Have You Ever Wanted to Produce Your Own Audiobook?

Audiobooks are taking the world by storm, but for a self-published or independent author, it can be daunting. I’ve heard so many authors ask – how does it work? What’s the investment? How can you narrate yourself? Or how do you hire a narrator?

I have officially produced two audiobooks on my own, and this blog post series is here to help you navigate the muddy waters of producing your own audiobook.

This blog is about how to narrate and produce your own audiobook. In future blogs, you will learn to:

• Hire a narrator for your audiobook paying up front. (coming soon)
• Hire a narrator through royalty-share with little to no up-front cost (coming soon)

Should You Narrate Your Book or Should You Hire Someone?

I personally believe that most autobiographical stories should be read by the author. There is something truly special about the person whom the story is about, telling you the story. As a memoir writer, this was a no-brainer for me. Obviously, if the narrator is sick, difficult to understand, or some other situation, hire a narrator.

If you write fiction, most listeners expect a narrator who is not the author. There is no pressure to narrate your own story, but if you like to save money, enjoy talking into the microphone for hours, and like bringing stories to life, why not?

Recording in a Studio

Studio time can get expensive, but for my first book, Stories from the Barn Aisle, it was a great option. The book is barely over an hour long, which meant the cost was affordable for me. If I remember correctly, I paid $150 for the studio time. Even better, the owner of the studio/sound engineer was there to help. When I made mistakes, we just back tracked and rerecorded. It made the editing process so much easier!

The sound quality for Stories from the Barn Aisle was incredible, plus it was a lot of fun to be in a real studio! That being said, the fun would have worn off quickly had I been recording a longer book, like my memoir, Finding Gideon. 

After studio time, I loaded the sound files provided by the sound engineer into my computer and used the Mac program Audacity to edit and prepare my book. I’ll be honest. This was the most painful part for me. I had never done audio editing, and even my one-hour and ten-minute book took hours upon hours to edit. When I thought it was completely ready I realized audiobooks don’t have breathing sounds in them. Then I had a few more hours of torture to remove those.

Since this incredibly fun experience (sarcasm here), I have learned about an editing program called Hindenburg. I have not tried it myself, but it sounds incredible and when I priced it, it was fairly affordable. Two important things to know when you record that will make editing MUCH easier:

1. When you load your book into whichever company you choose for distribution, you will load it by chapter. So when you record, make each chapter a separate file.

2. You are required to leave a couple of seconds of blank space at the beginning and end of each chapter. It’s much easier to do this when you record than having to go back and add it in during editing. Just press record and wait a second before you start talking. 

Recording from a “Home Studio”

“Home Studio” is in quotation marks, because I live in a small townhome and do not have a proper home studio. My first “studio” was a blanket fort. When the roof kept sagging and my back was hurting from sitting in weird positions, I gave it up for a new idea.

The experts will all tell you to record in a walk-in closet. News Flash, not everyone has a walk-in closet! But I DO have a carpeted bedroom. I set my microphone on a stool in front of my closet and sat on the floor facing the clothes. The idea is that soft surfaces absorb sounds. Hard surfaces ricochet them. So for the best sound quality, you want a good microphone and soft surfaces.

A good microphone doesn’t mean a Blue Yeti. I recorded my entire nearly 10-hour book, Finding Gideon, on a mic that was under $100. It’s the Samson Q2u. Here’s the link to it on Amazon if you’re interested. I learned about it from my favorite novel marketing podcaster Thomas Umstattd

Hiring an Audiobook Editor

After my experience with editing Stories from the Barn Aisle, and with my very full schedule, I decided to off-load the editing onto someone else for the next book. I went to Fiverr, and found a guy who did an excellent job for around $40 per completed hour. There were also gratuities and fees on top of that, so I probably spent $500 total on the audiobook. Here is the link for my editor, who I highly recommend: (https://www.fiverr.com/nauman7766)

I recorded the files into Audacity on my computer, exported them as MP3, and then sent them to my editor. It sounds like a different language when you’ve never done it, but once you start clicking around in these programs it will begin to make sense.

Final Steps: Choosing Which Company to Distribute

When I was looking at who to distribute, I only saw two viable choices: Audible or Findaway Voices. Currently when you publish through Audible you are choosing to be exclusive with them. They hold a majority of the audiobook market, but you are publishing with them and only them (which also means no libraries). OR you could choose a distributor who will send your books to all the audiobook retailers in exchange for a small cut.

I chose Findaway Voices who is owned by Spotify. As of the writing of this blog post there is a lot of drama over pending rule changes, and many of us are considering pulling our books from Findaway Voices/Spotify.

It was a hard decision on going wide with my book or being exclusive with Audible, but ultimately I read another author’s comment who said you can always change it. If you don’t like being wide, pull your book and switch to Audible, and vice versa. You’re not tattooing this decision on your arm for life.

A quick google search brought me to this website comparing distribution services. It’s definitely worth a look. I’ll be referencing it myself in the coming weeks if Spotify doesn’t update the terms and conditions to something that’s more author-friendly. https://scribemedia.com/audiobook-distributors/

Producing Your Own Audiobook is a Labor of Love

Given the popularity of audiobooks and how rewarding it is when people send me messages after listening to Finding Gideon, it’s worth it!

Be sure to stay tuned for how to produce your own audiobook through hiring a narrator. These will be guest bloggers who have experience with that part of the process.

I’d be honored if you gave my audiobooks a listen! Here are the links to them on Spotify:

Finding Gideon (also available on othor audiobook retail sites, but pending approval with Audible)

Stories from the Barn Aisle (available at every audiobook retailer that I know of)

Was this helpful? Do you have any questions? Drop it in the comments!