Celebrating the release of ‘The Battle of Victoria Crater’ with some free author tools – would you like to learn how to make an audiobook? Step through the slideshow below – I’ll show you what’s involved!
I spoke about the new audiobook I produced and released a few days ago but some have asked about the production process and so I created this walkthrough of what it takes to make an audiobook – start to finish. First – you have to start with a story. Next step – find a voice actor and work out a way for you to work together.
Now it’s time to think about what the story will look like after I release it to Youtube. Do people want to look at the book cover for 25 or 30 minutes? Probably not. Let’s create some pictures for them to look at while we listen to the story.
Since I can’t find an artist willing to do concept art on a profit sharing plan like my voice actor, I use the next best thing – MidJourney. Hours and HOURS of prompt engineering to visually describe the world of the story. Jeremiah the VO actor been recording the story and now I have enough recordings to get started on video production while I wait for the rest! Fire up Adobe Premiere and get to work.
Production means listening to each take – cutting out the word flubs and re-reads – so that the audio is one seamless read-through of the story. But wait, we’re missing something. This is an AUDIO book, right? Where’s the sound effects? Now it’s time to start working with open source sound effects libraries to create the audio atmosphere of the story. I need to review different open source libraries (like www.freesound.org, for example) to find the right sounds for the story. This is another hours-long process while I listen to sample after sample. The result is an aural experience for the reader – not just a story.
It’s time to do a test cut and find issues to fix while I add in the final reads. Not so fast, crumbsnatcher! You missed a few words in 23:06. Go back and re-cut the audio to remove those little word whiskers. Now add ‘wrappers’ – audio where Jeremiah says ‘Thanks for listening’ and other housekeeping items. We still need to add final video/audio transitions – tweak some of the sound effects that are too loud and drowning out his voice … okay, ready … annnddd … Launch time – get your stuff out there and see how everyone reacts (or doesn’t). Tell people on social media, answer questions, address items of concern.
Even though each audiobook takes dozens of hours on top of the dozens of hours spent writing the story, the fact that it makes people happy is the juice that makes it worth the squeeze. Hope you enjoyed this walk-through – don’t forget to listen to The Battle of Victoria Crater yourself. I think you’ll like it!
