How to Create Your Audio Book: A Beginner’s Guide
Interested in bringing your book to audio?
If you are an independent author, with the legal rights to create your audiobook (AKA “Rights Holder”), I will guide you through the entire project.
The first thing to do is to find yourself a professional (and HUMAN!) narrator. Your narrator will likely be your producer too, which means they will coordinate the final proofing, editing and mastering, as well as the recording of the files (unless you use a production company, who will work alongside you and the narrator on all the tasks).
When seeking a narrator, take into account the kind of voice you are looking for, their experience with your type of book (especially if there are trigger warnings–be honest up front), their availability, and the payment they are asking for. The more specific you are in what you want, the less overwhelming this can be. Narrators can be found on some distribution platforms (like ACX and Author’s Republic) and also on social media (search the hashtags). Look on their websites, read their reviews and listen to their samples. Don’t be shy to reach out to them. Narrators love to be noticed and asked. Auditioning is a major part of the job. WARNING: Be sure your narrator doesn’t use an AI clone of their voice to produce the book.
The next step is to choose your distribution company. Some popular platforms are www.acx.com (owned by Amazon), www.audiobooksunleashed.com, and www.spokenrealms.com. There are many companies out there that can help you with your distribution. You must decide exactly what you want. Do you want to be exclusive with Amazon, and so receive larger royalties, or “go wide” with distribution (ie. beyond Audible and iBooks)? Do you want a single narrator or a dual or multi-cast production? These issues affect the choice of platform, the choice of contract, and the payment structure.
Once you have selected your distributor, they will provide a contract for both parties to (digitally) sign. On this you will designate, among other details, the timeline for production and the payment rate. This will need to be negotiated before the contract is signed. WARNING: Read through the contract (yes, I know it's not as interesting as your book!). There are so many details to the distribution terms that you must be master of, such as contract cancellation or non-cooperation, book returns, union contracts, length of contract, and so on.
The first step of the production phase begins with what is often called the “first 15 minutes” or the “extended sample”. You will load a PDF of your book onto the production website for the narrator to access and read. This is also a good time for you to pass any directorial details to the narrator regarding character descriptions, tone, word pronunciations, etc. The narrator will choose a section or some sections to record that she feels is a good sampling of how the book will sound. If relevant, you ideally want to hear as many character voices and vital scenes as possible in this sample. You may request another recording with alterations.
Once you have approved the first 15 minutes, your narrator fully takes over as director and performer, without your further input on performance. Style/voicing/pacing/etc. cannot be altered by you after the first 15 are approved. So make your input count at the start. It is valuable.
There are several ways to go about payment. Different companies take different percentages off the top of the royalties, and different distributors have varying methods and unique names for these methods, but the basic three are:
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- Per Finished Hour (PFH): the rights holder (you) pays the producer (me) an agreed rate per hour of completed recording. An estimated total can be given according to the word count, but the final bill will depend on how long the book actually ends up being. (I personally read about 8,300 words in a finished hour–according to content and tone. Many narrators go faster than this, even to 9,300 words or more.) The payment plan is negotiated at the start—often half the payment is given before the book is recorded and the other half after the rights holder approves the final production. The Union minimum rate is $250 USD PFH, but every narrator has their own rate, ranging both lower and higher than this. The rights holder then keeps 100% (after the distributor’s cut) of their earned royalties. This option is available as a main standard everywhere, and is the way to work with a dual or multi-cast performance.
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- Royalty Split/Share (RS): The rights holder (you) does not pay the producer (me) any money up front. Instead royalties are split (after the distributor’s cut) between the parties, according to sales, for seven years. The rights holder, as the one responsible for marketing, may need to assure the producer of their ability to provide adequate sales for the audiobook by describing their marketing strategy and track record. This option is available on ACX.
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- Royalty Share Plus/Hybrid: This is a combination of Per Finished Hour (PFH) and Royalty Share/Split (RS). The rights holder (you) pays the producer (me) a lower PFH amount up front to cover the immediate costs of production (ie. to pay for the proofer and sound engineer) and also splits (after the distributor’s cut) the royalties from audiobook sales. The Union minimum rate is $100 USD PFH, but this is set according to the current cost. This option is available on ACX.
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It can be expensive to pay narrators. An audiobook represents many hours of work. Authors sometimes get creative with their ideas, perhaps with a payment plan and gradual release on Patreon or with a Kickstarter campaign.
Be honest. Don’t bait and switch. ACX fills in defaults for payment types–double check that you are offering what you intend to pay.
Once the audiobook is completed by the narrator and loaded onto the distributor’s website, it is time for you to listen to and approve the production. If you find any issues with word accuracy or background noise, you are within your rights to require corrections. Once you have approved the book and made any final payments, the audiobook is ready to for the distributor to put it through their quality control processes and publish it.
It’s time for you to go out and tell the world about your wonderful new audiobook. Be proud of it! Having an audiobook is a selling point and mark of professionalism. ACX gives promo codes that you can use to generate hype and to gather reviews.
I would LOVE to be your narrator and producer. It can feel scary and overwhelming for the first time, but the product at the end is well worth it. Please contact me through this website to chat about this exciting opportunity.