You know now everything about the edition and the distribution of your audiobook. Ready for some final tips and examples?
- Good material is the key: you can have the best story, but if the quality of your sound is awful, then that is how the result will be, and you want to look professional. So, choose your tools carefully.
- Learn the editing software: knowing editing software is not like breathing; it is not innate. If you want to do it well, you must invest time to gain experience and broaden your learning on the edition of programs.
- Headphones are your best friends: using headphones while editing will let you hear all the small noises in your audio background that you would not hear with speakers. In addition, most of your listeners will use headphones for your audiobook, so act as if you were one of them.
- Breathing is necessary, but not for your book: some breathing sounds are welcome in your audiobook to make it sound human and lively, but too much could distract the audience. You can remove the breathing sounds which are not wanted thanks to a program or manually – choose your way.
- Not all pauses are good: keep the breaks that bring something to the story: that add emotions, drama or enthusiasm. Delete the ones that add no value to your narrative: mistakes or reflections.
- Read while listening: during the quality control, you better read the script of your book while listening to it to make sure they are both perfectly matching. If you want to be professional, you cannot pass any mistakes or differences.It could also help you notice if the tone is the one which was planned in the text.
- Take notes: your pen will be your best friend during the edition. Take notes of every slight mistake you notice and write down precisely where it occurs to find the error easily when you will correct it.
- Make it sample: create some audio teasers to let your audience discover what your book is over. You need to give enough content to interest them, but giving too much of it could already tell them the entire story.
- Book description: writing a book description will not ask you too much effort: a couple of sentences, and it will do. This, as much as the sample, is supposed to make the audience want more and listen to your entire book.
- Cover art: Even without being a physical book, your story needs a cover illustration. So make sure to have one that will attract your potential listeners and respect the size requirements of the tool you use for distribution. If in doubt, you can look at the previous chapters about illustration.