Confessing to yet another vice (aside from junk food), I’m addicted to audiobooks. How do I know I’m addicted, you ask?
I’ll tell you. When I first started, I only listened while working out. Then my work outs went from 30 minutes to 60 minutes, hinting at the beginning of my addiction. Next I began listening while I was driving too, but only long distance drives. Then I moved into plugging into audiobooks the second I get in the car. There’s no doubt about my addiction. I don’t even bother to take my earbuds out when I go from the car to the house. I even listen in the evenings while watching TV. Yes, it is tricky and I do need to turn the sound off on the television, but like all of us these days, I am famously a multi-tasker. Or that’s my guilt-ridden addict’s excuse.
Being a novelist, the natural next step as a confirmed audiobook addict was to make my novels into audiobooks. Unlike listening to audiobooks while watching TV, I didn’t need a silly excuse to do this. It’s a smart business decision with the growing audiobook audience. So I did it.
The Author’s Audiobook Making Process (through ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange platform of Audible/Amazon):
Prepare and share a script for narrator auditions
Listen to as many auditions as it takes and give feedback to narrators where appropriate
Choose a narrator and negotiate a deal, agreeing to a royalty share or rate per finished hour.
Send the novel/script to the narrator.
Review and approve first 15 minutes of audiobook.
Listen/review/make notes of changes for each chapter, one at a time. (This can take a while!)
Listen to corrected chapters and make more notes for changes as needed.
Listen to final corrections and approve audiobook.
Pay narrator and submit to ACX for review/approval
Get promotional clip and promotional codes from ACX
Your Audiobook is approved and live and ready for all your fans to buy!
What a fun intensive process it’s been. With three of my thirty books in audio now, I’ve figured out. Auditioning narrators has been the most fun part for me. There are a lot of talented professionals out there. Seventy-nine auditions later, I was able to find someone who I thought was perfect for my Beachcomber Investigations series.
Newest Audiobook
I chose Mishka Thebauld to narrate Let It Snow, a Beachcomber Investigations romantic suspense novella turned audiobook, which is out now. Mishka is a trained actor with some TV and Film experience, but just starting out in voice over narration. I was lucky to find him now as a beginner. This month he’ll begin narrating The Beachcombers – prequel to the Beachcomber Investigations series. This young actor impressed me so much that I plan to have him narrate the entire series. I predict he’ll be a star audiobook narrator–if he doesn’t get distracted by his TV/Film acting career.
You can hear more about the audiobook making process and meet Mishka in the podcast video below, but first I want to offer a FREE download of Let It Snow to one lucky random commenter.
Let me know in the comments if you like audiobooks and why for a chance to WIN your FREE Audiobook copy of Let It Snow!
Now, hear all about audiobooks behind the scenes and meet super narrator, Mishka Thebault: