A YouTube video by Julie (Julia) Broad advising authors on whether to narrate their own audiobook or hire a professional. It outlines industry growth, explains that professional production is time-consuming and costly (editing takes 6–8 hours per finished hour), gives time/length estimates for recording a typical 60,000-word book (≈7 hours finished audio; 14–20 hours recording), recommends nonfiction authors usually narrate their own work to build credibility, advises hiring pros for most fiction and when authors struggle to read aloud or dislike recording, and closes with a tease for a follow-up on preparation.
Chapters
An article in Forbes at the start of 2019 declared 2019 the year of the audiobook, saying 2019 is poised to keep the audio train rolling and no publisher wants to be left behind. Google, Walmart, Kobo and even bookbub have all hopped onto this audiobook train. And thanks to intermediaries like Findaway Voices, it's easier than ever to access all these distribution channels. So it's smart that you're thinking of recording an audiobook for your book. But now you might be wondering if you should narrate your book yourself or hire a pro. Stick around. This video is for you. Hey, I'm Julia the Book Broad award winning author and founder of a fabulous self publishing services company called Book Launchers. We help busy successful entrepreneurs, professionals and thought leaders with an important message to share share their experience and expertise in an engaging and highly marketable, AKA profitable book. And one of the things we help our clients with is audiobook production and distribution. If you have the budget for it. There are a lot of reasons to create an audiobook, but as of right now, it's still very expensive to properly and professionally produce an audiobook. That's because every hour of finished edited time of your book actually takes a professional six to eight hours to edit and master the file. It's just not easy work. So how long will your audiobook be? Well, if your book is about 60,000 words, it's likely going to end up roughly around seven hours hours of finished audio. It's approximately one hour of audio for every nine to 10,000 words. I speak on the fast side, but I do try to slow down for my book. I found I was reading somewhere around 9,000 words per hour. So it's probably going to be a little over an hour of finished audio for every 10,000 words in your book. But you're not going to spend only seven hours recording. Likely it's going to take you two or three times that. So if your book is 60,000 words, you can expect to take at least 14 hours recording your audiobook and closer to 20 hours. So that leads into my question, should you read your book yourself if your book is fiction? Most of the time I personally would advise you to get a professional. I enjoy a narrator who can give different voices to different characters and bring the story to life. You can do this as the author, but you probably should get voice coaching because it's actually really like acting. A lot of professional narrators are also actors or they're voice actors for a living and they know what they're doing if your book is nonfiction, I am a huge fan of you reading your book yourself. In fact, me personally, I'm often disappointed when the author doesn't read. Mark Manson's the Subtle Art of Not Giving is a perfect example. He didn't read the book himself, and there were many cases when I was listening to the book where I felt disappointed that the narrator wasn't him. I just felt like it was such an authentic book. It would have been better coming from the author. Compare that to one of the very first audiobooks I ever listened to, the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by Mike Michalowicz. By Mike Michalowicz. He read the book himself, and by the time I was done listening to the book, I felt like he was a friend and I was a big fan. And that's the biggest point I can make to you. If you've written a book to build your credibility, be known as the expert and build trust. You should be the voice in the head of your audience and not someone else. My opinion on this triples in size if you're podcasting, speaking, or already doing videos. Your audience is used to your voice and it will be jolting to hear your words coming out of someone else's mouth. Yes, it takes work to record your audiobook. It's actually intense work, too. And you'll drink more water, hot water with lemon probably, and tea than you ever thought possible in a single sitting. But you just might find it fun. I found it fun, and I've heard from other authors that it was really enjoyable as well. Two audiobooks that we've worked on recently, the Elephant in the Gym and Return on Courage, were perfect examples of that. The authors had a blast recording their book. So generally speaking, I highly recommend all nonfiction authors record their own audiobooks. But here's where I would say it makes a lot of sense for you to get a narrator if you struggle to read out loud. I have friends who are dyslexic, and reading their own audiobook would be a huge pain in the butt. They could do it, but the pain would probably not be worth it for them. Another case is when your voice is really high, your voice is really high, or it's really, really low. If your voice is really high or really low, it could be distracting. And finally, if you have absolutely no interest or desire to do it, life's too short to make yourself do more things that you don't want to do. We already have to file and pay taxes and eat more vegetables than we eat chocolate. So while I think there are tremendous benefits to being the narrator of your book. There's no need to make yourself miserable just to do it. In the next video, I will share how you prepare to narrate your audiobook. So make sure you've subscribed to the channel and turn those notifications on so you know when that video comes out. And while you're here, tell me, are you going to narrate your book or did you do it already? Share that in the comments below. And when you comment, the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some fabulous no boring books. Book launchers swag. And if you're still trying to decide if you should invest in an audiobook, this video will help with that. Or if you're looking for some sweet marketing tips, this video is for you. So why are you still listening to me here? Go ahead, click one of those videos. I'm waiting for you over there. See you.
