in Publishing
What producing an audiobook involves
An audiobook is a separate production, not a by-product of the print edition. It needs rights, a script, a narrator, careful proofing and its own ISBN.
Audiobooks are sometimes discussed as if they were simply a recording of the book. In practice, producing one is closer to making a separate edition. It has its own rights, its own production process, its own specifications and its own identifier.
Rights come first
Before anything else, check who holds the audio rights. In a traditional publishing contract, audio rights may have been granted to the publisher, retained by the author or licensed to a specialist audio publisher. An independently published author usually holds them, unless they have been granted elsewhere.
If the book quotes song lyrics, poetry or other copyright material, permission to use it in print does not necessarily cover audio. Permissions often need to be checked or obtained again.
Contracts vary, and anything involving the division of rights needs specific advice rather than general assumptions.
The script and the narrator
The script is the final text of the book, but it needs preparation. Some things that work on the page do not work in audio: footnotes, tables, charts, captions, visual layout and references to page numbers. Each needs a decision. Some are rewritten, some are read in a particular way and some are provided as a separate document for listeners.
Pronunciation is part of preparation too. Names, places and unfamiliar words should be listed, with their pronunciation, for the narrator. Mistakes discovered after recording are expensive to fix.
The narrator is the most important creative decision in an audiobook. The voice should suit the book: its tone, its setting, its characters and, often, the narrator's accent. Some authors narrate their own books, which can work particularly well for memoir and some non-fiction. Many do not, because narration is a specialist skill.
Auditions are usual. A narrator or several narrators record a short section so that the author and producer can hear how the voice fits.
Recording and production
Recording takes place in a studio or a professional home studio, typically with a producer or director who follows the text and listens for errors, mispronunciations and inconsistencies. Recording takes considerably longer than the finished running time, because of retakes, pauses and preparation.
A common rule of thumb is that nine to ten thousand words make roughly one finished hour of audio, though pace varies with the narrator and the material.
After recording, the audio is edited to remove mistakes, noises and long pauses, then mastered so that levels are consistent and the files meet the technical requirements of retailers and distributors. Those requirements cover things such as file format, volume levels and the length of silence at the start and end of each file.
Proofing an audiobook means listening to the entire recording while following the text, noting any errors: missed or added words, mispronunciations, noises and inconsistencies. It is slow, careful work, and it is essential. Errors that are not caught will be heard by every listener.
Corrections are then recorded as pickups, which are inserted into the edited audio.
The finished product
An audiobook needs its own ISBN, because it is a separate product. It usually needs a square version of the cover, as audio retailers display covers in that shape. It needs a retail sample, which is a short extract that listeners can hear before buying, and metadata including the narrator's name and the running time.
Distribution can be through a single retailer or through a distributor that reaches several. As with ebooks, some routes require exclusivity, so it is worth reading the terms before choosing.
An audiobook done well is its own edition of the book, with its own audience. It deserves the same care as the print.