The traditional world of publishing was turned upside down when independent authors got the opportunity to self-publish their work. It completely changed the whole publishing industry and gave every aspiring author the chance to get their book published. Millions of indie titles have been published since then. A fantastic development, but it has also made it much harder for new authors to succeed on today’s very competitive market for e-books/paperbacks.
Now, a new trend for self-publishing is emerging: audiobooks. The market for audiobooks is booming, more and more people are starting to listen to audiobooks. And let’s face it: it’s the ideal way to consume books when you don’t have the option to actually read. What’s better than listening to your favorite books when you’re stuck in traffic, at the gym, or jogging?
For authors, audiobooks offer a great opportunity. You’ve already done all the hard work of writing a book. Now if you turn that book into an audiobook, you can tap into a growing market, expand your audience, and earn more royalties.
Many self-published authors haven’t published their work in audiobook format yet, so the market is not nearly as competitive as that for e-books or paperbacks. There are a couple of reasons why authors tend to be reluctant to publish audiobooks:
- Audiobooks are very expensive to make. Whether you hire a narrator or an expensive studio: the costs are too high to make the idea of audiobooks worthwhile.
- The biggest platform for audiobooks, ACX.com, is only open to residents of the United States and United Kingdom.
- Recording an audiobook at home is not a real option: it seems too difficult to do and requires expensive equipment.
In this post, I will dispel these myths. You can record audiobooks yourself at home, without expensive equipment. Even if you’re not living in the US or UK!
And if you don’t want to record yourself, you can always hire a narrator. This doesn’t have to cost you anything up-front if you choose a 50-50 royalty share deal with your narrator.
Let’s get to it then: here are the 7 steps to publish your first audiobook!
Step 1: Do It Yourself or Hire a Narrator
The first thing you have to decide is whether you are going to record the audiobook yourself or hire a narrator.
There are pros and cons to each option. Doing it yourself saves money and gives you higher royalties, but will require some time investment. Also, not everyone will be comfortable recording an audiobook themselves.
Hiring a narrator on the other hand will save you time and will give you a professional quality recording. But it is also the more expensive option. You can hire a narrator with a one-time flat fee or via a 50-50 royalty share deal. The whole process of selecting and hiring a narrator can be done through the ACX platform.
Step 2: Choosing Your Platform
The biggest platform for audiobooks is ACX.com. If you use their platform to publish, they will distribute your audiobook to Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. They give you two options:
- Exclusive distribution through ACX with a 40% royalty
- Non-exclusive distribution with a 25% royalty
ACX also offers a $50 bounty if your audiobook is one of the first to be purchased with a membership.
ACX is only available to residents of the US and UK. But there’s a workaround to still get on their platform if you’re outside the US/UK. In that case you can use a special service by a US based company that will receive the royalty checks for you and then forward your royalty onto your preferred method of payment, for which they charge 10% commission. It’s a method that a lot of authors use and it works well. Details can be found on this Kboards thread.
Another option for authors located outside the US/UK is Author’s Republic, an audiobook platform that is open to rights holders from all over the globe. They offer a 25% royalty rate for Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. They will also distribute your audiobook to other channels for up to 35% royalty.
If you decided to hire a narrator via ACX, you’re done. You can sit back and wait till your audiobook is finished and go from there. If you decided to record the audiobook yourself, there are 5 more steps to follow.
Step 3: Equipment and Software
First, you need to get the right equipment and software:
- A good microphone
- A pop filter
- Microphone stand
- Headphones
- Audacity for Windows or Mac
1. A good microphone
For best quality, you need a cardioid microphone. Cardioid means that the microphone only picks up sound coming from the front, rejecting sound from the sides and rear. This is essential to get a good recording with reduced room ambience.
One of the best cardioid mics to get for recording an audiobook is the Audio Technica ATR2100. It comes at a very affordable price and offers top quality. Other popular mics like the Blue Snowball or Blue Yeti will get the job done too, but they will pick up more noise and are not as good as the Audio Technica for recording an audiobook.
2. A pop filter
To reduce popping sounds in your recording for words that have a ‘p’ (or ‘b’) in it, you need to have a pop filter in front of your microphone. Personally I use this pop filter from Neewer.
3. Microphone stand
To place the mic in the right position you also need a microphone stand. I got a mic desk stand from Amazon, which works well.
4. Headphones
You need good quality monitor headphones to listen back to your recording for editing the sound file. Ear bud headphones won’t do, you need good monitor headphones by, for example, Sennheiser.
5. Audacity for Windows or Mac
To edit your audio files, you can use Audacity, an open source and free audio editor and recorder.
Step 4: Setting Up Your Recording Environment
To get a high quality professional sound, make sure there are no sources of noise in the direct vicinity, like an air conditioner, refrigerator, an open window etc. A good method to improve the quality of your recording is to place a clothes rack behind you, covered with blankets or thick clothes. This will deaden the sound and reduce echo. What’s coming from behind you is the most important, but if possible also put blankets or foam panels at the sides and rear of the mic to further deaden the sound.
Step 5: Recording
If you have your recording environment set up properly, it’s time to record your audiobook. Do a test recording first to see if everything sounds okay and if your file meets ACX requirements. So just record a few paragraphs or a chapter and master the file. Then check whether it meets requirements (step 6). Don’t record your entire book first only to find out later that the files aren’t within ACX guidelines!
If you’re recording a non-fiction book you can just read the book out loud in a conversational style. For fiction, it can be a little harder to find the right style of narration. Record some paragraphs and get feedback from friends and family to see whether you’re on the right track.
Make sure you record in mono at 44.1 kHz. I like to record each chapter individually, but if you want you can also record the audiobook as one file and then later break that down in separate files for every chapter.
Step 6: Mastering and Editing
If you’re publishing your audiobook through ACX, it’s essential that you know all their submission requirements. Some of the technical requirements there may look like gibberish to you, but don’t worry, we’ll make sure your files meet all requirements by following the steps below.
When you’re done recording, there are two more things you need to do: mastering and editing. This will probably make every audio engineer out there cringe when I say this, but I prefer to do the mastering before the editing. The reason is that when you master the file, this will amplify all sorts of mouth and background noises, which you will then have to go back and edit out again. So mastering your file first, will save you a lot of time.
Mastering
By applying different effects to your sound file, you can make sure it meets all ACX.com’s submission requirements. Follow the mastering steps below using Audacity to get a professional quality recording that meets all requirements:
- Noise Reduction. First, highlight a few seconds of room noise. Then in Audacity go to Effects > Noise Reduction, and click “get noise profile”. Then, select the entire track, choose a noise reduction of between 12-24db, and click OK to apply noise reduction to your file.
- Use a high pass filter to get rid of low frequency sounds like low rumblings, cars passing by etc. Select the entire track. Then go to Effect > High Pass Filter. Set frequency at 80 Hz and Roloff at 12 Db.
- Use compression by selecting the entire recording and going to Effect > Compressor in Audacity. Use the following settings: Threshold: -25 dB, Noise Floor: -40dB, Ratio 2:1, Attack Time 0.20 secs, Release time: 1 sec. Click OK.
- Select the entire recording and go to Effect > Normalize. Check “Remove DC offset”. Then check “Normalize maximum amplitude to” and input a value of -3.0 dB.
To check whether your files meet ACX’s requirements of an RMS between -23 dB and -18 dB, select the entire track and then go to Analyze > Contrast. Then click on Measure selection (for either foreground or background, this doesn’t matter).
It can happen that your file does not meet ACX’s RMS requirement. To fix this, try the following things:
- Before recording, increase the recording volume of your mic in Audacity as well as in your Windows control panel.
- Move a little closer to the mic when you’re recording.
- Lower the high pass filter to 60 Hz or less, or skip the high pass filter altogether.
A useful plugin you can use to check whether your file meets all technical ACX requirements for RMS level, peak level, and noise floor, is the ACX check plugin. To install the plugin, unzip the zip folder, then copy the file acx-check.ny to the Plugins folder of Audacity (in your program files folder). “ACX Check” should now be visible under the menu item “Analyze” in Audacity. If it isn’t, go to Analyze > Add/Remove plugins and select ACX Check.
Editing
Now it’s time to edit your file. Here, you edit out all mistakes, coughs, background noises etc. Editing is time consuming and not the most exciting part of recording an audiobook, but it has to be done to get a good quality audiobook.
Step 7: Export to MP3
The final step is to export your file to MP3. In order for Audacity to export, you first need to download an MP3 encoder. Then go to File > Export Audio and select save as MP3 at 192 kbps and Constant Bit Rate Mode. You can now upload your MP3 files to ACX.
That’s it!
These are the 7 steps to record and publish your first audiobook. From personal experience, I can say that it is a bit of a learning curve and it takes some time before you get the hang of it. But it will go a lot quicker once you’ve done it a few times. From there on, recording your next audiobook will be a breeze. Best of luck with your recording endeavors, and I hope your first audiobook will be a success!
Mike Turner is a self-published author, entrepreneur, and poker player. He writes poker strategy books and runs the website KickstartPoker.com.