Learn Our Process
Book Review
The first step is to have us evaluate your book to ensure that it can be turned into an audiobook. We would need a PDF or Microsoft Word document of the final published version (so we can review it to determine production time) as well as the cover artwork file (for the eventual retail listing of your audiobook). If your book seems like a suitable candidate for audiobook production and thus something we wish to work with, we will prepare a straightforward Audiobook Production and Distribution Agreement for you. Before you know it, the audiobook edition of your book will be available worldwide for sale right alongside your print and eBook editions.
What if you have not published your book in any format yet? Amazon, Apple and Audible require that a print and/or eBook edition of your book be published previously, or they will not allow distribution of an audiobook edition. Not to worry, we have you covered! Because we speak with authors everyday who don’t have their manuscript published, we are aligned with the largest and most prestigious independent publishers in the nation to now provide a seamless publishing process that includes an audiobook, a printed physical book, and an e-book. It’s the best of both worlds, and we will transition you through it with our white glove treatment. Ask a Production Project Manager today to learn more!
Choosing Your Professional Audio Narrator
Our narrators are experienced veterans with multiple audiobooks on their resume. Led by an audiobook narrator and producer with over 36 years of experience in the audiobook industry, the entire audio production team works collaboratively as a creative and talented force, in order to help our authors achieve their audiobook goals.
Casting & Pre-Production
We offer a large cast of professional talent who have specific skill sets that we utilize for authors, like you, based on genre, book theme, dialects, tone of voice and many more characteristics that will help accentuate your story. A dedicated Audio Publishing Coordinator (APC) will be assigned to work directly with you throughout the entire process to help provide a selection of voice-over talent for you to choose from. Your assigned APC will ask you to complete a comprehensive questionnaire regarding things like any particular dialects or accents that your character’s narration will require, the gender of narrator you prefer, etc.
Based upon your input, your APC will select three voice talent options for you to choose from, and will provide you with a sample audio clip from a previous audiobook narrated by each of them. Once you have selected a narrator from that list, we will then create a brief audition script performed by your chosen narrator from an excerpt of your book for final approval.
Narration & Production
Congratulations! You’ve now secured a professional voice-over talent backed by our experienced audio production staff, and are on your way to having a finished audiobook production. Remember- it is common for the narrator to process only small portions of single chapters in one sitting. It should not be expected that the finished work will be completed instantly. In fact, post-production editing, often done by a separate audio engineer, takes as long if not longer than the actual narration itself, so please be patient.
Upon completion of all the audio files, post-production editing and technical verification of things like proper bitrate, sample rate and proper CODECS, you are presented with your finished audiobook. Together we will have truly brought your story to life such that it is ready to be distributed to customers and audiences throughout the world!
Distribution
Once completed, your audiobook will be uploaded to our national and international distribution outlets (Amazon, Audible, Apple) and paired with the image from your print or eBook cover for a finished retail appearance. We will also obtain a distinct ISBN for the audiobook edition, listing you as the author and Audiobook Network as the audiobook publisher. This ensures that your audiobook edition will be listed side-by-side with any print or eBook editions that you previously published and listed for sale on our partner platforms.
Press Release
After your audiobook is officially listed for retail sale at our partner retail platforms (Amazon, Audible, Apple) we will adapt your original hard-copy press release (when available), accentuating and announcing the audiobook format availability. Upon your approval of the release, we will utilize a professional newswire service to distribute your release to numerous media in the hopes of having an article or story about you and your audiobook published, thus garnering publicity for the project.
