Production
Audiobook production: casting, recording and mastering to retail specification.
Audiobooks are the format most often produced badly, because the technical requirements are strict and largely invisible until a distributor rejects the files.
What this is
Producing an audiobook means preparing the text for reading aloud, casting a narrator whose voice suits the book, directing the recording, then editing and mastering to the loudness, noise floor and file specifications that retail channels enforce.
Whether your book should be an audiobook at all is a separate question, and one worth asking first. Some categories sell strongly in audio; others barely register. We will tell you which side yours falls on.
Audiobook Production
What you get
What audiobook production actually delivers
Narrator casting
Auditions from narrators suited to the category, so you hear options rather than being assigned one.
Author narration support
If you want to narrate it yourself, direction and technical guidance to make that work.
Text prepared for audio
Pronunciation guidance, and handling for footnotes, tables and visual elements that do not translate to sound.
Mastered to specification
Loudness, noise floor, file format and chapter structure meeting distributor requirements.
Proof listening
The finished audio checked against the text for errors before delivery.
How it runs
The process, stage by stage.
Each stage finishes before the next begins, and you see the work at the points where your decision changes what happens next.
Suitability review
An honest read on whether audio makes sense for your book and your market.
Casting
Auditions from shortlisted narrators, chosen by you.
Recording
Studio recording, directed, with pronunciation and pacing notes prepared in advance.
Edit and master
Editing, mastering and quality control to retail specification.
Delivery and submission
Chaptered files delivered and submitted to audio channels.
Questions
About audiobook production
For memoir and expertise-led nonfiction it often works well and readers value it. For fiction it usually does not, unless you have performance experience. We will give you a straight answer after hearing a sample.
Finished audio runs at roughly a tenth of the word count in hours, and studio time runs well above finished-hour length. Your quote sets out the schedule for your specific book.
No. Heavily illustrated books, reference titles and anything depending on tables or diagrams translate poorly. We will say so rather than sell you the service.
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