Creating a good audiobook is fun and challenging at the same time. For first time producers it can be quite daunting. Here are some basic steps to help you produce a crisp, clean and professional sounding audiobook.
Fine tune your material: make sure your material is edited and ready to be recorded. Make a list of things you want to include, like preface, acknowledgments etc. This is very important as re-recording and editing the audiobook again can be quite cumbersome and expensive.
Decide who is going to voice it: Are you going to voice your own audiobook? You definitely can, but before you record, it is better to learn to record good voice overs. If you are planning to hire someone else to voice it, there are tons of VO artists available who can do a fantastic recording.
You also need to decide if you want a female/male Voice and if you need any voice characters.
Decide where to record: If you are recording on your own, you can hire a studio (which can cost from $50-$200 an hour, which can be expensive). A cheaper alternative is to setup your own home recording studio. If it’s just a one off recording, it is better to head for the studio. But if you will be recording audiobooks regularly, it will save you tons of money to set up a home studio.
If you choose a VO artist, most them have their own setup and can record for you. BUT be careful. The setup quality can vary from low to medium, and you need to be very sure of what you are getting. 90% of quality control comes while recording. Sometimes a good VO artist can have excellent voice but poor audio engineering skill, which can result in a bad recording.
Post production: Once you have the audio recorded, it needs to be edited, eqed, polished, mixed and mastered. You will need to hire a good audio post production studio to get this done. This part is best left to the professional as they will evaluate the audio and deliver the best possible audiobook quality. The raw audiobook needs to be edited for all noises and glitches, and then has to be mixed to sound crisp and clean. Mastering will finally add the shine and clarity to the audio.
Album art: Once the audio is done, you need to have the cover of the audiobook, also called album art, ready. Usually different audiobook platform have different size specifications. The album art plays a crucial role on how people will click on your audiobook when they see it on a webage. It needs to be very attractive and eye grabbing.
Release platform: There are a couple of platforms to release the audiobooks. Amazon, Itunes, Google play to name a few. You can also release it on your own blog or website as well.
Happy recording! If you are looking for quality audiobook editing, mixing mastering services, please visit here
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