Mark Shipman: Busting Myths: You Don’t Need a Fancy Studio to Record Your Audiobook

Welcome to Media Minds with your host David Wolf.

Joining us on this segment is Mark Shipman. He is in fact the director of audiobook production here at AudioVita Studios, a part of our team since the beginning. Mark, thanks for joining us and sharing a little bit about how we work at AudioVita.

Happy to, happy to. I'm glad to talk with you.

Absolutely. So, you know, I want to unpack the experience that we give our authors when they work with us. About 70%, uh, for those watching, 70% of our business is author narrating their own work, their own book. And this, it's a, it's a very, uh, nuanced kind of an approach that we have, isn't it? Talk a little bit about how you prep an author for this, what's involved, a little bit about the arc and what authors can expect when they work with, uh, you and your team.

Yeah. So the first thing we do is schedule a pre-production meeting with authors and just go over the process, talk through the process, talk about what gear they need, what environment they need, because there are things that we need to make sure are working before we even start recording. And then we talk about the process of narrating rather than just reading, because it's a job, right? You need to put on your storyteller hat and really be able to share with folks what's important about your story, right? And why it's important to you and how do you get that across to a listener, right?

Right.

Really being in the story to be able to share it effectively. So we walk through that meeting. After that, the authors have the information they need about what kind of environment they need to create, which is generally the quietest room in their house or office and the least reverberant, right? Enough soft surfaces in it to make it so it's, it doesn't sound like they're in an auditorium. For a lot of folks, that means working out of a walk-in closet, which is a great sound booth. You've got clothes all around you, keeps it nice and quiet. You don't have a lot of reverb, all those sorts of things. Yeah. But we can make do with a lot of situations. We have some amazing tools now to clean up audio. And so we can pretty much make any environment work, but we always like to get the best source we can at the beginning. But so they've got information on setting up that environment, what gear they're gonna need. A lot of times folks already have a microphone, but we've got things that we'll suggest or can even provide to them if they need it. And then we schedule sessions much like this one. We use a platform called Riverside. The interface is, as you can see, is a lot like Zoom where you're, you know, side by side. Both folks are up on the session and you're working with a producer who is there with you through the whole thing. They're there to coach and guide you and support you through the process. Keep things, keep things rolling and making sure that we're getting the best takes we possibly can. So through a number of sessions, they'll get your book recorded. From there, it goes to an editor who then cleans up the tracks, makes sure all those, you know, coughs and sneezes and doubled lines and those sorts of things, we take all of those out. And then it goes through a proofing system. It's a very detailed system. It looks for anything that doesn't match. Though I will say when authors are reading their own books, they are allowed, if you will, to ad-lib a bit, to maybe change a line here or there. You can't change the meaning. You can't tell a different story. But there are things, you know, sometimes folks will, if they're talking about some business that they were running and it's like, you know, our year-to-year income is now $8 billion. Well, maybe by the time they record their book, it's $10 billion and they want to talk about that. So, you know, changes like that. Yes. Are fine. And so that obviously we don't worry about in proofing because that was an intentional change. Right, right. If someone selects to have someone else read their book, we have a whole stable of voiceover folks, actors who can do that for you. And of course, if they do it, they need to read exactly what's on the page because now they're working with someone else's material. So they need to read exactly what's on the page unless it's a typo. You know, if it's an obvious typo, then yes, please correct that. But otherwise they'll follow the exact manuscript. Okay. So anyway, so they go through the proofing process. That, along with the editor's list, will provide us a list of any pickups we need. Pickups being lines that we need to re-record. You know, there was some noise in the background we couldn't get rid of, or there's some word that isn't quite clear or something like that. So we'll do another session. It's usually a short session. It's a handful of lines. Obviously, obviously the longer a book, the more propensity for pickups, but usually it's 5, 10, 20 lines or something that we need to re-record. So we'll do a very short session with them, record those extra lines. Those will go back to the editor. They'll plug them in, do the finish mastering on all of the tracks, and then we send that to the author for their approval. If they have any revisions, maybe again, information has changed or they don't like the way they read a line, We'll take care of that. And then after they approve that, then we send them on to distribution.

Yeah.

But there are all sorts of nuances within that process. Right. You know, the producer is listening very, very carefully as they go. You know, if I'm producing, I've got a, well, everybody has a manuscript up in front of them. They're following along as the author is reading, making sure that we're getting exactly what we need to get. But also listening for that delivery to make sure that we don't just slip into reading or that we're going too fast. You know, maybe somebody had 3 cups of coffee before the session. We need to slow them down a little bit. We wanna make sure that the listener has enough time to take the story in. And so you don't wanna rush through sections. And there may be, you know, if you're telling a fictional story or even if it's a memoir, there may be an exciting part and maybe you wanna speed up a little bit. But in general, we wanna make sure that we're providing a good pace to people. Don't want it to be unnatural. But want to make sure that we're allowing space for the listener to come into the story and stay in the story, which is also reflected in editing. Following the pace and the rhythm of the author and editing to their rhythm because it's a very personal thing, right? Every author has a different vibe, a different, different, pace, a different rhythm. And so making sure that we are enhancing that rather than fighting against that. Yeah. And again, the editor's job is to make sure that we're getting rid of anything that will pull the listener out of the story. You know, I've listened, you've listened to a lot of audiobooks. We've all listened to audiobooks and we've heard those things where it's like, "Oh, is this the end of the chapter? Is this done? Oh no, he's talking again." And I've been, now I'm thinking about the fact it's like, "Wow, that was a weird long pause." So, You know, making sure that we tighten things up, create that flow, and keep the listener engaged in the story at all times.

That's beautiful. It's very much a musical thing. You know, for those of us that are musicians, you are, I am, we think about it musically, the pauses, the spaces, the really enabling the story to be told with a rhythm, with sensitivity to the rhythm of the read and the performance. Right.

Yeah.

Right. Are there, are there any myths as we work with authors? We, you know, we've probably done 1,000 of these books together, Mark, over the years. What, are there any myths that authors have coming into this process that you might like to bust? For example, I need a studio. That's one very sort of broad example, but you may have that one and then others. How do you, how do you talk to authors about some of the myths they may have about the process and the result?

Well, and yeah, there, there are a lot of things that people have preconceived notions about. And the studio is one of them. And understandably, because, you know, that's how people used to record everything, was you had to go to a studio. That's right. With the proliferation of, you know, the democratization of recording, you know, people can record a hit album in their bedroom kind of thing these days. And audiobooks are the same thing. We can record you from home and you'll sound great and it will compete with any studio recording. So that's, it's really not an issue. Okay. Again, there's some work to do to get there. It's not just, you know, magical, but none of it is difficult. It's just a matter of getting there. One of the other things I think too is, you know, why does my 5-hour audiobook take 10 hours to record? Sure. Well, because you will stumble, you will make mistakes. You will want to take a break. I got to go to the bathroom, whatever it may be. Yeah. Yeah. And so there are a lot of things, you know, and we, and the producer may ask you for a retake on a line or a few lines. And all of that adds up in a session. And so it, you know, it, the, the, what we find, we're generally recording in 90-minute sessions. We can record short, more in a shorter session or a longer session depending on what the author really wants. But 90 minutes seems to me a good amount of time to maintain energy and focus. Again, we can do shorter if people want to, but in 90 minutes, we generally get about an hour's worth of finished material. So having that extra time in the session allows us to get what we need. So if your audiobook is 5 hours long, we're probably gonna need about 7.5 hours of recording, maybe 8 hours of recording to make that happen. Yeah. Why can't I just record my own audiobook? You can. People have done it. We've had a number of people come to us and say, can I just record my own audiobook and then give it to you for you guys to do the edit and all the finish on it? And we have done that. Often it's not the best path to use, and we've ended up having to go back and go into sessions and re-record those authors because they're not listening in the way that a producer listens, and they're not hearing the things that should be corrected or should be fixed. They're not creating the quiet enough environment, or they have their mic too far away, or their mic is pointed the wrong direction, which can even happen. And so we're not getting the kinds of recordings we need. You know, I look at it as any sort of work you want to have done. If you're going to— if you've got plumbing issues, 99% of people are not gonna try and do that themselves. It's just gonna be too difficult. It's not gonna be done right. And then you're gonna end up with a bigger problem. So they're gonna hire a plumber. It's the same thing with audiobooks. If you really want it done right, hire a professional to help you out. That's, this is what we do. This is what we know. I've been doing audio for 53 years now. So I think I know what I'm talking about. I've, and I've done, I don't know, 400 audiobooks to this point.

Is that something like that?

Okay. Yeah. For me personally, I mean, you know, we've, as a company, we've done a lot more. Absolutely. But I think, I think I'm somewhere around 400 audiobooks and anyway, so I think those are some of the things that people, you know, think, mm, maybe I'll just do this myself. Yeah. Yeah.

The other, the other thing that comes up in my experience as well, and I'm sure you've had this as well, is someone will say, oh, I have an accent or I sound, basically what they're saying is they sound too much like themselves and they're, they're self-conscious about that. What do you say to that author?

Well, I, you know, sometimes, sometimes they're right. They just, whatever is going on with their voice, they probably shouldn't record their own audiobook.

Okay.

You know, if they want to, if they really want to grab an audience and they have a really squeaky voice or it's, it's just, you know, right. Or they really just hate the sound of their own voice. You know, maybe that's an opportunity to hire an actor. But for most people, What they don't realize, you know, everybody, nobody likes the way they sound when they record it. And it's like, no, that's not me. That's not the way my voice sounds. 'Cause we hear it from the inside, right? And the bone conduction and all of those things.

Right.

But that's the way the world hears you. That's the way everybody else has always heard you.

Mm-hmm.

And so, so you, you really shouldn't worry about the quality of the voice 'cause people have listened to you before and they're gonna listen to you in your audiobook and that's the way you sound.

So, yeah.

Be proud of how you sound and go for it.

Exactly.

But more to the point on that, I think the most important thing is it's your story. You should be the one telling it. Nobody knows it better than you. And that has power. That, you know, particularly like in a memoir, when somebody's touching on something that was really moving for them, you know, an actor's gonna read that and tell the story, but they're not gonna get what's going on in your heart and your soul as you're reading that, that you are. And that authenticity, I always tell folks, authenticity is irresistible. There's something about that that just grabs a listener.

Yeah.

'Cause they can feel the emotion.

Yes.

And it can be simple stuff. It's like when you're on a phone call with somebody, you know, and there you can hear the smile in their voice. You don't see it, you don't know, but you can hear the smile in their voice. And it's the same thing with audiobooks. You can hear when this is really wrenching their heart. You can hear when they're smiling. You can hear that, that feeling, that emotion in the voice. And so it's fine if somebody is getting a little choked up while they're reading. That's okay. I mean, you know, obviously if they can't speak anymore, we're, you know, we can't use that.

Right.

But if somebody is getting a little emotional, that's a good thing.

Yeah. Let it shine through and let it connect with your listener. I often say also you've, you've discussed this from the standpoint of storytelling and emotionality. Or if that's such a word. I also like to say you're the— if it's a business book, let's say you're the voice of your brand, you're the connectivity to market, you are the, the voice that people are used to hearing that is associated with the product services that your company or your business delivers, your practice delivers. So both—

Absolutely.

—the storytelling side as well as I think from the business perspective, it's very powerful. Good pivot to AI. We're talking about authenticity. So what are your feelings about— I mean, we have sort of a collective company conversation going about AI. And it's a capacity to deliver. But what are your thoughts on that?

AI is an amazing tool, just like I was talking about some of the audio tools that we have that are amazing now, things that we couldn't do a decade ago and certainly not 20 or 30 years ago. Right. And so AI to me is just another tool. And there are a lot of things, you know, there's a lot of concern about AI in general that's going to take over the world and all that kind of stuff. And I think people are working on safeguards to protect us from it doing that. We'll see what happens. But I feel very strongly right now AI is a tool, but it's not the right tool. Just as, you know, if I've got something to screw in, a hammer isn't the right tool and a screwdriver isn't the right tool for a nail. So picking the right tool for the job, right? And so there may be opportunities to use AI and certainly there are a lot of people creating AI audiobooks, but they sound like what we think of when we think of AI audiobooks. They don't sound authentic at this point. Yeah. I think, you know, AI continues to improve and maybe, you know, 2 years from now, 5 years from now, whatever the number is. Right. Yeah, maybe 6 months from now, they'll crack that key and instead of having 6 fingers on a hand like they did in the images and they get the 5 fingers and they understand that part. Maybe it will be that they, you know, they somehow figure out how to convey emotion, nuance, sarcasm, humor, timing, which they can't now. It really just doesn't work. And the little bit of AI work that I've done, it takes tons and tons of work regenerating lines, trying to get it to sound the way it should sound. And it's difficult. Honestly, it's really difficult. And it's not a time saver. This idea that you can just pop your book into a, into an AI system and 5 minutes later it kicks out your audiobook and you're done. If, if you want it to sound like anything, that's, we're not there yet. We're just not there yet. Right.

Yeah. The quality's just not there. It doesn't have the ability to convey all of the things you've mentioned, emotion, sarcasm, nuance. Yeah. It's, it's so we, we continue to monitor the situation and we're talking about the voice tech part of AI. Of course we use AI for proofing. We use it for other things, don't we?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, it's a handy tool.

Yeah, it's just right. It's the proper tool for some of the back office functions and some of the sort of utility part of the process. Exactly. But the voice tech itself, yeah, it's not there yet. Mark, I wondered, this is kind of a funny question, but is there a particularly challenging book that you've worked on with an author or one of your team members has worked on that you, like a story you wanna share about how we helped fix something that maybe was a problem in production or with the recording or anything? I just thought it might be interesting to explore that.

Well, we've had a number of books and, you know, I mentioned before that it's, every author is different, right? And so we're working off of their rhythm. Some folks are great readers and good narrators as well, but they read well. And so they're, you know, they can go, couple of pages without making a mistake. Other folks struggle with that, and they may be, you know, every line needs a retake, or they don't like this. And so, you know, we spend 3 or 4 times, you know, we have to record 3 or 4 times before we get what we need kind of thing. And so that, you know, it's— it obviously makes the recording a little more difficult. Not really difficult, it just takes more time. But then the editor has more work to do too, because they have to sift through all of these extra takes and that sort of stuff. I don't know that we've ever had a situation that was just like, "Oh, we can't do this. It just won't work." I mean, there's— I'm a firm believer in it'll work because it has to. So we figure out a way to do that. And whether it's through recording or through editing or through some of these tools that I mentioned, You know, I've had, I had one book where the author had someone very famous do the foreword for their book. Yeah. And it was, it was a major get for them to get this person to do this. Yeah. And so we recorded this major person doing the foreword. Well, it turns out later that he had mispronounced somebody's name within that foreword. Had no idea, you know, but the author was listening to it back and is like, oh my God, no, that's not how the name is pronounced. And there was no way we could get this person back to this, you know, major person. They don't, it's like, really? I have to come back and do this again?

I already, you know, took time. Yeah, right. One word.

So I had to make that name with editing. I just went in and grabbed a couple of different syllables from other words and patched it together and it was seamless and it was seamless. The author listened to it, he's like, how did you do that? Oh my God. It just, I mean, it sounds totally natural, but you know, that's tricks of the trade. I mean, you know.

I know it's also particularly satisfying when you're an audio editor and an audio professional to solve those kinds of problems, even though it's, it ends up what you want is for it to be completely invisible to the listener. Right, right. And so, and that challenge to get it so that it's completely, you would never have known that you reconstructed that word from syllabic extractions from other places. It's amazing. Well, that's the— I know that's the stuff you like to geek out on. It's great stuff. Well, this has been great. You know, our idea here is that we really wanna share the way that we work with our clients. I think we're known in the market for a team that's very engaged, high touch. We care a lot. It's high quality. We don't want to kick out mediocrity and functional material. We want it to be really, really high quality and representative of the brand of the authors that we are working with. And so— Well, and a lot of this shared a lot, shared those, that approach quite a bit. Go ahead, Beck.

I was just going to say, you know, one of the things that I think makes a difference is really making sure that our authors are comfortable within sessions. You know, producers are not there to crack the whip on you. They're not looking at their watch. They're like, "Oh, when is this session?" There's none of that. Our producers are all really engaged in the work that we're doing, and they want to help and support the author to be their self, to be themselves, and to be creative, and to bring out the best in them. And, you know, if If sessions aren't fun, they aren't working.

Exactly, Mark. You've heard me say it too when I'm in the sales modality talking to an author that's considering working with us. I say this is an experiential product. We want you to enjoy the process as well as come out the other end, the end of the process with a book that you can be proud of. Absolutely. So it's good stuff. Yeah. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for doing this, Mark. This is great. You're welcome. Sharing with our audience the inner workings of Mark Shipman and his team at Autovida Studios, our company. I think you know where to find us. So yeah, bring us your book.

We'll take care of you.

Sounds like a plan. Thank you, Mark.

All right. Thank you.

You've been listening to Media Minds with your host, David Wolf. Media Minds is produced by Audivita Studios, a premier production company producing audiobooks and podcasts for clients worldwide. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about the team at Audivita Studios, visit audivita.com.