Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 88. Audiobook Production (Part 2)
Transcript
- 0:05Welcome to the show.
- 0:05Dont Tell Writing Podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction.
- 0:13Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be.
- 0:20Join me as I share the step by step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away.
- 0:25As I host successful writers who share a behind the scenes look at their own writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.
- 0:38Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book.
- 0:42There are real and important skills that you need to learn on this show.
- 0:46I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need.
- 0:49I can't wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing.
- 0:57I do.
- 0:58You choose a voice.
- 0:59If you're a fiction writer, you're not doing it yourself.
- 1:01How do you actually go and choose a voice to narrate your book?
- 1:06Narrate your book Will.
- 1:08If you are an independent and you have no publisher that's, that's helping you with this, you would go to an online marketplace called A CX.
- 1:19A CX is Audible's online marketplace where authors and narrators get together.
- 1:26You would put up an an audition piece, so like a four or 500 word audition.
- 1:31And accept auditions from narrators, perspective narrators.
- 1:36And then you would pick from those.
- 1:37If you are working with a publisher or, or someone like me who is a producer, what I do is I go to my roster of narrators that I've worked with, and I know they're professional and I choose a whole bunch.
- 1:51I I get them to audition for me and I would send my author.
- 1:56Usually five or six or sometimes 10 voices to choose from.
- 2:01Not too many because then it's just, it's, it's too hard to choose.
- 2:04But there should be a good conversation between the producer and the author about like, well, well, you know, what are you feeling?
- 2:11Like, have you got a voice in mind?
- 2:13Do you, do you listen to a lot of audio books and you know you want this narrator, in which case we'll see what his price is or her price is and, and see if you can afford it.
- 2:23But there's a lot of ways, but a lot of it sometimes comes if you've written specific accents into the book.
- 2:31And I'm gonna ask for, for help from from authors.
- 2:36Please don't.
- 2:38Give your characters random accents just because it sounds cool.
- 2:44Please.
- 2:44Because it's just make them all like General American or general to be really distracting.
- 2:49Right.
- 2:49It's awfully hard.
- 2:51And then if you have a book where the author has, has given every character a different accent of some kind, because they've written it right in the book.
- 3:01It's so much more difficult for the poor narrator to get those, you know, authentic or to even find a narrator to agree.
- 3:07Do do narrators typically?
- 3:09Yeah.
- 3:10Do narrators typically, if you can pay them, they say yes, or do they consider the projects and they have to like the book?
- 3:16I mean, is that.
- 3:18I don't know.
- 3:18I haven't been in this space, so Wait.
- 3:20Okay.
- 3:20Narrators don't have to like the book, but they for sure need to embody the characters so that Yeah, because sometimes we, we don't like every book we, we narrate, of course.
- 3:32I mean, books are different.
- 3:34Yeah.
- 3:34But you know, every narrator has to be able to choose, like, I know I cannot do a Boston accent.
- 3:43I cannot do a South African accent.
- 3:47For, I mean, I've, I've tried and I, I can't, and so if, if those are accents that are, you know, in the book I say, please, PA Plus is on, we'll find a narrator who can do those things.
- 3:59It's funny, penguin Random House, they have made it a policy that if any character is supposed to talk in a Boston accent, the narrator is supposed to just use a general standard American instead.
- 4:15Because it is, it's so expensive.
- 4:18It's, it is such a difficult accent to do well and do correctly.
- 4:23Yes.
- 4:23So I went to elementary school in Boston and then when I moved away from there and went into a new grade four, grade three.
- 4:31Three classroom.
- 4:32Yeah.
- 4:32And the kids were like, wow, you talk funny.
- 4:35Like I have they pretty, I mean, we don't have a lot of video from those days.
- 4:38I wish we did, but I think I could probably nail it.
- 4:40You could probably nail it.
- 4:41But I'm terrible at accents and last I'm immersed in it.
- 4:45Um, I've lived so many different places that people can't play.
- 4:48I mean, I go to the United States and people say, oh, you're Canadian.
- 4:52And here they think they sound American.
- 4:53So, yeah.
- 4:54Um, because I've lived on both sides of the border, but when I'm immersed in it, I can mimic somebody really well when I'm in.
- 5:00Because sometimes I do it without, yeah, without thinking, but it's hard to recall those accents.
- 5:05And I know that, you know, you're saying the ones that you can't do, but one of your actual talents as a narrator is you have a lot of accents in you.
- 5:12Oh, for sure.
- 5:13How do you keep them all straight?
- 5:14Like how do you even do that?
- 5:16When, when I'm doing an audiobook, if, if I am like the, a single narrator who does all the characters, I have a spreadsheet.
- 5:23And I pre-read the book, and as I'm going through, I'm making all my notes about what accent is required, and then I do a, a real plan and I, I make little notes and I, I do some audio clips for myself on that character's exact voice because it's not just the accent.
- 5:43Uh, you have like.
- 5:44Old versus young, male, female, you know, gruff.
- 5:47If every author wants a, you know, gravelly voiced male for their, for the romance, and so you have to be able to do these things, but every character has to be so distinct that the person listening will recognize who's speaking.
- 6:02Without having to, you know, go back and say, who, oh wait, who, who was that?
- 6:07They all have to be distinctive voices.
- 6:10And so I have a spreadsheet, it's a very technical thing where you, you go through the book, it takes quite a bit of time to prep the book and have the characters all come out as real, you know, not, not caricatures of with an accent and that sort of thing.
- 6:28And when you're, I mean, when you're doing that, there's two different things, right?
- 6:31There's dialogue where you're actually seeing what the character does, but there's also multiple points of view characters that might be written, right?
- 6:39So we're also doing their inner thoughts and things.
- 6:41So it might be a large chunk, or it might be just little snippets.
- 6:45So you know, for the large chunk, you could probably prepare yourself when you're switching point of views at a chapter or something.
- 6:51Right.
- 6:51But for those little snippets where it's dialogue between two characters, you can't be gotta be on the fly.
- 6:57Is that hard?
- 6:58It takes practice.
- 6:59Nothing is hard.
- 7:00It just takes practice.
- 7:01So, yeah.
- 7:02Yeah.
- 7:03Talent, right?
- 7:04Yeah.
- 7:04Once you get into it, because really when, when you're narrating a book, you are the characters and so it's easy to to switch because you just become.
- 7:13The next character and then use, use, you use their voice.
- 7:16So, yeah.
- 7:18And so yeah, you're acting.
- 7:19Yeah.
- 7:20Once in a while.
- 7:21I, I think my, my biggest, I, I'm so proud of this one book I did because it was a very small group of characters, but there were 10 people.
- 7:32All of whom were old ladies in a nursing home in Texas, and they were all from Texas.
- 7:38So I had 10, like I have my old lady accent.
- 7:42I have my Texas accent.
- 7:43Great.
- 7:44And so I, I can do that.
- 7:45Yeah.
- 7:45But 10 of them all sound who had to sound different.
- 7:49Wow.
- 7:49It took a lot of time and hopefully they were written very differently and that their, their actual voice on the page.
- 7:55It was unique.
- 7:55That might've helped, right?
- 7:57Like might've helped, but I don't think it, you know, it was, uh, yeah, it was an early book for this author and, and, uh, so she was just getting out the, you know, the thoughts in her head.
- 8:06I think, I'm sure the listeners are gonna agree.
- 8:09This is actually really fascinating things that I've never really thought about.
- 8:12But, so as I'm thinking that, I'm like, wow, you know, maybe listeners here wanna be narrators and wanna learn how to do this.
- 8:18Can anybody do it?
- 8:19And how would you get involved?
- 8:21If you, if you think that you have this talent and you, and you're, you know, love acting and think that you might wanna be a narrator, how would you get involved?
- 8:28Well, you'd be just like me 10 years ago, uh, or 11 years ago.
- 8:32Now what you do is you first have to invest in some good equipment.
- 8:36You, you have to have a real microphone.
- 8:38You have to have a computer where you can do the editing, and you have to have a space where, I dunno if you can see in, in here, my, my whole studio is covered in moving blankets.
- 8:49And so you do some prep work and, and set yourself up to do that.
- 8:53And then you start approaching.
- 8:56Authors and publishers and whoever will possibly hire you.
- 9:01You, you just start getting gigs and you get better, you get better as you do it.
- 9:06So those early books, I'm really embarrassed about and I don't tell anybody about them.
- 9:11But you know what, you get out and you practice.
- 9:14Yeah, absolutely.
- 9:15Okay.
- 9:16Um, we're gonna talk about costs and what it, what it costs and all that in a second.
- 9:19Before we move on, any comments on AI voices?
- 9:23'cause it's now possible to produce Yes.
- 9:25Uh, know.
- 9:26I like this was a hot, hot ticket.
- 9:28Right?
- 9:28I have lots of of comments on your, let's hear it.
- 9:31The thing is, okay, AI voices have been around for a long time and it is, they're just there.
- 9:38To me, having an AI voice just means you took the shortcut route.
- 9:43So listeners really don't like AI voices.
- 9:47There is such a huge backlash from people who you get bad reviews, you get a lot of bad feedback from your listeners, uh, who should be your fans, and instead, they, they diss the the AI voice.
- 10:04Now AI voices are getting better and better.
- 10:07There's a phenomenon called, is it the, the empty canyon?
- 10:11It, it's something where suddenly you realize that it is an AI voice, and it's like you have lost that human connection, and that is the thing that makes the audio the most valuable, is you are making a human connection between the voice and your thoughts, and, and it's in your head.
- 10:31So there, there's a backlash, but on the other hand, because of AI voices, you can now charge a premium for your authentic voiced audiobook, and people are willing to pay a little bit more for the, the real voice of the author.
- 10:46So, absolutely.
- 10:47Yeah.
- 10:47So I think, I mean, if you're gonna use an AI voice, in my opinion, because you don't need to produce an audiobook, actually, you can just have Siri read you any ebook.
- 10:57That's right.
- 10:58Um, your phone can read you an ebook.
- 11:00In, in a, uh, mechanical voice and there's, there's streaming services or there's apps where you can use different voices to read an ebook.
- 11:09So you don't actually, like, if you're gonna do that, don't bother, is my opinion, because people can do that Now, I often will listen to books for.
- 11:16My job.
- 11:17And so sometimes it's on three times speed or something If I'm researching a book.
- 11:22Right?
- 11:22Oh, and that takes, that takes practice hurts.
- 11:26It hurts, right hurts.
- 11:26But that's what I'm saying is sometimes that that AI voice, actually, I can't tell the difference because I'm listening to not three times speed quickly.
- 11:35But I'm not listening then for pleasure.
- 11:37I'm listening because I'm editing a book where the author's like, I'm trying to do this, and then I'm like, okay, I haven't read that book.
- 11:42And then I go and consume that book in three out basically.
- 11:45And then I'm like, okay, now I know what.
- 11:47Now that I know what you're trying to do, it's a very different experience.
- 11:50If you're listening for information, then it doesn't matter.
- 11:52I mean, who cares?
- 11:53Exactly.
- 11:53That's what I am.
- 11:55And if, but if you're listening for pleasure, if you're listening for the artistry of the book, then, then you wanna have a real voice.
- 12:01And it's funny, which, and it comes right back to the, the a hundred percent accuracy to the text.
- 12:08To me, if you have the authors reading the book and there's a few little mistakes or, or hesitations, that makes it that much more human.
- 12:16And so I love that.
- 12:18I, I love hearing.
- 12:20Errors.
- 12:21I love hearing hesitations.
- 12:23I love hearing like the catch in the voice when you're starting to cry because it's so emotional.
- 12:28That's what I want to hear in the book because that tells the listener that you are totally not an AI voice.
- 12:35You are real.
- 12:36And, uh, yeah.
- 12:37And you're evoking that in your, in your listener as well.
- 12:40Yeah.
- 12:40And your reader.
- 12:41Oh, yeah.
- 12:41Okay.
- 12:42So what happens to the recordings?
- 12:44First of all, where should we be recording?
- 12:46If we wanna record it, what?
- 12:47What would be like an app or a software that you would recommend?
- 12:51Where do we keep these files if we're reading a book and recording it?
- 12:55Right.
- 12:56So for the raw beginner, you're gonna wanna get a free software called Audacity Be, and it, it's got a couple really.
- 13:05Good parts.
- 13:06It's, it's, you know, it's free, it's clunky, but it's got something called punch and roll recording, which is a technical term for a lot of you, but it will make your life so much easier and it will make it much easier to edit the audio afterwards.
- 13:22We'll, we'll leave that maybe for another time.
- 13:25So you wanna get like, so it's free software.
- 13:28You wanna get a decent microphone.
- 13:31It doesn't have to be, you know, a, a Neumann $5,000 mic, but it can't be your laptop microphone.
- 13:39So you want to have, and the Blue Yeti that you are using right there is a workhorse.
- 13:46Uh, I, I can't tell you that's what I use.
- 13:47I actually use Audacity as well.
- 13:50Fair.
- 13:50Yeah.
- 13:50Um, when I do solo episodes.
- 13:52And, um, so if you listen to the podcast, if you listen to a solo episode or a lot of the instructions that I do, those are all recorded on Audacity.
- 13:59Audacity, uh, when I interview people, yeah.
- 14:01When I listen to, or sorry, when I record an interview like this one, we do it on Zoom just so that we can see one another, but we don't keep the, yeah.
- 14:08The video files, so, right.
- 14:09Yeah.
- 14:10And so what you're gonna do, and this is really important, you will not be saving it as an MP three.
- 14:16You're gonna save it as either a wave or a flack or some kind of file.
- 14:21And the reason that's important is because MP threes are called lossy files.
- 14:29That means every time you open and close the file, every time you do something like compression or noise reduction or some kind of process on the audio, you will lose some of the integrity of the audio every time.
- 14:43Wave Files.
- 14:44WAV, they are called non lossy files, and that's a technical term, non lossy.
- 14:52And you can open and close and open and close and save and re-save and do as many processes like noise reduction and changing the compression file.
- 15:04You can do all kinds of stuff on the files and it will never lose integrity.
- 15:08So you will always have a nice full spectrum voice to, uh, to listen to.
- 15:14MP threes are really quick and easy and, and fast.
- 15:18And if you're not gonna do much editing.
- 15:20Sure.
- 15:20But if the work that you have to do to make an audiobook really well, really good sounding means you, you can't use an MP three.
- 15:31Okay, fine.
- 15:31Yeah, that's a great tip.
- 15:32Thank you.
- 15:33And okay, so then you either edit yourself or you work with a producer to get it edited.
- 15:40Formatted, yeah.
- 15:41But this is where most providers of audiobook services stop, right?
- 15:46Yeah.
- 15:46But your business actually does.
- 15:48A lot more.
- 15:49Can you talk about the pieces that are missing and what happens after all those files are produced?
- 15:54Oh, for sure.
- 15:56Uh, and you know what, and I, I got into doing this part of my job just because I used to be a professional speaker with, with books.
- 16:04And so I know anybody who's producing an audiobook, they, they don't know what to do.
- 16:11And that might be the, the pain, the pain point.
- 16:15That that makes 'em never put the audio book up at all.
- 16:18That could be the point where they just get too frustrated and stop.
- 16:21So for me, what you're gonna be doing is you have these beautiful audio files.
- 16:27Every chapter is its own file and you have to go and upload it to a distributor.
- 16:34You can choose just to go to Audible, and then again, that's through a CX.
- 16:40Or you can do wide distribution and I, I recommend wide.
- 16:43So that's like another whole story.
- 16:45But that means, uh, you would be able to get it into library systems and other distributors so that you can have a lot of people listen to your audiobook.
- 16:57Plus you can put it up on your own website.
- 16:59Do direct sales.
- 17:00So remember again, every audiobook now is a digital download.
- 17:05So you don't have to go make CD sets anymore, right?
- 17:11Yeah.
- 17:11There's no, there's nothing else to do.
- 17:13You just have to upload it.
- 17:14You're done.
- 17:14Nothing else to do.
- 17:14You, you upload it to distributors.
- 17:17And what you'll need when you're uploading is so you, um, you're gonna have to have your metadata.
- 17:24'cause that's, that's a really good way to get your audiobook discovered is make sure you have really good metadata.
- 17:31And that would be, you wanna tell us what that is?
- 17:33Yeah, well.
- 17:34The metadata when you go up, has information about your audiobook that it makes it searchable.
- 17:42Makes it searchable.
- 17:43So when someone goes on Google and says, oh, I'm looking for this audiobook, uh, or I'm looking for a title, and you might know the author, or you might not know the author, all of that data is searched by the, in the databases and you, you are discoverable then, and that will lead to sales.
- 18:03Awesome.
- 18:04One hopes.
- 18:05Okay, so the one hopes, exactly.
- 18:07So that's, that's where I'm bleeding here, because what does it cost?
- 18:10What does it cost to make an audiobook in 2026?
- 18:14And what would you make?
- 18:15Okay.
- 18:15What's the potential?
- 18:16There's a spectrum as always.
- 18:18You can either pay nothing, have zero cost, and that is if you do a royalty share project with your narrator, and again, that would be a CX, which is the audible Amazon affiliate.
- 18:31So that then it limits your pool of narrators willing to work with you, right?
- 18:34Exactly.
- 18:35Yes.
- 18:35So you're limited to who's gonna work with you, whether they're professional, whether they actually do produce the audio or not.
- 18:41And they probably will not market it very well.
- 18:47Like there's a lot of think, but it's free.
- 18:49So.
- 18:50That, you know, and I've, I've done royalty share projects galore.
- 18:53So it's one way to get an audiobook without any extra cost.
- 18:57However, I don't recommend that because it's all out of your control as an author when it gets produced.
- 19:04And so the next thing you can try is, uh, it's called Royalty Share plus.
- 19:09So you would do royalty share.
- 19:12Which means 50 50 all on the sales between you and the narrator.
- 19:17But you would, in addition, provide a per finished hour fees so that the narrator would have a little bit of income in order to produce the audiobook.
- 19:26Often it's a hundred dollars or $150 per finished hour.
- 19:32That's a key phrase I want everyone to learn.
- 19:35Every, the entire industry works on the finished hour counts.
- 19:39So your pricing, your costs, and that's recorded hours, right?
- 19:44That No, that's not recorded hours.
- 19:46Sorry, that's, sorry.
- 19:47Yes.
- 19:47It's recorded after editing and everything else finished and then Yes.
- 19:52Yeah, finished hour.
- 19:53So you, you could record for 16 hours, but only have a nine hour audio book.
- 19:58And, and so everything is based on the finished hour.
- 20:00So you could do that.
- 20:02And, and again, that, that's okay, but it's not.
- 20:05Quite as definite as if you go out, hire a narrator and a producer and, and get it done.
- 20:14Often you can find a narrator to work per finished hour.
- 20:18Again, you can go back to a CX and audition.
- 20:21And generally professional narrators now, especially if they're in the union, uh, there's the actors' unions on both Canada and the US side.
- 20:31They will work for $250 per finished hour as a minimum for it to count.
- 20:37So that's.
- 20:38Now you think, oh, well that's not bad,$250, but if you have a 10 hour audio book, you're paying your narrator $2,500.
- 20:46So that's why you need to have that multiplier in mind.
- 20:49Yeah.
- 20:50How long, okay.
- 20:51How long is book be I Amazing.
- 20:53Are are audio books producing an audiobook?
- 20:55Is are you seeing it be profitable for writers?
- 20:58You know, the publishing business is like this all around.
- 21:01There is like probably one in 10 audio books will make back the cost of production and the reason is more.
- 21:10The marketing after the audio book is produced, then it is so much how much it costs to produce it, and I think it goes right back to what you were saying earlier, that if you give yourself a longer lead time so that you can get the buzz going and market and have your plan even a year in advance.
- 21:29Your sales will go that much easier and you are more likely to make the cost of production back.
- 21:34It's the people who don't know how to market, who just say, no, no, I just want an audio book.
- 21:39I just want an audio book.
- 21:40That's okay.
- 21:41Yeah.
- 21:41I don't have to make money.
- 21:43Uh, exactly.
- 21:44I hear a lot of, and there's lots of us out there doing that.
- 21:47Right.
- 21:47Cost.
- 21:47But yeah.
- 21:48At the end of the day, regardless of how you publish, regardless of what formats you publish in, you, the writer are going to need to be involved.
- 21:57In the marketing of your book, even if you're with a huge publisher in today's day and age, there's a lot of things that you need to do on your own and think through.
- 22:06Give yourself that time and space.
- 22:08Okay?
- 22:08This has been absolutely amazing, Jenny.
- 22:11So if you're super inspired, where can, and all your listeners are like, all right, I gotta do this.
- 22:16Now it's time.
- 22:17I wanna talk about it.
- 22:18Where can we find you?
- 22:20Well, I am online, of course.
- 22:22I have two websites.
- 22:23One is, and this is my primary website.
- 22:26My company is called Snow Dog Audio, and you can find me@snowdoaudio.com.
- 22:32That's named after my dog.
- 22:34My funds decided my company should be called Snow Dog Audio.
- 22:38Love it.
- 22:39I love it.
- 22:40Yeah.
- 22:40Yeah.
- 22:40Snowing out today and, and Jenny lives near me.
- 22:43Not in the same city, but near nearby.
- 22:46Yeah.
- 22:46So, uh, yeah, so we, we have a lot of snow.
- 22:49So I have my snow dog, and so on my website I have information for authors who don't know what they're doing.
- 22:57I have information for speakers.
- 23:00I have tips how to self record, how to, how to get into it because I want everybody to feel like they can do this, that, that this is a doable.
- 23:13Part of publishing a book that Absolutely.
- 23:16And you work with writers from all over the world, right?
- 23:19All over the world.
- 23:20Yep.
- 23:20Yep.
- 23:21Amazing.
- 23:21Hey, I tend to work with, um, a lot of people and, and it's funny 'cause there's a lot of people who read all about how to, to set up their own studio and they decide anyway, they're just gonna come into my, my studio.
- 23:34So I have a lot of local authors come into record and then I feed them potato tips.
- 23:40Wait, it's much like, come, comes full, comes full circle.
- 23:43You get up and you wanna feel like you're dressed for work.
- 23:46Right?
- 23:46Yeah.
- 23:46And I think that's true too.
- 23:48If you go into a studio, you're, you're there to do the job and, and there's a lot to be said job.
- 23:53Yeah.
- 23:53That's alright.
- 23:53This has been so amazing, Jenny.
- 23:55Thanks so much for coming on the show.
- 23:57You're welcome.
- 23:57Thanks for having me.
- 23:58I'm so excited to be here.
- 24:06Thanks for tuning into the show.
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