By-and-large most artists are fussy. They care about the details and go to great lengths to ensure that whatever has their name on it, even if it is a pen name, is first rate. They spend months and often years refining their work, they slave tirelessly over the cover art and work diligently through the typesetting process. It is this same level of care that is required if you decide to convert your work to audio and sell it in audio book format.

Just a few weeks ago we received a file from a sci-fi author who assured us that their “Do-It-Yourself” (DIY) recording was up to scratch. When we put it through our standard screening process we were treated to cameo appearances by the family dog and at one point the neighbor’s lawn mower. It was a little hard to stay in the moment on planet Zorg with a dog chasing a lawn mower in the back ground.

On the other hand, we get submissions from people who are hesitant to submit their DIY recordings in fear of them not being up to scratch only to be presently surprised by their level of professionalism and attention to detail. Not surprisingly, the quality of their writing and the questions they have asked along the way are usually higher as well.

These days with a fairly affordable microphone and some very basic software you can make your own, very high quality recordings. Many of our authors do. That being said, you must consider whether or not your voice is palatable. Are you easy to listen to? Do you have an accent that will resonate with most of your buyers (North Americans)? Depending on the work, you don’t necessarily have to have ‘a radio voice’ but you do have to have good diction – that is you speak clearly. Quite often the author is the best person to read the work but only if you can tick the boxes above.

The main point of this post is to emphasize that consumers are fussy and they have every right to be so. These days competition is fierce. When publishing audio books you should take a slightly longer term view recognizing that once they are out there, they are out there for good. A lot of authors would rather save $1,000 or $2,000 by doing it themselves even if they are not suited to the task, but if your work is good you should get that money back fairly quickly through royalties on these platforms. Once it’s returned it’s all profit and it keeps coming. It’s just a mater of time to overcome costs, but to overcome poor quality…who knows what that may cost.

Tags: amazon, audible, audio book, audiobook, itunes, marketing, mp3, publish, publishers, publishing companies, publishing houses, self publish, sell audiobook

This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 6:38 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.