I’m Recording My Audiobook!
My cat, Grandma Pearl, has the distinct honor of listening to me record my audiobook.
“Hi Angela, Typically we hire voice actors to read the audiobooks, but we have loved listening to your podcasts and were wondering if you’d like to read your own audiobook?”
I recieved this email from my editor after we’d wrapped up the fourth and final round of edits. The next step for the book was to go to the publicity and marketing department. I thought that meant I could take a breath and sit back and begin planning the book tour. I was taken by surprise at this email since I hadn’t even considered the prospect of reading my own audiobook. I responded with enthusiasm. “Yes! What an incredible opportunity!” And with that, I recieved my recording schedule. “A professional narrator could probably finish recording your book in 10-15 hours, but since you are a newbie, you’ll likely have to go back to repeat lines quite often, which can add up to two to three hours of recording time just to get one hour of useable audio. If I were you, I’d set aside upwards of 40-50 hours to complete this.” Not only was my editor factoring in my need to re-record my mistakes, loud breathing, sneezes, coughing or other background noise, but also the emotional content.
To prepare for this huge project, I began listening to audiobooks as often as possible specifically to assess what makes a quality sounding audiobook. It’s been a joy to hear Trevor Noah read his memoir, Born A Crime, and Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. lately I’ve been studying Julia Whelan’s audibook narrating styles. She has narrated over 400 books including Tara Westover’s book, Educated and Gillian Flynn’s, Gone Girl. I steeped myself in quality voice actors, the enormity of the task began to make itself known.
How do I embody the different characters? Should I color code the dialogue so I am cued when to switch?
How do I stay consistent in my pacing if I’m recording just one day per week?
I’m not an actor! Can I do this?
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Naomi McDougall Jones, an actress, an author and presenter of the TEDTalk, "What it's Like to Be a Woman in Hollywood.” Naomi graced me with a half hour of her precious time, teaching me invaluable lessons for audiobook reading. She advised that I…
Even though you wrote the book, make sure you read ahead and highlight words when you end the sentence with “she yelled,” or “she whispered.” It’s so frustrating having to re-record those sentences because you didn’t look ahead to see what type of voice to read it in.
Don’t wear noisy clothing, like polyester or nylon.
Get a chair with a very comfortable back and one that doesn’t make any creaking sounds. You’ve got to stay still in one position for hours on end.
Make sure you have lots of water, tea, apples, chapstick and bread nearby. This will help ensure that there aren’t any extra noises coming from your mouth, lips or gurgles in your throat. “Oh, and buy throat spray!”
Taking all of this advice into consideration, I recorded my first 5 minute test sample and sent it to my audio engineer. He applauded my effort and kindly asked me to try again, sending youtube videos and explanations of my many areas for improvement. “There is a significant number of loud breathings and plosives. This is something that you can control by calming down a bit, take your time to breath just a bit deeper, and when you are about to breath, turn away a bit from the microphone, but most importantly, just calm down and speak naturally as you would talk to a friend at a cafe.”
With this advice, I’m quite certain that I won’t be in the runnings for an Audie award this time around. But, I’m off to record my second test sample this afternoon in my cozy recording nook in my home office.
By the way, please pre-order your copy of my book! Pre-sales are extremely helpful in getting a book out to the public, here’s why.