The sound for stories
A few years ago I took a job that required a two hour commute, and that was when traffic was good. I left home early, mostly in the dark, to make my way across country lanes, dual carriageways and through busy towns. The radio was a good companion but soon I felt like I wanted to be a little more productive during my commute, other than singing to the charts at the top of my voice. A friend of mine recommended that I should start listening to audiobooks. She told me that audiobooks had been her constant companion when she was on maternity leave, when she spent hours taking a sleeping baby for walks or doing house work. And so, in dire need of some exciting stories to keep me awake on those dark mornings, I bought my first audio book and pressed “Play”.
https://anchor.fm/happyldnpress/episodes/Tide-turner-short-story-by-Sarah-Em-e1fsgd6/a-a7jiod7
Soon, the daily car journey became the highlight of my day and I often caught myself sitting on my drive to listen to the end of the chapter, because I just couldn’t bear to be left on a cliffhanger until the next morning.
I no longer commute and whilst I don’t miss the long car journey, I do miss those hours I spent driving and losing myself in a different world.
The concept of audiobooks has been around for nearly 100 years but it could be argued that they have never quite been as popular as in recent times.
Here at Happy London Press we are huge fans of audiobooks and are very excited for our upcoming recordings of Andrew Segal’s “Black Candle Killings” and “I’m a Contract Killer”. We want to give you an insight into what is needed to record a book and we also have some tips for any budding audio book narrators.
The rise of audiobooks
According to the Internet, audiobooks were initially called “talking books” and were first seen (or heard) in the 1930s. They were intended for blind readers or those with impaired sight. The 1970s saw the rise of the cassette and those enabled people to enjoy stories in the form of audiobooks. The term “audiobook” became an industry standard by Audio Publishers in 1994. (Wikipedia, 2022)
Today, Audible is probably best known to house hundreds of thousands of audio books for listeners of all ages. Listening to audiobooks has become a companion for many people, be it on commutes, during workouts, house chores or during holidays. They are a perfect puzzle piece, slotting neatly into busy lives where reading a book, or having the time to read a book, has become a luxury. Audiobooks allow you to do two things at once, being productive and having some downtime at once.
Tim Dowling, writing for The Guardian (2019) also notes that “the audiobook market has grown from a publishing industry side hustle into a huge global business. In a climate where print and ebook sales are stagnant, the UK audiobook market rose to £69m in 2018, an increase of 43% on the previous year. In the US, audiobook downloads generate revenue of close to a billion dollars annually. This growth has largely been driven by the rise of Audible, the Amazon-owned platform that dominates the digital audiobook market through its subscription streaming service, though there are other players, including Storytel, which operates largely in Scandinavian countries. In the 1990s, before the iPod was launched, Audible was selling a proprietary digital media player that held about two hours of audio downloaded from its online library. Today, Audible’s catalogue contains more than 400,000 titles; in 2018, its members downloaded nearly three billion hours of content.”
All this is thanks to narrators who spend hours and hours reading, acting, and bringing books to life.
Dowling (2019) writes “the real professionals, however, are people you might not have heard of. In the US, 81-year-old actor George Guidall is considered narration’s undisputed heavyweight champion: his baritone voice has graced more than 1,300 audiobook recordings, including works by Dostoevsky, Jonathan Franzen and Stephen King. Some of the biggest British voices in audiobooks belong to faces you might not recognise, but may well have seen – on stage, on Coronation Street, or in any number of Carry On films.”
How are audiobooks made
So, how are audiobooks made? How long does it take to record a book? We did some research to bring you the lowdown on the birth of an audiobook.
Similarly to recording podcasts, some decent recording equipment, including a microphone is always helpful. Ensuring your reading and recording space is kitted out well with lots of extra padding for sound proofing and avoiding an echoey sound is also a must, so draw those curtains and get some extra pillows around you. Ideally, you want to read from an electronic device, a tablet or a computer. Being still is a necessity, too. Any movement or animation from the narrator will be picked up by the microphone and will need to be edited out. So it’s advisable to remain as still as possible. Reading from a tablet is favoured exactly because of the impact of background noise: No one wants to hear the rustling of pages. Scrolling on an iPad makes much less noise.
Not every audiobook is recorded in a recording studio - many people record their own books from the comfort of their home, in a bedroom or a living room. Many, however, are still recorded in the traditional way in a recording studio, and it’s not quite as straightforward as it initially seems. Dowling (2019) can vouch for this, recalling his first experience of recording his own book:
“Narration may sound like an easy way to make money – you just sit there and read – but I can assure you, it isn’t. I narrated my own audiobook in 2014, an experience that I described at the time as being akin to an exorcism: three long days in a dark room, tripping through the minefield of my own words. All I could think was: if I’d known I was going to have to say this whole book out loud, I would have written a better one. Or maybe I wouldn’t have written one at all.
I’ve done two more audiobooks since – most recently, last spring – with the gently increasing confidence that comes of never, ever listening back to previous recordings. The first time, I agreed to the challenge only because I was assured it was not unusual for a first-person, non-fiction book to be read by its inexperienced author. But I never met anyone else like that in my three days at the studio. I met only professionals.”
Behind the scenes of narrators
Becoming a narrator for audiobooks may seem like an easy and straightforward way to make money, but it’s not as simple as that. Clare Corbett shares some of her thoughts on this in conversation with Tim Dowling (2019):
“If you’re narrating in the first person, I find it’s much more like doing TV or theatre,” says Corbett. “You can enter into it as if you are that character.” If, however, the book has a neutral, third person narrator and several speaking characters, reading becomes a complex mix of acting and storytelling, requiring tremendous concentration and plenty of preparation. “If you’re a good actor it doesn’t always mean you’re going to be a good narrator,” Corbett says.
Finty Williams, who has been reading audiobooks for about 18 years, agrees that narration is a discipline distinct from acting. “It’s to do with rhythm, and understanding how we naturally speak,” she says. “When we get to the middle of a paragraph we speak slightly quicker, and then we tend to slow down.” While experience helps, she’s not sure it can be taught. “It’s a knack,” she says. “It’s a knack that my mother doesn’t have.” If her eyes contain a flicker of irony as she says this, it’s because her mother is Dame Judi Dench. “The only audiobook she ever did she had to leave after the first day, because she couldn’t string two sentences together,” says Williams. “It’s about the only thing she can’t do.”
Fancy becoming an audiobook narrator?
Narrating books is a skill. It has to be learnt like everything else. And there are ways in which you are able to get started if it’s what you fancy. Mayde (2022) made a list for Backstage and shares some ways into the industry:
https://anchor.fm/happyldnpress/episodes/The-Lyme-Regis-Murders---Chapter-2-read-by-the-author-Andrew-Segal-ebbs6b/a-a1lnk4n
“1. The Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX)
ACX is a great place to get in the game. Owned by Audible, it’s a virtual marketplace bringing authors and narrators together. The book market nowadays is saturated with self-published indie authors and short nonfiction works. Many of these authors choose to have their book narrated as an additional income stream and many of these self-starter authors turn to ACX to find just the person to do so! What does this mean for you? An abundance of lower price tag projects looking for affordable, lower price tag narrators. This could be you when you’re first starting out! You can build your experience and your materials here. You can also be found by authors interested in you for some higher quality and price tag projects.
2. Audiobook Production Houses
I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of a commercial production house or movie production companies. Audiobook production houses exist, too! Many of these operate on a roster basis. They have a roster of narrators on their books that clients can choose from to narrate their projects. Often the roster is presented in an online database the client can browse through, and the production house has set fees they pay the narrator. Here you often work as part of a team at a production house: Either remotely by sending your files to various team members for proofing, editing, and mastering after recording, or by actually going in-house to record at the studio there. So how do you join a roster like that? Check for any submission instructions on their website. In many cases, it will be as simple as sending them some recording samples and a description of your skills like languages, accents, genres, and knowledge of medical jargon and of your recording equipment!
Also, a little gem few people know about, but you can become SAG eligible by doing audiobooks! Many production houses have a contract with SAG-AFTRA that results in you automatically being eligible after doing an audiobook through them. No vouchers or Taft-Hartley needed.
3. Casting Sites
Don’t forget about casting sites! You’re likely signed up to those already anyway. Some of them, like Backstage, will have casting calls for audiobooks. The projects casting on these sites are often perfect for beginners to throw their hat into the ring. Remember that the entertainment business is all about relationships—audiobooks aren’t excluded from that. So that first gig you find on Backstage might well turn into the springboard you were looking for. Make use of every opportunity that comes your way!
Also, a little gem few people know about, but you can become SAG eligible by doing audiobooks! Many production houses have a contract with SAG-AFTRA that results in you automatically being eligible after doing an audiobook through them. No vouchers or Taft-Hartley needed.
4. Workshops
Remember those production houses we just spoke about? Some of these offer workshops! This is an alternative way to join their roster to a direct submission. If nothing else, taking a class like this is great for building or honing your skill and coming away with some quality demo material. If they’re impressed by your work, they may ask you to join their database! Win-win.
The Deyan Institute is one such place in Los Angeles.
There’s always a big learning curve involved with audiobooks and you will invariably find you’re a much better narrator at the end of each book than you were when you started it, so don’t be scared to just go for it. Plenty of helpful advice is available online to help you figure out the technicalities of audiobook recording, and if you are a native speaker of another language, be sure to make the most of that market, too!”
…and finally…
We hope this has given you an insight into the audiobook industry and what it takes to record a book. It’s certainly a lot more complex and demanding than it seems and it’s clear that exceptional and compelling narrators have a certain knack for reading books and bringing them to life for their audiences. We’ll certainly be appreciating our audiobooks even more now.
References:
How to Become an Audiobook Narrator | Backstage
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