A Good Listen> Camden woman captures works by Maine authors on audiotape

THE CAMDEN CONNECTION, by Laurena Gilbert, Earbooks, Camden, Maine, 1995, audio book, 60 minutes, $9.95.

CAMDEN — Radio announcer, pianist, composer, recording technician, artist: Leitha Christie is, in the parlance of the day, a one-woman multimedia experience.

Add talent scout, good listener, gentle critic, nurturer and cajoler, and you have some idea of the traits and talents the Camdenite brings to Earbooks, her young and growing books-on-tape publishing company.

Christie’s year-old audio venture now has four titles on cassette, all stories by Maine authors and all with her warm reading voice accompanied by her gentle piano.

For young children, there’s “The Moose Who Wanted to Be a Reindeer & Luke and the Christmas Dragon” by Ned Ackerman and “Alex and Zig” by Barbara Murray Klopp.

Earbooks titles for the older set, age 10 to adult, are “The Founding of the Bar Harbor Mouse Bakery” by B.J. Morison and the latest release, Laurena Gilbert’s “The Camden Connection,” which also uses one of Christie’s paintings for the cover art.

The roots of Earbooks lie in Christie’s previous life as a program manager and on-air personality in classical radio, a career that helped instill a strong affection for the sound of the spoken word.

“When I left radio, I found I had a lot of fans who happened to be in publishing,” she said. “They’d call and ask why they didn’t hear me anymore. I’d always loved the oral tradition of storytelling, so I’d respond by asking why they didn’t have an audio part to their publishing business. It sort of grew as a challenge. They used their money to fund a couple of projects. I got to use my love of music and the skills I’d picked up in radio.”

That experience taught Christie a lot about the publishing business, good and not so good.

“I’d see stacks of manuscripts piled up on desks, work that didn’t have a chance of getting read, much less published. It’s incredibly difficult for first-time authors to get published, and if by some fluke they are accepted, the tiny royalties they get are totally unfair,” she said.

“When I started Earbooks, I had two goals: to give new writers a chance and to give them a fair share of the profits. So far, it’s worked. We split the cost of production and split the profits, so everybody takes the same risk and gets the same reward.”

Earbooks is a cottage industry in the truest sense — everything’s done in Christie’s cozy shorefront home. After weeks of brainstorming with authors in her living room, Christie works alone, reciting the finished work aloud and composing the music. Then it’s time to climb a narrow, steep ladder to a tiny attic room, into which she has packed a keyboard and a small but powerful recording studio.

“I really love working with the authors, but sometimes I think I only do this so I’ll have something to write music for,” she says. “I think of the story, the characters, the setting, and the music just flows. By the time I sit down to record, everything’s all planned. I can usually get two to three pages in a single take, unless a low-flying plane interferes.”

“The Camden Connection” came about from a long friendship between Christie and author Gilbert. “I wanted a mystery and I wanted something set in Camden,” Christie said. “I knew just who to call. Laurena and I worked together in radio. Like me, she appreciates the power of the spoken word. I knew she is a very talented person who has some good stories in her.”

Gilbert took the job eagerly and nearly lived to regret it. “I’ve been a writer my whole life, but I never had the nerve to try to get anything published,” the author said. “I earned a living for years writing 60-second commercials, so I thought, `How hard can it be to write a 60-minute mystery?’ I found out it’s pretty hard. I got about halfway through when Leitha pointed out my story had way too much scenery and not nearly enough mystery. We had a lot of long work sessions — some were uproarious, some weren’t — but we ended up with a story that does what we wanted it to.”

The story is of Kate, a young Connecticut woman alone in the world after the death of her grandfather. The unlocking of his safe deposit box opens up a mystery, with clues that lead her to Camden, where she runs into locals — some friendly, some not — a hint of romance, a lawyer who may not be what he seems to be, and a dark secret that has haunted her family for generations.

“It’s not a hair-raising story, but it is compelling. It moves along and says something to people,” Gilbert said. “The listener can relate to Kate because everybody wants to know about their family history, especially the secrets. The first time I heard Leitha’s music for it — it’s so nostalgic, slightly sad — I knew we had something.”

Gilbert says writing for direct-to-audio was a real learning experience. “There’s a tremendous difference between what works for this and what works on paper. I’d write something that looked just fine printed, but would turn out to be a terrible tongue-twister when spoken. Long descriptions work on paper, but in audio you need action and dialogue. You have to describe things in as few words as possible. It took a tremendous amount of honing down, but when we got done, I felt confident there wasn’t an unnecessary word in it. Leitha does a lot of things well, including bringing out the best in others.”

Earbooks are sold in a growing number of stores in Maine and by mail order, with sales exceeding expectations, Christie said. “It’s taken off much faster than I ever thought it would. I didn’t realize just how much people enjoy hearing stories being told. Adults tell me it takes them back to their childhood. Parents say they like the tapes for their children because it’s not TV. You get to use your imagination and create the pictures in your mind.”

Sales are so encouraging, in fact, that Christie is a bit discouraged at what comes next.

“It all started as a whim, but if I want this to go any further, I really need to sit down and actually write a business plan, take stock, develop a strategy. So far, it’s all been the fun part — working with authors, kicking ideas around, writing music. I guess it’s time to get serious.”