Did you ever wonder how audiobooks are made? More particularly, how I've made mine?
Here's the story:
The Jacq of Spades audiobook almost didn't get made!
To make an audiobook, you need a narrator. So I put The Jacq of Spades up on the ACX exchange (which is Audible's production arm for narrators and rights holders. It has a search engine to match people up).
Six months later, nothing. At least no one I thought sounded anything like Jacqui. So ACX took the listing off! I had to start again.
But I was lucky this time. I found a wonderful narrator named Machelle Williams, who had tons of public speaking experience but was just starting into audiobooks. I feel like we learned to do this together through the first four books.
Here's our process:
1. I send Machelle the book.2. She narrates each section and has it edited.
3. Machelle sends the sections to me to listen to.
At this stage, there's changes that need to be made: maybe the voice for a particular person is wrong, or she left out a word. This is normal.
4. I send her the corrections I'd like and she re-records those changes, has them edited, and sends me a second draft.
5. Usually this is enough, but sometimes we need to go round again.
6. Once a section is good, it goes back to the editor for mastering.
I'm not an audio expert, but my grasp on this is that mastering smooths out the track and makes it easier to listen to.
7. She sends me the final copy. I go over it one last time to make sure nothing got messed up during the mastering process.
8.If all is good, I release it in my store!
Also, it gets sent to the retailers for them to approve. This can take anywhere from a few days to (in the case of Audible) a few weeks.
Right now with The Ten of Spades, we're in the #3-#4 area. We've gone through 20 out of the 27 tracks so far.
So it's looking good!
The preorder price for The Ten of Spades audiobook goes to $20 on July 1st.
The Ten of Spades audiobook will not be available for preorder on any retailer - only on my shop.
Get it now