From writer to narrator—DIY your audiobook in 6 steps, a comprehensive guide.
Find out what you need from equipment to recording to uploading the files, with video!
Audiobooks are booming while the barriers to entry are falling. If you want to create an audio version of your book, there’s never been a better time to try. If I could do it—and I did—you absolutely can.
This guide will, I hope, make the process less intimidating. In addition to written instructions you can return to, I’ve included short videos and images to bring this process to life in your imagination and, hopefully, into your listener’s ears. Because before you can do a thing, you have to be able to dream it first.
This is based on what I learned recording and distributing the audio edition of my memoir, Blissful Thinking: A Memoir of Overcoming the Wellness Revolution (Motina Books). I wanted to record this title, both for its unfamiliar words (like S.N. Goenka, nomyoho renge kyo, maha kumbh mela) and because I work on-air in live television and have had voice training. Though I wouldn’t hire me to read a novel—huge respect to voiceover artists (VOAs)! Hiring a narrator is a separate process, and if I make an audio version of Florida Girls (coming out May 28), I’ll write about outsourcing that project.
Whether you narrate, you can still be your own audiobook publisher. The labor and materials you’ll need are included below, but you’ll want to Google for current pricing. I’ve used searchable terms and included a few links.
READ ON!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Ill-Behaved Women to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.