Amateur To Published: The Fiction Writer's Guide To Publishing

6 - Producing An Audio-Book

This is the age of podcasts, radio apps andaudio-books. It couldn't be a better time to convert your book into anaudio-book. I personally don't do audio-books because my genre doesn't lend itself well to audiobooks (imagine listening to a sex-scene lol), but if you're in genre like Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy or horror, you should try producing an audio book.

Many writers get scared off by the thought of creating anaudio-books because it seems expensive, time-consuming and requires technicalskill. I won't lie to you; all those are true. It is indeed costly since creating a good productwill require the use of professionals like narrators and sound engineers. Andyes, it's not something you can do in a day. Furthermore, you'll still need tomix and master the recordings. However, the benefits of having an audio-bookfar outweigh the costs.

Having an audio-book makes you seem more professional than theaverage author since many indie authors don't have it. It is also anotherincome stream. More and more readers are turning to audio-books since they canbe heard while doing other things such as house-chores, driving, exercising...things you normally can't do while reading.

To create your own audio-book:

STEP 1: CREATE AN ACCOUNT WITH ACX

ACX is part of Audible.com, an Amazon.comsubsidiary. They help build and manage audio content that gets sold on Audible,Amazon, and iTunes. When you start your account, all you'll need is your bankinformation (so they can pay you royalties — that's a good thing), andto find your title in the Amazon database.

When you publish with ACX, your audio-book will beavailable on Amazon, Audible and the Apple audio-book store. The threeretailers will make sure your book gets heard by as many people as possible.You retain all of the audio rights and ACX handles all of the distribution foryou, similar to how the online eBook retailers like KDP work.

When you publish your audio-book on the ACX, you'llearn between 20%-40% of their title royalties. If you work with a producer,then you'll have a royalty share with them, and the rate that you receive isdependent on how your producer is compensated. If you work by yourself you keepthe whole 40%, if you split it with a producer, you could each earn 20%. It alldepends on how you decide to share it. Go over to the ACX site and read the details of the deals they offer.

STEP 2: RESEARCH AUDIO SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Once you've committed to creating an Audio Book, youneed to know what retailers will allow or not allow. ACX has its own guidelines. They include but are not limitedto:

- Be the best quality i.e. not something you just made in yourbedroom. This means that you can't have background noise like mic pops andmouse clicks, must be consistent in pronunciation and tone

- You have to include separate opening credits, chapterfiles, closing credits, and a 1-5 minute sample. Explicit material should notbe included in the sample.

- All files must fall within a specific volume ranger – nottoo loud and not too soft, so that the listener won't have to adjust the volumeof their playback device.

- The file should not be longer than 120 minutes.

- The narrator must be human. Text-to-speech recordings are notallowed.

STEP 3: CREATE YOUR SCRIPT

Is your book written and edited? Good, you'reseventy-five percent done. Now you need to prep your eBook content foraudio-book recording. The point is to create a script that the narrator(s) canuse while recording the audio version of your book. To create the script deletehyperlinks, any calls to actions or click here prompts. Once you've created thenew script, read through it one last time to make sure it all makes sense ifread out aloud.