I’d like to get my book, Arthur Mace, Medieval Gumshoe, out as an audiobook at some point. I started looking into the process today.
There are two routes – outsource it or do it myself.
Outsourcing it involves finding an narrator, hiring said narrator and paying them to record and produce the audio for me. I can either pay them outright (which can be expensive) or do a royalty-split, where they produce the audio but I split all the royalties with them. It is getting harder to find people willing to do a royalty-split, so I would likely need to pay someone outright. It can be $250 (or more) for each finished hour of recording. A short work like mine could run about three and a half to four hours.
The do-it-yourself route is not quite as expensive. I’d need the equipment, which should be available for under $200. But then there is the actual recording, and the learning curve for processing the audio and getting it ready for distribution. It may not costs as much in money but the time factor must be considered. I keep hearing it takes about three hours to produce one hour of finished audio. Probably longer for the first one, or maybe two or three, when you are learning.
Not sure which way I’m going to go just yet. As I said, I just started looking into the process today. It seems that audiobook consumption is on the rise and is expected to keep growing over the next decade or so. If people want my work in audio I’d like to try and accommodate them.