the bad boys and wrote my first song. It was a success in the post-soviet ghetto of my home city Sofia. I felt strong alone.

Iron Maiden became my religion for some years. I studied their lyrics, the drums, the guitars, the vocal twist in every note Bruce Dickinsson was singing. My favorite album was and has always been Somewhere In Time, but Revelations and Infinite Dreams are my favorite songs. 

Here is a spontaneous hometribute: 

https://youtu.be/NcL3zL_QhPY

The music I listened to as a teenager made a great impact on who I am today. It gave birth to another dimension in my creativity. I never got the same opportunities as my peers in the western world had. We were economically poor, but not in our souls. My soul was rich. My beloved uncle Emanuil (R.I.P.) paid my private lessons for ten years in singing, piano, guitar and writing (litterature). Eventually when I was on my way to becoming a professional singer I understood that something was wrong - the musicians around me considered me as "not good enough", my self-confidence was too fragile and my emotional condition was too unstable. I know many singers have worse ups and downs than me but they swirl in the tornado of that very special life musicians live. I did not. I actually hate that life because I hate to travel, I hate schedules, I hate being exposed to direct social interference. But I love singing in the studio and writing songs. I have been a prisoner in this roller coaster of extremely creative periods and depressions. Actually, I have always been that way but when I moved to Sweden everything became much clearer.  

I believe my manic depressive behavior has a secondary cause. It is the result of social press. I could never study music and arts as a main and official education. I had to waste a lot of time and energy studying nonsense I hate during my whole life. I have been working jobs I hate more than twenty years, because neither my family or society believed in me or considered art and music as serious professions. I was never good enough. I am so oversensitive nowadays, so any person who would question my life as a writer and producer would be immediately eliminated from my life. This all became very easy when I lost all my savings and a significant part of my health. What is left to live for - slavery to death. No way. I believe that if I could study media production, music and arts and could manage working what I have talent for and what I love to do, I would be a whole other person - strong, self-confident, emotionally stable, social. So I was when I was young and Iron Maiden was the soundtrack of my day. Now I must isolate myself at home, close the world that devalues me outside and create a safe environment where I can preserve my self-confidence to be able to write and produce. Believe me I tried to change myself - to become some office-lady, to work in health care, to become an electrician, to work in shops. Going against myself I felt worse for every try. I did so much to fit in society, so I fucked up my health - both physically and mentally. Nature just tells me every time "stop, this is not for you". But I ignored it though I always knew it was true and just tried to be fit in society. 

Anyway, because I wanted to be like Iron Maiden when I was young, because my soul is rich for it suffered a lot and that's why I can write a psychological manual today and I can produce my own audiobook. Society has done all to redirect the course of my life but it is impossible. So why all this obsession with audiobooks? Well, I have met many people during my 42 years in life. There are so many extremely intelligent people who would appreciate my book but they don't read - they listen instead. It does not matter how we mediate information. The goal is to reach the ears, the eyes and the hearts of those who need it.

I do not have a real studio but I have a walk-in closet. It is very tiny, but I fit in. All the clothes in there make quite a good noise-isolation. I hang a fluffy blanket on the door, a thick carpet on the floor and it becomes perfect for recording vocals.

I was using Garage Band earlier but this program is very amatheur. It is great for beginners but once you increase your demand for quality something better is needed. Garage Band is included in Apples software, so if you use MacBook you don't have to pay. I got Reaper today. I tried it on my boyfriend's computer and it is so wonderful! Enormous possibilities are given and it is free. You pay a small one-time-fee if you want to use it professionally. It is worth it. Then I got a gift - the super sensitive mic Rode on the picture. You don't need much more than a sound-card, fire-wire cable, mic-cable, puff-protector and you have a studio. I prefer reading from the tablet because paper makes disturbing noise during recording. 

When you record, you must choose a standard frequency between 41 kHz and 48 kHz. This is required but the streaming- and publishing services for audio books.

1. Don't be too dynamic in your volume. Read expressively but keep the volume smoth.

2. Try to avoid taking deep breaths and be aware to not smack your lips between the words. 

3. Read with the same tempo all the time. Feel when you are tired and take a break. 

4. Mean every word you read from the bottom of your heart. If you don't really understand the matter of the text, you will never be convincing.

Mixing is not my thing. I do not have the ears for the final polish. My boyfriend does. I could learn and manage mastering a single voice track with talking, but music - no way.