A Christmas Carol Reading

A year ago, I made this audiobook reading for my mom as a Christmas present. It was a lot of fun to do a full-length project like this from start to finish. I learned a lot about what voice actors and audiobook performers have to go through, as well as how much the editing process plays a part in audio. It took me two days to record the 116-page novella, at a total of probably 6 or 7 hours of recording time (my voice was rather tired). After that, it was another 6 hours of editing as I listened to the entire thing and cut out all my mistakes, moments of dead air, etc. Finally, I had to listen to the whole thing over again, which ended up shortening to just about 2½ hours. Quite a bit of work for such a short production!

Audiobook practice

I really got into audiobooks a couple of years ago. There's just something about someone reading a story to you aloud that makes it easier to visualize than when you're using decoding power in your brain reading it yourself. I also like hearing professional voice actors use different voices for every character in a way that I like to do impressions as well.
That's why I'm considering doing an audiobook version of a story on my Argaenothruzil forum. Namely, the only story that really has a beginning, middle, and end, Alfred and the Cavern of Time. Here is a sample of what I would try doing if I were to do the entire book.

What do you think? Do I speak too quickly? Are the sound effects in the background too distracting? Since it was my first time, I obviously didn't articulate too well. I'm sure there are ways I could facilitate that for myself while reading in the future. Also, this is not the final cut of the book itself. There are parts in this story that will be changed. This is mostly just a test to see how a project like this would work, if I did decide to do it.
For the most part, however, it was fun to make, and my cousin and I (his blog is listed as Whited Sepulcre Blog on the top right) are going to begin copyediting and cover editing the story so that the real production may begin.