Part 3: Creating the Audiobook
Part 5: Marketing & Selling (Coming some time in 2022)
In Part One, I describe how I found voice actors to audition to narrate my audiobook. I posted to several sites expecting 5-10 auditions, and instead got 83.
In Part Two, I narrowed that list of 83 down to twelve, then four, then one.
Coming to an Agreement
Once I’d chosen a narrator, we exchanged several emails to discuss details and process. I wanted to be explicit, in writing, about what exactly was expected from each of us. I was clear that this was a “work for hire” not a “commission”. I’m not a lawyer, but briefly what that means is that I, as the publisher, retain all rights to the finished product. (In a commission, the person commissioning the artist buys the right to use the artwork for specified purposes, but intellectual property rights of the finished product remains with the artist.)
I also wanted to make sure I understood what she was delivering, and she verified that she would give me finished audio in a format suitable for directly uploading to audiobook hosting sites, including Audible and others.
My narrator asked, and I agreed, that I would do the final proofing of the audio. If you’ve written a novel and completed editing of it at this point, you know there will always be a few errors that survive all the reading, re-writing, beta reading, editing, and proofreading and only show up when you get the final product in your hand from the printer. The same is true for audio. So, one more set of ears at this stage will help. Plus, as the one doing the final proof, any errors found after this point are wholly my responsibility, as they should be.
It’s good to have a “paper” trail for such conversations. Not necessarily for legal reasons (though I suppose it’s possible things could come to that) but to make absolutely sure that both people’s expectations are the same.
If you have a good working relationship, there shouldn’t be any problems. There were a couple of places where, even after my narrator gave me the final recordings, I asked for more changes. One, I asked her to extract a three and a five minute sample as requested by the hosting sites and in another, ACX complained about the RMS of three of the chapters. I had no idea what those are, but fortunately she did and was able to fix it and send me the updated fixes.
Proofing the Audio
My narrator delivered a chapter at a time for proofing, and I quickly settled on a process for my end of things, which involved listening to each chapter twice. The first time through I paid attention to the voices of each character, how they sounded, the cadence and emotional tone of the read of various sections, also making sure at this point that everything was pronounced correctly. Usually I did this with as few distractions as possible, generally while walking, riding my exercycle, or lying in bed. Then I listened to the whole thing again while sitting at my computer with the manuscript on the screen, reading along with the narration.
Getting a chapter at a time proved advantageous in that I could respond to any issues immediately. This let me make suggestions or ask for changes if, for example, I didn’t like how she voiced one of my characters, before all the later chapters were recorded with the same issue.
This is where I would occasionally catch an error. Sometimes they were words that she accidentally added, or words that she skipped. Sometimes I realized it sounded better the way she had it and let it stand, and usually updated the master manuscript in those cases. And sometimes there were errors in the master manuscript which I didn’t find until I heard her read them out loud. Either way, I made a note of it and at the end of each chapter sent her my list of fixes. Whether the error was because of something she did or something I did, she went back and made the correction to the audio.
Sometimes my narrator found errors in the original and asked if I wanted them fixed. Usually these were things like a missing word, or, in one case, I had the wrong character in a dialog tag. This sort of thing is part of the reason I decided to do a simultaneous audio release of my next novel. That way, all these can be fixed in the original manuscript before it goes to the printer.
It’s a Collaboration
I mentioned in part two that one of the reasons I chose the narrator I did was that she showed in the audition that she could handle a variety of voices. Which brings me to one of my first pieces of advice. Remember that you’re hiring a professional, and that creating an audiobook is a collaboration. Your narrator is not a robot, they are a creative professional in their own right, and will make decisions in their performance other than what you would have thought of. Don’t try to micromanage these decisions. You’re hiring an actor. Let them act.
That said, also remember that it’s your book. If you’re unhappy with the choices your narrator makes, don’t be afraid to let them know and ask for changes. It’s a fine line, and knowing exactly where it is only really comes with experience. My suggestion for the first few changes you ask for would be: Don’t be hasty. Take time to be sure. Wait a while, then listen to the part you didn’t like again. Then imagine you have just a handful of tokens you can use to make changes, and consider if this one is really one that you want to spend your change token on. If so, make a note of it and let it sit while you finish the chapter. Afterward, go back and listen to it again and decide if you still feel the same way. With a bit of practice, the decision can usually be made within a few seconds.
There were only two places where I didn’t like the voice my narrator used for a character and asked her to change it. Both times, she went back, re-recorded those sections, and I approved the new ones.
Information To Provide To Your Narrator
I’ve found guides online suggesting writing complete character profiles for every speaking character in the book. I didn’t do that. For the most part, I let the writing speak for itself and let my narrator figure out what kind of voice each character should have. I did provide some information – gender, age, region of origin, for each of the major characters.
My next novel, I will probably provide more information, as, even though there is only one POV character, the rest of them come from a larger variety of cultures, some of which I made up.
For the most part, I chose names for characters that I thought would be easy for an average American to pronounce, so I didn’t generally give guides for how to. There were some exceptions in the acknowledgements, where people had names I didn’t choose. I thought my friend Vijay Lakshminarayanan’s name might cause some difficulty, so I asked him for a recording of him saying his own name, which I forwarded to my narrator. There were two others who I was so used to that I forgot they could be ambiguous. I probably should have provided pronunciation guides for them, but she corrected them after I pointed them out. And finally, there was the name of one character, mentioned two or three times in the book by different characters, which she mispronounced, but I let stand. I figured after 70 years in America he was probably tired of correcting people and just got used to them saying his name wrong. Plus, if she had pronounced it correctly, it would have confused most Americans reading it. This was when I was still thinking that most of my audience would be in North America, if not the United States, which turned out not to be true. Over half the people who’ve purchased my novel so far are in India. I don’t know yet if that’ll remain true for audiobook sales, but it might be something you want to keep in mind in your publishing and marketing efforts.