Katya, your audiobook has been out less than two weeks and you’re writing a guide to producing an audiobook?

Yes, because every single one I’ve ever read or every class I’ve ever taken was some sort of dude bro who writes technical books or explaining it from the narrator’s side of things. I’m going to explain it from the indie author’s point of view.

You know those articles where it’s talking about someone being self made and you can do it too, but then you find out they had a stupidly large amount of startup money given to them by their parents? Well, I’m going to rip the bandaid off now. I had some unfair advantages in this in that my talent was not found online, and we were able to exchange services rather than money. I also have the technical expertise to mix an audiobook myself, so I didn’t have the large investment that most authors face.

However, that means I know literally every step of this process because I just spent the last year doing every aspect of it. So while yes, I’m going to tell you how it worked for me, I’m also going to tell you how to make it work for you. My way is not for everyone, and that’s okay. And you may get to the end of this, and decide that these steps don’t work for you. My goal isn’t to get you to do an audiobook like I did. My goal is to get you on the path to producing your own. This guide is by no means exhaustive. There are platforms I don’t cover, things I don’t touch on. This is a starting point, a map and a compass. It’s not a GPS with turn-by-turn directions.

There are affiliate links in this article, but this is not a sales pitch. This is not a sneaky way to get me to help you with an audiobook. There are no services being offered here. However, I am going to give you some background info as to why I know what I’m talking about. I do my mention my own book a lot, but that’s because it’s my point of reference.

I went to school for video production. Actually, I went to one of the best video schools in the southeast, as a matter of fact. Not only do I have a degree in video production, I studied sound engineering under someone who has mixed one of Dolly Parton’s albums, and I also have certificates in sound production, video editing, and cinematography. No, that last one isn’t relevant, but it’s fun to say. I have been a director, the sound editor, the writer, the producer, and because I was frequently the only girl on set, an actor. I’m horrible at that last one. Never doing it again. My point is I have been involved in every side of a production from beginning to end. And the only difference between a movie and an audiobook is that you don’t have to worry about the picture. I’ll tell you a little secret about making movies. Everyone ignores the sound, but it’s actually even more important than the video. But whether you’re producing a video on a set or an audiobook in a sound studio, there’s not much that’s different from managing a production. And honestly, it seems so much scarier, but it’s not that different from working with a cover designer, an editor, and a formatter either. You’re just swapping them out for narrators, a sound engineer, potentially a cover artist, and potentially a beta listener.

I had ideal narrators in mind from the beginning. For me, there was only one choice for Ryan, and one choice for Carly. Meghan and Michael are not only great friends of mine, but they happen to be incredibly talented actors. This meant I worked a little backward in this in that I did everything I could to make it easiest on them. This is not how other people do it, but this is how I do it.

I know you’ve thought about who would play your characters in a movie. We’ve all done it. But have you ever thought about how they sound? 

Now you’re only casting one or two narrators for your book, most likely. Maybe a few more if you’ve got a why choose book. But you still have to cast every character. 

What I mean is your narrators are going to have to know how you want the characters to sound. Does this character have an accent? Is that character significantly younger than everyone else? 

Won’t they get that from reading the book? 

Maybe. Do you really want to risk them getting it wrong and having to redo it? 

Now some narrators might have their own way of doing this, and you can send them a blank version of the script if they prefer it that way, but this is how I set a book up. I make a list of all the characters and how they sound.  

As you can see, some I’m super specific about and others is a super loose suggestion. Mateo, for example, is modeled on the speech patterns of another friend of mine, so I had to be sure he was right. I used references I knew my friends would be familiar with. Not everyone’s seen Avatar: the Last Airbender (though if you haven’t, you should), but I knew that was a solid point of reference in this case. And if it wasn’t, I knew it was something they could get from a few clips on YouTube.

You’ll also notice I separated the characters by gender. I chose to go the duet narration route, so this was important. It may not be as important if you’re doing dual or mono narration.

Then I go through the entire book and highlight all the dialogue character by character. Now, I only do the important characters. I had a few what I like to call NPCs that are just in gray because they weren’t important enough to need a distinctive voice. So, the random voice, the security guard, a valet, they were all just up to the actors. And because my narrators are amazing, most of them wound up with distinct accents. Which, if you know anything about resorts in Orlando, actually makes perfect sense.

I did this all on my iPad in an app called GoodNotes. Then I printed the highlighted version and stuck it in a three-ring binder for them to read as they recorded. Now it happens Meghan and Michael live together (as you might have guessed by their last names, they’re married), so I only needed one copy. If you have two narrators in different locations, you may need more than one, or you might email it to them. Beauty of being friends and living in the same city, I just handed it to Meghan at Starbucks one day. 

I am incredibly blessed to have friends who love me and wanted to help my dreams come true, so I didn’t have the heavy investment that most authors face with an audiobook. But I couldn’t write a guide without talking about cost, and it feels weird to start by talking about budget before we talk about types of narrators, but I’m a big believer in not going over budget if you can help it, and your budget will affect what kind of narrators you want to look at. 

According to Kindleperneur, who I like, but I’m still mad at over Atticus, the average cost of audiobook production is roughly $300 per 10,000 words recorded. I don’t know where they got this number, but we’re rolling with it as an example. (Get it? Wheelchair user? Rolling? Oh, never mind.) By that logic, Hurricane Ryan, which is 95,962 words, and The Porpoise Proposal, the bonus epilogue, is 5,434 words. For easy math, we’re going to round that to 101,000 words, so roughly $3100 for the recording expenses. 

Now some narrators out there in the world do their own engineering, or mastering, depending on which term you prefer. Those narrators generally charge by finished hour. So, for example, Hurricane Ryan wound up being six hours and thirty-one minutes. (Which is insanely short for a 95K word book. Much like myself, my narrators talk fast. No one’s going to have to listen to this one at double speed. I’ve actually had two people tell me they’ve slowed it down.) I would have been paying for six and a half finished hours at whatever rate came up. For examples of per finished hour rates, I am going to point you toward the Global Voice Acting Academy.  

By their rate, it would have been an additional $125 per hour for editing, leaving us with $812.50 for mastering. I will add most people charge more per hour if its duet narration, so based on the fees I’ve seen from a few narrators, we’re going to add another $75 per hour, which is $487.50. 

So, for the sake of this example, with those stock rates, the investment for this book would have been $4,400. Don’t let that number scare you. It’s a starting point. Think of this like a wedding. You can get married at Disney World. You can also get married in your own backyard. 

This is why we start with budget. You don’t look at renting out the Magic Kingdom when you know your budget is more Coronado Springs. (That’s a hotel for my non-Orlando people.) 

The considered standard for audiobook narration is roughly 9,000 words per hour, so Hurricane Ryan should have been around 10.5 hours. Again, we talk fast. Seriously. Listen to me go on Everyone Has a Story Podcast sometime. 

For the sake of figuring out your budget, we’re going to use the standard. If you have a 90,000 word book, we’re going to assume you’re expecting around ten hours. Use that to calculate your budget. 

Math is not my strong suit, but this website does a really great breakdown of it. If you choose a narrator that does their own mastering, that will probably be a more affordable route than having to bring in a separate audio engineer. A quick glance at the ACX talent page (which is Audible’s version of KDP that pairs you with narrators) shows that most narrators start around $100 to $200 per finished hour, so roughly $1000-$2000. That’s your backyard wedding. 

Now there is a way around paying that up front with ACX, and we’re going to talk about that next. 

ACX is Audible’s back of house production. You can contact and hire narrators completely on your own, or you can go through Audible to work with what they call producers. These are narrators that provide by the finished hour with fully ready to go recordings that are mastered to Audible’s standards. 

If you choose to go through ACX, you have two options. You can pay for production up front, which will have similar costs to what I estimated in step two, or you can do what ACX calls royalty share. For seven years, the producer and you will split all your audiobook’s royalties. After seven years, the royalties all default back to you. 

Why doesn’t everyone go the royalty share route? 

Well, for one, it locks you into being exclusive with Audible. Two, you wait for narrators to audition rather than seeking talent you choose yourself. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go that route, or it isn’t a good choice. I’m telling you why I didn’t go that way. 

I choose to keep my books in Kindle Unlimited. Other than accessibility, my primary goal in getting into audio was to get my books outside the Amazon bubble. 

You essentially have three paths. 

• Decide if you’re going with Paying Up Front or Royalty Share
• Create a title profile for your book and wait for auditions
• Reach out to narrators you’re interested in and see if they’re interested in auditioning
• Choose from the auditions
• Pay up front and distribute through Audible. Make 40% royalties.
• OR choose royalty share and get 20% (half of 40%) for seven years, increases to 40% when the seven years is up 

Distribution is technically its own step, but the royalties factor in so I wanted to lay those out in this step. 

Okay, I lied. There technically is a fourth path: DIY. You can narrate, record, and mix the audiobook yourself. 

Yes, I went to school for this, but the world has come a long way since I graduated. You can learn just about anything on the internet. 

I could have never narrated this book. Meghan is amazing. Michael is amazing. I have a lot of talents, but voice acting is not one of them. So, we’re going to call my method DIY hybrid. I got professional narrators and did the mixing myself. While I’m technically a professional, it’s also been a hot minute since I’ve done anything like this. The last editing I did before this was for my wedding. 

It’s also possible you’re an amazing actor, but you don’t have the time to learn a new skill. Maybe you want to record yourself and have someone else do the mixing. That’s also an option. 

If you know there’s no way in heck you’re interested in recording and mixing yourself, you can skip on down to step four. 

Another benefit to having the education I have is that I already owned most of the equipment I needed. Below, you will find a list of affiliate links for products I used or similar if there is a newer model. You do not have to go with these options by any means, but this is where I would start your research. 

1. High-quality microphone: This is the single most important part. Do not skimp on the mic. This is not the one I own, but it is the one I would purchase if I was buying it today. 

2. A device to record on. Most people use a laptop. I use a handheld recorder because I prefer an XLR connection (audio cable) over a USB one. This is the newer version of the one I purchased in 2017. Still works great. The mic linked above works with XLR and USB. 

3. Pop screen: I cannot stress how badly you need this. If you get the linked mic, it includes one. If not, you can pick one up pretty cheap. 

4. Mic stand: Just like it sounds. You need something to hold the mic so it’s always the same distance from the narrator’s face. I like this kind without the arm because it fits into smaller spaces.

5. Recording/editing software. Audacity and GarageBand are both free depending on what operating system you’re using. I use Adobe Premier Pro for cutting it together, and Adobe Audition for fine tuning. (Yes, I should have just done the entire thing in Audition, but it didn’t exist when I was in school and it was easier for me to splice things together in Premier.) 

6. Recording booth/space. Find the quietest area in your house. Closets are great for this. Bathrooms can be, but you need material to soften the echoes. Or, you can build a recording booth. 

I built my own recording booth using PVC pipe and this guide from Mastering. Guide here. Blueprint here. I swapped out the shower curtain rings for zip ties so I could use more per side and used moving blankets instead of acoustic blankets. One trip to Home Depot for PVC and connectors, one trip to Harbor Freight for zip ties, moving blankets, and a saw, and bada bing, bada boom. Audiobooth. Label the parts as you cut them and save yourself a headache. 

I designed mine where you could swap out pieces so it could be taller or shorter in order to be used with a metal chair or while standing. Rolling chairs are bad. They make noise. You want something that doesn’t squeak. 

Then you get to put it together. It’s basically giant Tinker Toys. I do not recommend letting your golden retriever help. Whole thing probably took me an hour, and I’m a wheelchair user. If I can do it, you can do it. I believe in you. 

If you’ve got hardwood or tile, put a towel or a rug underneath the booth to help dampen echoes. 

Then do some test recordings. See how they sound and listen to them back before you record big chunks. 

Mr. Summers and I took the booth over to Michael and Meghan’s and set it up there so they could record on their own schedule. Meghan did some recordings, and I picked up the memory card and edited the first chapter months before I got the rest of the book so we could test how it sounded. It worked out perfectly. 

Now I’m not going to go over how to edit, as that is going to vary based on what software you’re using. Again, you can use Audacity, GarageBand, Adobe Audition, or ProTools. Audacity and GarageBand are free. Adobe Audition is Adobe’s sound mixer, so if you’re someone who uses Photoshop or Illustrator, you might be able to lump that in with your subscription. ProTools was the industry standard while I was in school. It takes a lot of technical know-how and I do not recommend it for someone starting out.  

Audacity or GarageBand will probably get the job done if you’re doing standard/dual narration. Adobe made it easier for me to match the duet narration. Because even though Meghan and Michael were in the same house using the same equipment, it didn’t always come out as even as you would expect. 

If you want to take a test run, so to speak, before you buy anything, record yourself reading a chapter on your phone and edit it in one of the free software programs. Don’t worry about the booth or anything, just duck in the closet and see if it’s something you don’t hate. Because, and I really wish I’d tracked it better for the whole book, but one Saturday I spent like ten hours and only knocked out five chapters worth of editing. (And my chapters aren’t long.) So, if you go the do-it-yourself route, you’re going to be spending a LOT of time on it, and you don’t want to get ten chapters in and discover this is something you really don’t enjoy doing. 

Whether or not you’re going exclusive with distribution, or if you’re even skipping Audible entirely, I recommend exporting your files at the standards ACX requires. If your book matches their formatting, it’ll work on virtually any platform. AudioLab is an amazing free tool that will check your files for you. You need one second of room tone sound at the beginning of a chapter and five seconds at the end. 

Someone has to listen to this thing one last time. Think of it like a final proofread. If it came from a production studio, you’re going to be the one listening to it. If you mixed it yourself like I did, you’re going to need someone else to listen to it. Because like self editing, you’ve heard it a million times by now. It’s easy to miss stuff in your own work. 

I recruited my actual editor BooksWithBunnies to do a listen through for me. I sent her the chapters on Dropbox. She listened through and sent me screenshots of the time code where things needed to be fixed. A sentence cuts off, there’s a word missing here, this part gets louder, etc. And she did an amazing job! It worked out perfectly for what I needed.  

Okay, you did it! It’s done! Now you have to get it out into the world. 

ACX: You claim your title, which you have already done if you started with the ACX route. Then you upload the story chapter by chapter, which is a long and slightly annoying process. If you haven’t decided if you’re going exclusive or not, at this point you must make a decision. Again, you get 25% of the royalties if you are not exclusive. You get 40% if you are. ACX will determine your pricing, you get no say in that. 

It takes a minimum of ten days for a book to go live on Audible if there are no issues. Also, fun fact, if you’re new, you can’t set a release date. It just goes live when it’s ready. Which is why Hurricane Ryan was on Audible four days before everywhere else. 

Findaway Voices: There was some controversy a while back with an AI scare, and some authors are choosing to steer clear of this platform that is partnered with Spotify. I’m choosing to use it; you can make that decision for yourself. It’s kind of like Draft2Digital in that it is a gateway to a bunch of platforms. You can actually use it to distribute to ACX as well. I chose not to do Audible through Findaway and instead did ACX on its own. So, I only had to upload all my files twice. Findaway Voices is the gateway to thirty-four platforms. Some of them, like Kobo, you can upload directly to the same way you can ACX/Audible. Others like Spotify and Chirp, you have to go through Findaway Voices. This service approval goes much quicker than ACX, but it can take longer to appear on all retailers. On release day, Hurricane Ryan had made it to Audible, Spotify, and Hoopla. It’s now on a few more, including Kobo, and a few are still pending. Some retailers can take up to four weeks to go live. 

Another benefit to Findaway Voices is you get up to 100 free codes you can use for friends, giveaways, and marketing. I’ve discovered I really like doing giveaways for audiobooks because it means I don’t have to go to the post office. 

Bookfunnel also offers audiobook delivery so you can sell your audiobook directly on your own website if you want to, but that does come with an additional monthly fee. I’m not doing it right now because of the number of books I’d have to sell to recoup the investment. That is in my future plans, but not right now. However, if you have a regular Bookfunnel account, you can do single pieces of audio that are up to 120 minutes for free. Currently, I have the first four chapters of Hurricane Ryan available as a preview, but I had to put it into one big chapter. 

Before you can distribute, there is one last thing you have to do. Size your cover for an audiobook. ACX requires a square cover of 2400 x 2400 pixels. Other platforms aren’t looking for that size, but they are looking for a square. My cover artist knew Hurricane Ryan was coming to audio, so he went ahead and gave me the right size files when we redid the covers last summer. You’ll either need to commission a new cover or contact your cover artist about changing your current cover to an audiobook format. We just changed the size of the background and left the rest of the elements the same, then changed the text placement to fit the narrators’ names. Some authors choose to include “Duet Narration”, “Multi-Cast Narration”, etc. on the cover. I chose not to because I thought it looked too cluttered. 

Hurricane Ryan isn’t Audible exclusive, so I didn’t have to worry about this, but if you are going that route, you need to leave the bottom right corner free for their graphics. 

All those reels and social media graphics that say, “In Kindle Unlimited and Paperback” or “Available on Kobo, Kindle, Nook, Whatever” now need to say: “Available in Kindle Unlimited, Paperback, and Audio”. There are people in this world who can only read with audiobooks because of busy lives, or disability, or maybe they just like it better. This is your chance to reach them, but they have to know your book is out there. 

You can also make new marketing graphics. 

As you can see, I push the fact that I have duet narration and that my narrators are married because I think it’s awesome. 

I have reels with clips of the audiobook in them because my friends are amazing. Your contract with your narrators will limit whether or not that’s something you can do. I’m not currently seeing any more traction on them than I am on my normal reels, but it’s only been a few days since I started using those. 

So, that is a basic guide of how you get from “I Want to Create an Audiobook” to “I Have an Audiobook”. It’s not easy. Doing this the way I did took months and months of work, and severely cut into my writing time. I spent pretty much every free moment I had working on this from October to February.  

But I have a finished product with my dream narrators, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I’m driving the audiobooth up to Tennessee next month so we can get the ball rolling on All In. 

If you want to check out Hurricane Ryan for yourself, you can find it at all of the available retailers here. You can also get the first four chapters totally free on Bookfunnel.