Earlier this year a friend asked why, out of all my titles, I did not have any audiobooks available. I explained that with 50+ books out there, it would take an enormous amount of time and money to transfer those to the new format.
The topic came up again when speaking with Edwin Rydberg on his Alternate Futures podcast. He asked pointblank if I had any intention of ever starting the audiobook process. I said something along the lines of, the Milky Way series has over a million words and counting, which would be an enormous undertaking. However, going forward the idea certainly held merit.
But as I finished up the first book in the Steam & Aether series, Ethinium’s Vault, I decided to seriously pursue producing my first audiobook. Here are my thoughts on the matter along with my decision-making processes. I hope they prove useful to others considering this route.
The first fork in the road in the decision tree is whether to record your own voice or hire a professional to read the book for you. I took a stab at recording a few lines and quickly decided to seek out a pro. To get the quality audio needed, with zero background noise, requires a certain setup. If you don’t have access to a studio with proper insulation, you can throw some quilts in a closet at home or do some other penny-ante tactics to try and mimic the quiet of a true studio. But out here in the country, there’s a lot of ambient noise. And in the Texas heat, our air conditioner cycles on every few minutes, which disrupts recording sessions.
Even with a proper studio, at home or somewhere else, reading a book takes considerable effort that differs in many ways from writing. And Ethinium’s Vault is a long book, clocking in at over 150,000 words. A lot of words meant a much longer production process. So, I decided to hire a pro.
I know some people in the local broadcasting community, or at least some who used to work there. A friend was very interested in producing this book. But then life interfered and with a job change, his windows of availability narrowed dramatically. That meant a professional would have to be procured online.
ACX is Audible’s solution to this dilemma, lining up creative talent to pair with writers. Voice actors put their shingles out and authors can choose who they would like to be the reader. Findaway Voices has a similar setup. Finally, one can find a voice actor on the various freelance sites.
Of those three options, I chose Findaway Voices. I like the way the site presented things, and I felt reassured my money would not go wasted by using one of the people listed on their site. They had a “we’ll take of everything” vibe that resonated with me, so I signed up. I wanted a turnkey solution since this was my first time.
The next decision point was whether to split royalties with the voice actor. People do this so they don’t have to pay as much. I decided to go ahead and pay for the whole thing up front even though that was considerably more expensive. For one thing, I have no idea how well this title will sell. If it lingers out there with only a couple hundred downloads over the next year or so, neither I nor the voice actor would be happy splitting such a meager rate. Much better, I thought, to keep full rights and pay the man for his time up front.
Speaking of paying the man, that was a choice too. I could have a male or female narrator. I decided since my lead character is a man to choose a male voice actor. Findaway gave me a wide selection of candidates, with links to their sample work. I tried imagining each one reading my book and eventually set out on their search engine to browse through different candidates on my own, in search of the perfect match.
At first I thought I wanted a British voice actor, since the series is set in an alternate world’s version of Great Britain. But when I heard Joshua Banks’ sample on Findaway I abandoned that idea. The lead character is American, anyway, just like Josh. He has what I consider a “golden voice,” that sounds excellent. I selected Josh as my preferred narrator and waited for Findaway to contact him with the details.
Josh agreed to take the job as the summer started winding down. Findaway offered us contracts and deadlines. They also had a very close estimate as to how long the audiobook would be, based on word count, and how long it would take Josh to finish. They estimated the length at 15 hours. The final product was indeed 15 hours and 15 minutes.
As the summer ended, Josh got to work and I moved on to other stuff. About a month later, he started posting chapter files on Findaway for me to review. This book has 125 chapters, ranging from 900 words or so on up to about 1,500. As he continued the work, I “proofed” them, listening to a few in the evenings and writing responses.
On rare occasion, he would skip a line, or read one in the wrong voice. On my end, it was interesting to find small typos that escaped all proofreading. I caught about four I had made just listening to him read through the text. Finally, I had some odd names and words that had to remain consistently pronounced.
When I found a mistake I would leave a note in Findaway, and Josh went through on his final round to clean everything up.
Through it all, he remained the consummate professional. Josh may well have been muttering imprecations about my requested changes offline, but via email he stayed upbeat and willingly put in the needed work on revisions. I think this sort of positive attitude and ability to work professionally is important for authors, who will be working hand in glove with their voice actors for the duration of the project. In many ways I was very fortunate to be working with Josh. He made the whole experience feel easy, even though it was a long slog.
Finally we had a final product in October that both of us were happy with, and I authorized his payment through Findaway. My next decision point involved going wide or exclusive with Audible.
At first, I leaned toward going wide. Findaway Voices was recently acquired by Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming service, and they distribute to about 40 other platforms as well. However, Audible had a couple of things that made me lean toward them as I considered my options.
A big positive was the royalty split. Audible is the biggest audiobook platform, and for exclusive titles they offer authors 40 percent. Non-exclusive titles receive 20 percent. And, their titles are available on Amazon as well as iTunes. But the biggest thing that intrigued me was the “Add Audible Narration” option through Amazon. People can buy the ebook and add the audiobook version for a very reasonable price. I suspect that’s the way a lot of people buy audiobooks.
I decided to go exclusive with Audible and Amazon for at least the first 90 days, then reassess from there. Again, I have no prior standard by which to measure success since this is my first one. But if it sells poorly, I would likely be interested in testing the waters of wider distribution. My ebooks remain exclusive on Kindle Unlimited and will be unaffected by the decision either way.
The onboarding process with Audible was easy. They have an option for “self-produced” titles, if you created your book outside ACX, and that is what I chose when uploading the files. An automated message informed me approval would occur within 10 business days. I submitted on a weekend, and indeed the files passed QC two weekends later. At that time the Audible version of Ethinium’s Vault appeared as available for purchase on Amazon.
I do also have a way everyone reading this can listen to the book for free. If you go to this link, you can download Ethinium’s Vault along with a free trial of Audible. If you decide audiobooks are not you, you can cancel before the month is up and owe nothing, even after listening to this 15+ hour title. If you continue with Audible after the free trial, they will give me a referral fee for sending you their way.
I hope my experiences described here are of benefit to others considering taking the plunge on creating audiobooks from their manuscripts. And I hope you have a chance to try the book for free using the link above.
JR