![]() ![]() It will take 20-25 hours for you to read everything. Say your manuscript is 50,000 words long. ![]() Nonprofessionals might take around 4-5 hours for the same amount.Professional narrators tend to take 2-3 hours to record 10,000 words in a manuscript.If you’re planning to rent a studio, remember to budget for sufficient time: Depending on your location, it may cost about $30-$50 per hour for a basic room - note that this doesn’t come with an engineer, so you’ll have to bring someone who can help control the levels and hit record while you narrate. Plenty of studios offer this service, charging by the hour for a professionally soundproofed and equipped studio. If you don’t have a quiet room to insulate, finding a place to rent is a good alternative. (Many authors choose to soundproof their closet and turn it into a studio.) Insulate your studio - and keep it fresh! (Image: Matt Moloney on Unsplash) Renting a professional studio Finally, a smaller room may also decrease echoes and be easier to insulate, but make sure you have enough space to be comfortable and not knock things over. Having thick curtains and foam tiles on the wall would also help. For instance, a carpeted floor will always resound less than a bare one. Luckily, there are materials you can add to the room’s decor to dampen sound and absorb echoes - things like fabric, wool, or foam. Ideally, you won’t be able to hear the neighbors, your home appliances, or even your own movements in the recording. Since mics pick up a lot of background noise that can make the narration fuzzy, “quiet” really means “dead silent” in this case. You can fashion a recording studio out of any quiet room in your house - as those who have previously recorded a podcast might already know. There are two options for indie authors: building an at-home studio or renting a professional space. You’ll first need to secure a space in which to record your book. Now that we’ve carefully pinned these standards to the corkboard of our minds, let’s move on to the actual setup. ![]() The best way to check this is to read to someone else (a voice actor, if possible) and get their feedback first before committing. Try to honestly appraise your own ability to tell stories vocally before deciding to record your own audiobook. Those less accustomed to public speaking should still lean towards working with a professional narrator. However, keep in mind that the most prominent examples of these audiobooks are public figures with speaking experience - like the Obamas, Tina Fey, and Trevor Noah. Those who do, like Neil Gaiman, tend to have been trained in audio theatre beforehand.Īs for nonfiction books, some authors do very well narrating their own books, especially when the book tells their personal stories. This requires serious voice acting skills, which is why you rarely see fiction authors record their own books. If you’ve listened to audiobook novels, you’ll know that narrators use different voices to act out the many characters in a story. An audiobook narrator shouldn’t simply read out the text they should perform it with nuances and appropriate emphasis that best deliver the story or message of the book. Just as important as the technical audio is the quality of your narration. We’ll cover the technicalities of setting these up in the following steps. These requirements are exacting, which means that the recording room and equipment you use must be up to professional standards. The file should be recorded at a specific frequency and transmission speed for high audio quality.There should be minimal unwanted noises and distortions.All audio must fall between -23dB and -18dB.Each chapter must begin with a pause and then a header announcement (e.g., Chapter 1).Each chapter of your book has to be an MP3 file not exceeding 120 minutes.Technical guidelines published by aggregators ACX and Findaway Voices both agree that these are the essential requirements for every audiobook: So let’s look at these requirements that your audiobook has to meet. Aggregators and distributors are very particular about the audio standards that they require - and understandably so! They have to ensure consistency in the quality of audio they offer to avoid complaints and refunds. Start by researching the audiobook production processīefore you start recording, you have to know the standards that your audiobook has to meet to be accepted by distributors. This post is for authors hoping to record their own books - if you're looking into narrating audiobooks as a career, head to our post on becoming an audiobook narrator instead! 1. Upload your audio files to ACX or a similar audiobook platform Start by researching the audiobook production process ![]()
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