Audiobooks 101: a Beginner’s Look at the Process of Getting an Audiobook Made
By Anna Elliott | November 3, 2016 |
By now, most writers are at least somewhat familiar with the basic logistics of indie publishing. Today, though, I wanted to talk about another venue that indies have for sharing their stories that may not be as widely known and thought about: audiobooks. If you’ve published an indie novel or are planning on publishing one– or like some authors I know, retain the audio rights on a traditionally published book– you have the option to have your book made into an audiobook and sell that, too. It not only offers another way for readers to connect with your stories, it can be an added significant source of income.
Now, right up front, I should say that the process of having an audiobook made represents a quite significant time commitment on your part, even if– like most authors– you hire a narrator and sound engineer. As a homeschooling mama of small children ranging from 2 years old to 9, I frankly don’t have that kind of time at all. I would never have been able to even think about audiobooks if my amazing parents had not stepped in and surprised me with the offer to take care of everything. So this article is really a collaboration between me and my dad, and when I say “we” what I really mean is “my superhero mom and dad with unbelievably minimal help from me.”
At any rate, here’s a look at the process that “we” went through:
First, you’ll need to pick an audiobooks distributor. (Google ‘audiobooks’ and you’ll find a lot of them.) All will take a percentage of the sales, the percentage depending on whether you distribute through them exclusively or not.
We picked ACX,one of the largest and probably best-known distributors.
Next, you’ll need a narrator. If you have a background in theater and/or are extremely brave, you can narrate your book yourself, of course. Although unless you have industry connections, finding a recording studio or buying/renting the equipment is probably going to be a complicated endeavor. Or you can choose to hire your own narrator and recording engineer, which is the route that we chose. In our case, our narrator provided her own engineer. Another option is to let ACX do it all for you, by listing your book for narrators registered with ACX to audition for you. The narrators then share in the royalties. This is the lowest up-front cost option, but we had some money budgeted to pay the narrator and engineer and we didn’t want to wait for narrators to come to us.
Choosing the right narrator to give voice to your characters is obviously extremely important. We browsed Audible for books in the same genre as mine, and listened to the audio samples. We picked three finalists to contact and then emailed them, getting their contact information via Google.
After some email exchanges we picked our favorite narrator, who had her own engineer. If your chosen narrator does not, ask who he/she has worked with in the past, they will likely have some names for you to contact.
Here I would add to what my dad has said about the process: don’t be afraid to dream big. My dad is published by Thomas & Mercer, but retains his audio rights, and his books are read by one of our family’s absolute favorite screen actors of all time, simply because my dad e-mailed the guy and asked. As it turned out, it worked out even better than my dad could have hoped, because this actor had done audiobooks before and already had a studio/sound engineer that he worked closely with. Many actors do take on audio/voice work during down time between screen productions, so don’t be afraid to reach out and see whether your dream actor might be willing. The worst they can do is say no.
At any rate, the narrator then provides audio files for each chapter in a form that meets ACX standards. We used Dropbox as the portal for us to download what she’d uploaded there. Next– and this is where the large time commitment comes in– you’ll need to ‘proof’ the audio files by listening to them closely as they’re made. We (in this case, 100% my previously-mentioned superparents) ‘proofread’ and kept a list of fixes that we wanted as we listened, and then emailed the list to our narrator. Then once the corrected files were available, we checked them again to make sure that they were error-free.
The audiofiles are now ready to put into final mp3 format, which – for simplicity – we put into a new Dropbox file, along with a separate file for each chapter, plus a file to introduce and another to close. ACX also requires a file to give the reader a sample of no more than five minutes. We picked the first five minutes of the second chapter, since that was the first written in the voice of the POV narrator. We uploaded these mp3 files to ACX. They reviewed for technical compliance, a process that takes about a week. They let you know if there are changes needed.
We also had to upload a new cover image. The cover for your book needs to become a square rather than a rectangle, and this will very likely require rearranging the words. We also included the narrator’s name on the cover, which is a decision up to you but in our case we thought it was a win-win. We had our cover artist do the redesign.
Then it’s ‘headed to market’ which means they’re linking it to your book page, with the little button that people can click on to hear the sample. This took about a week from the time the audio files and cover had been approved. The whole process took about four months, not counting the time to wait for the project to be next in line on the narrator’s busy schedule.
And that’s it! The first of my books to be made into audio is now for sale, with the rest of my catalog soon to follow, and I couldn’t be more happy. The decision to make audiobooks was mostly a business one, but it’s also just unbelievable fun and thrilling to hear my stories brought to life in this way. I don’t really have a bucket list, but if I did, hearing my own novels as audiobooks would absolutely have been on it. Thanks mom and dad!
Do you listen to audiobooks, or have you looked into the process of making them?
Anna Elliott is an author of historical fiction and fantasy. Her first series, the Twilight of Avalon trilogy, is a retelling of the Trystan and Isolde legend. She wrote her second series, the Pride and Prejudice Chronicles, chiefly to satisfy her own curiosity about what might have happened to Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and all the other wonderful cast of characters after the official end of Jane Austen’s classic work. She enjoys stories about strong women, and loves exploring the multitude of ways women can find their unique strengths. Anna lives in the Washington DC area with her husband and three children.
Having an audiobook version can open up a lot of opportunities, but you’re right, Anna, that it’s a big investment.
I love listening to audiobooks when I travel or take walks longer than an hour. I’ve found when driving that some genres work better than others, so you might consider if your book is actually a good candidate for an audiobook. Thrillers make me drive too fast and dense prose (fiction or nonfiction) makes me miss the opportunity to ponder and reread. Mysteries work well for me. My all-time favorite for driving is the Harry Potter series with the wonderful Jim Dale narrating.
The narrator can make or break an audiobook. Some narrators speak in a near-monotone. Others are either not expressive enough or too much so. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes authors are not the best people to read their own work. I like your process for previewing narrators.
Thanks to you and your super-parents for this info!
I completely agree, mysteries work best for me, too, as audios. And I have listened to the Harry Potter series over and over! Love Jim Dale!
Anna, this is really interesting information. So, the upfront costs were only the cover redesign? And the rest is shared sales/royalties for narrator and distribution? Also, did your narrator read the text exactly as written from the novel? I ask because a friend of mine who was thinking of doing his novel into an audiobook said a professional narrator advised him to rewrite parts of the novel to be more “read-aloud worthy.” Did you do that? Thanks for a great post today.
For us, we went with hiring our own narrator, so that was a significant up-front expense (although one that based on experience and general market trends, it’s pretty safe to say we’ll recover within the first several months of the audio being for sale). If you let ACX do everything and wait for narrators who are interested to come to you, then there aren’t any up-front costs as far as I know, but that wasn’t the route we took, so not entirely sure. I think it just depends on your budget and your preferences for how much control you want to have in choosing exactly the narrator you want, and whether you want to be sharing royalties, etc.
I didn’t re-write any of my book, no. In my case, no one even mentioned that as something to think about (probably just depends on your genre) and also some of the venues for selling books actually require that the audio and the text match pretty exactly.
Thanks for this article! I’ve had requests to record an audio book, but have so far balked because of the expense. It might be time to look into it again. My question is, must I use a sound studio? I have access to a professional mic and children who are voice actors. I would love to support their careers instead of throwing my hard earned money at strangers. As an indie author, I’m used to going it alone and figuring out ways around the traditional method of doing things.
I’m not sure exactly how necessary a sound studio is if you plan to do it yourself. I know distributors like ACX have certain requirements for the files that you upload, but you might be able to achieve the same results in a home recording studio. Definitely worth looking into!
My dad just popped over to read questions and had this to add:
A studio is definitely not required as long as your audio files meet the ACX technical standards, which you can find on the ACX website under “ACX Audio Submission Requirements.” Bravo for thinking out of the box and getting your family involved!
HI Anna. I was wondering about what kind of fixes you suggested when you said, “kept a list of fixes that we wanted as we listened.”
Did you specify emphasis on certain words to portray your meaning better?
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Yes, emphasis on certain words, pronunciation mistakes, or sometimes words can accidentally be omitted and/or cut in the sound editing process, that sort of thing.
And here’s my dad’s explanation of the “fixes”:
The “fixes” in our case were, thankfully, nothing major. A dropped word here and there; a change in emphasis; a pronounciation. You want to make sure that there’s no major glitch, such as a dropped line or page due to the narrator’s oversight or getting interrupted.
Great information — I’m sharing it with my author clients, as many have asked about audio book conversion. You give enough information, and from a personal angle, to allow others to see that this is actually do-able, without fancy knowledge or huge investments.
I was also interested in what the ‘fixes’ were that you identified.
Thanks for taking us along on your journey — very encouraging!
It definitely is do-able! It looks intimidating at first glance, but step by step, it’s manageable and I think well worth the effort.
Fixes are any accidental mistakes that the narrator may have made– pronunciation errors (which can easily happen since my books are historical and use words not commonly spoken today), change of emphasis, or just mistakes that have happened in the editing process, like a sentence being cut by accident, that sort of thing.
I love audio books and my first book, as an indie author, was a short story collection audio book. My CD (yup, it was that long ago) was home grown. I read the text and my amazing husband did everything else. The trouble I encountered was in marketing the finished product. Unlike a book, readers are unable (or were at the time, at least) to skim the first chapter. I thought I’d solved the problem by providing a device so they could listen. But the act of putting headphones on was too big a commitment for them. So ended the adventure.
However, if a publisher offered to make an audio book of one of my picture books I’d be all for it.
It’s been my experience that a child can get hooked on a particular book. An audio book would give them the freedom to listen whenever they wished.
Wishing you much success, Anna.
The changes in the publishing world have truly revolutionized the audiobook world, too. My kids LOVE audiobooks. My 7 year old especially will listen for hours on end!
I love audio books and always have a novel playing in my car. Thanks for this clear and definitive explanation. I will be filing it for future use. Wishing you the best with all your future works, print and audio.
Thank you! Glad if you found anything helpful!
I love listening to audiobooks, particularly, if I read the book first and then leave a little time between the book reading and listening. I’m able to concentrate more on the deliverance, and the nuances of dialogue and character development. As a listener and reviewer, I am absolutely sold on this media.
Can you give us a range of prices for the studio part, not the reader? I want to produce my memoir in my own voice.
Thanks,
Skye