24 February 2009

Seven Secrets released as audio book

Warburton, Victoria
Adele Nash

Seven Secrets for Feeling Fantastic by Dr Darren Morton is now available as an audio book on disc-with a copy of the book-at Adventist Book Centres. It is the first audio book to be produced from one of the books published by Signs Publishing Company.

Dr Morton, senior lecturer in physical education and health at Avondale College, recorded the book last year for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific's Christian Services for the Blind and Hearing Impaired.

"The idea of recording Seven Secrets as an audio book really excited me," Dr Morton says. "In today's society, the audio medium is a really popular method for digesting information, so I was keen to have my book available in that format.

"I'm honoured to be the first cab off the ranks and it would be great to see more of the Signs publications available in an audio format."

Although the audio book only runs a little longer than two hours, it took around 10 hours to record. Dr Morton says, "It was actually more tiring than I thought it would be. Kristin Thiele, the audio technician, was very patient with me when I made mistakes and we had to back up."

Dr Morton hopes the audio book will help influence the lives of others in positive ways, as the book has done. "Seven Secrets is really my attempt to revitalise our Adventist health message because it has so much going for it," he says.

"The audio book has a slightly different orientation to the book. The book was written specifically for a Christian audience, whereas the audio version has been slightly modified to appeal to the non-Christian community. The fundamentals are the same and the Christian themes remain but I wanted to record it in such a way that Christians could offer it to their non-churchgoing friends without reserve."

"This began as an initiative of Darren and Avondale College as a contribution to Christian Services for the Blind but they have been willing to work with us to share this much more widely, which is exciting, and we thank them for it," says Nathan Brown, editor of Signs Publishing Company. "So it is now available as a package with the book itself and we hope more people will take the opportunity to connect with the great material is in the book, as well as having another way of sharing it with their friends.

"Darren is a gifted communicator and passionate about people's wellbeing-and I think that came through in recording Seven Secrets in this way."

Dr Morton has also filmed a TV series for Hope Channel based on the material in the book, which will be airing in the coming months.