Sep 5, 2022
Go Wide With Your Audiobook Says Scott Curry of Findaway Voices
Over the years, I've produced, recorded, and outsourced various audiobooks based on works I've written.
For my first book, I narrated it myself using a microphone at home. Later, I commissioned a narrator, also known as an ACX, and asked them to rework the entire audiobook.
They did a better job than I did.
For subsequent books, I outsourced production by hiring narrators, and I paid between $1,000 and $2,000 for a finished audiobook.
More recently, when I wrote my parenting memoir, I Can't Believe I'm a Dad!, I decided I wanted to narrate this book myself, so I rented a studio nearby.
Each chapter ranged between 1,500 and 2,000 words and took about half an hour to narrate. I'd have to stop and rerecord a sentence for pickups or get the right tone, speed, and pace. The radio producer often asked me to go back and rerecord certain sections.
After several hours of recording, my voice would crack and dry up, which would be it for the day.
The whole process took a lot longer than I…