5 Tips to Record Your Audiobook at Home

Can you record a professional sounding audiobook at home? You sure can. My first audiobook was recorded in a room in my parents house. It took a little finessing but it did the trick and got the job done. If you're thinking of recording your audiobook in the comforts of your own home, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie, the book broad of Book Launchers. I'm also a three time soon to be four time author at Book Launchers. We help authors professionally record audio versions of their book and and while most of our authors choose to record their book in a studio, some opt to record at home and a few DIY the entire process. If you're thinking about DIY or home recording, then make sure you get a pen and paper for the tips I'm about to share. The thing you really need to know before you get too deep into this is that there are very, very specific specs that audible will hold you to. So if you are planning to sell your book on audible, you need to get familiar with these specifications. When it comes to your home setup. These are the things that you really have to be mindful of. Your submitted audiobook must be consistent in overall sound and formatting. Consistency in audio levels, tone, noise levels, spacing and pronunciation gives the listener an enjoyable experience. Drastic changes can be jarring to the lister listener and are not a see that wouldn't be good in an audiobook. Drastic changes can be jarring to the listener and are not reflective of a professional production. This distracts from the listening experience and may lead to poor reviews and reduced sales. So this means you need to get your home set up and set up so that it can stay the same for the whole time you're recording your audiobook. That's why it's really wise to create a dedicated recording space. And it needs to be quiet. I mean not quiet like bribe your dog with a bone and give your kids TV time. Quiet like really really quiet. You want a room that doesn't have a window. You don't want to be able to hear that fridge or the air conditioner or the furnace. If you have pipes that make noises. Yeah, there's all kinds of things. That's why recording studios build soundproof rooms. With soundproofing all over the walls, studio equipment and editing software can't edit out the background sounds to the point where it's professional and of the standard audible in particular requires. So when I chose a room I had one in my parents place that was away from the systems of the house didn't have an exterior facing window and I could lock that down for a few weeks where nobody else was using it. We hung thick blankets all over the walls, covered the furniture and the desk. I was recording on with thick blankets and it took several layers, far more than I expected to get the dampening effect that we needed. I've heard closets are a good place to record, but the trick is that you don't want to touch your setup between sessions because you really need to have that consistency. We used a lot of blankets, as you can see in the picture, but my mom and dad used to run a bed and breakfast, so they had a lot of blankets. Likely a smarter move is to get acoustic foam tiles or sound absorption tiles. If you've seen my live streams from my office, my artwork is actually acoustic sound absorbing tiles because my office is a little echoey and I record record a lot of videos and podcasts in there. Now that you've got a dedicated space soundproofed now you have to think about what you're actually recording on. This is software mic, you know, that kind of equipment. So for my book I used GarageBand on my Mac. Make sure you don't have a loud fan on your computer, otherwise you'll have to set up the computer in a different room and run cords in. Yeah, this is a bit of a pain, and it does depend if you're going to be doing the editing yourself because this is a huge project to edit to the right specs as well. For me, I recorded at home and sent the files to a professional audio editor. But you'll need to consider all of this before you decide if you have the right computer to record on at all. Some pro quality software may not even run on your computer, depending on how much RAM you have. Programs that work well for recording include Audacity and that's probably the most popular. But there are also other ones like Studio One, Twisted Wave, and Pro Tools. If you're new to all of this, hire someone to help you with the setup. When I did my audiobook at home, my audiobook engineer helped me with sound tests and the setup of the equipment. I just used GarageBand, but getting the settings right on that were a huge pain. Knowing what I know now, I would use Audacity, but then we haven't even talked about mouth clicks or weird noises you make. And you also may want another plugin with that software that to help limit that because even with the pop filter I bought. Oh, there was so many pickups. Pickups are when there are Little sounds or mispronunciations of words that you have to go back and record just that one or two words to replace the ones that weren't right. Okay, so on the list of things to talk about with that audio engineer, you might want to talk about a filter like isotope, fab filter, or waves to help with all the weird things that we do with our mouth when we talk. It took me days to get the setup right. I would record something, send it to the engineer, and have several phone calls back and forth trying to get the setup just right. There are other specs you need to be aware of, which means it's extra important to have this setup right. Every file must be between 23 decibels and minus 18 decibels RMS. This is a sound range not too loud, not too soft, so listeners don't have to constantly adjust the volume of their playback device. Each file has to have peak values no higher than minus 3 dB. By leaving this headroom, you'll reduce the possibility of distortion, which can reduce the quality of the listening experience. The headroom is also needed to ensure files are successfully encoded. So, yeah, if it just sounds like I spoke a different language and it all sounds like a pain in the butt. Just get studio space and record in a studio. My experience with recording, self publish and succeed in a studio was a dream compared to all the work I put into the setup at home for recording the new Brand U. When I showed up at the studio, my engineer had my water ready, my chair positioned, and I just had to pull out my iPad and do a quick sound test and get rolling. I was able to record the book 40% faster than I did when I did the first book. And I found my performance was better because there was someone on site to, you know, perform for. But I digress. Home recording has the advantage of not having to power through if you're tired because you've rented the space. Part of the reason I recorded the new Brand U at home was because I was very pregnant and very sick. And it wasn't morning sickness, it was all day, all night sickness. So I didn't want to rent a studio and find myself in their bathroom more than I was on the mic. Okay, I'm sorry, that was probably too much information, but if you ever wonder why I only have one kid now, you know. Anyway, when you have a home studio, you do have the advantage of being a little more relaxed and you can do just a few. A few hours at a time. So back to that equipment. Now you need a mic and A pop filter. That's what you see in this picture. You need good equipment because audible specs say very clearly each uploaded file must be free of extraneous sounds, such as plosives, mic pops, mouse clicks, excessive mouth noise, and outtakes. Extraneous sounds can distract listeners from the story, and outtakes sound unprofessional. Each can elicit bad reviews, and bad reviews hurts. Now, there's a lot of different mics that you can get to record your audiobook. Good podcasting. Recording mics can work. Essentially, you want what is called a large diaphragm condenser mic, but because they're sensitive, you need a pop filter. Again, this is why I recommend you pay for a consult with an audiobook engineer so they can give you the latest and greatest recommendations. They can also make recommendations specific to you and your voice. So, because there are also dynamic mics, but they aren't as sensitive. But for some speakers, that might be preferable. The pop filter helps filter the air that pops out of your mouth. Depending on how you enunciate, you may find your voice popping on the P's or the T's or the B's or the. And this all has to be removed. So a pop filter will help do that as you record. Then there's more technical items, which I am not going to pretend to be an expert in. I literally had a list and went to the store and bought it all and got help setting it up. I didn't have an arm for adjusting the mic, but many podcasters have that, so if you're going to podcast afterwards, this could be a great buy. They are called mic boom arms, and they make positioning easier. And then there's shock mounts, which I did have because it keeps the microphone from picking up vibrations from things on the surface where the mic is sitting. When you have all this fancy equipment, you may find you also need an audio converter. I had one to connect my microphone to my computer, and it converts the analog signal into a digital signal that the computer can understand. Okay, we're almost done, but there is one more consideration. What are you reading your book off of? You see in this picture from my home shoot, I had it on my laptop. I found that preferable because of the angle I was reading at. It was easier to have it sitting up that way, and I was using my laptop for recording, and it didn't have a loud fan, so it was all okay for me. When I did the recording in the studio, I put the file on an iPad and I read from that I did find that I needed massages afterwards because after recording my book for 16 hours or 14 hours in the studio, my neck was really sore because it was not optimally positioned. But that was more of a complaint for the studio and the setup they had. They were more geared for musicians and they didn't have a way for me to read with my head more vertical. Regardless, you're not going to read off of paper because paper is noisy. You may want a piece of paper or a notebook nearby, though, to take notes, because you will inevitably find little typos or other minor changes that you may want to make, and you notice it when you're reading them out loud. All of this equipment and software will cost you somewhere between $300 to $500, depending on what you may already have. So you compare that to a studio rental, which will likely cost you between 800 and $1200, depending on where you are and how long you need the space for. But the studio comes with an engineer who can make the process easier and reduce the pickups you have to do at the end. So basically, I wouldn't recommend doing a home setup to save money because you aren't really saving that much money doing it at home. Unless you're going to use the equipment for other things, then it might make a lot of sense to do this. So a couple final details I want to share. You need to record each chapter as their own file. When you get it edited and uploaded to ACX for audible distrib, be prompted to upload each file individually. Both the opening and closing credits also must be separate files. This ensures listeners can easily navigate between sections and that skipping forward or backward moves them Forward or Backward 1 section. You also need to leave 5 seconds of space at the start and at the end of each section. Recording audiobooks is something most of our authors really enjoy. I know I loved doing it, but making sure you've set yourself up for success and is important. Now, I do hope you smash that like button and went on down to the comments with your questions below. But now I know you're wondering what do you do about charts, pictures, footnotes, and other oddities in your book? Well, this video right here will help you prep for what to record and what not to record when you do your audiobook. And this video right here is all about selling an audiobook. Both are guaranteed good watches or your money back. They're free. Get it? So I'll see you on over there.