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Updated November 20, 2021

I am an independent author and that means I do it all myself. It can be a real challenge, but new things happen all the time. One of those new things enabled me to create an  audiobook version of Chronic Christmas: Surviving the Holidays with a Chronic Illness! I know there are a lot of other indie authors who would love to do the same (as well as those who like to nerd out about my process), so this post will share my experience.

The journey from words to audio

With me being a long-term lover of audiobooks, expanding into this format has naturally been on the radar for years, but until very recently, there were few options. I could rent some time at a studio and read it myself, but I’m not a good reader-out-loud and after the ICU adventure three years ago, my voice tends towards the croaky. No one would love hearing that, least of all me when checking files.

The second option was ACX, Amazon’s audiobook arm. It looks pretty nifty, but when I checked it out about a year ago, I was concerned about the requirement to lock in my audiobook for seven years. Not one, not two. Nope. Seven. That’s a long time to not have flexibility in a fast changing industry. Also, I’m not sure why it’s necessary, given that it’s not required for the e-book or paperback formats, but maybe because it was for so long the only option for indie authors? Who knows.

And then a friend told me about Findaway. It’s a new-ish company/website that deals with audiobooks. More specifically, Findaway Voices is a platform for authors like me to connect with narrators and get the whole thing organized. They do have a new option of locking in your book for a specified time to get more advantages, but they limited it to one year at a time. And it’s not mandatory. So of course, I checked it out. And then I signed up!

The FindawayVoices process

I checked out Findaway Voices — admittedly, there was a few hours of research and reading things on the site, but it’s not complicated. Basic steps at the time of my project in 2019 were as follows (some updates may have occurred since):

1. Search for narrators by adding a few categories (e.g., gender, age).
2. Check out collection of narrators offered on silver platter and listen to their samples in different genres and styles, then check their fee per hour of finished project. Choose your faves for a short list.
3. Upload a short sample of your book (usually the first chapter), and request an audition from your short list.
4. Wait to hear back. Note: you may not get an audition from everyone — depending on availability and interests, the narrator may not respond.
5. Listen to auditions. If it’s good, but perhaps need a few tweaks, you can request a second audition based on your notes.
6. When you get the second audition, you have two choices. Either accept the narrator — in which case the style of the narration is established — or ask for additional auditions or another narrator, if things aren’t quite right. Assuming you accept the narrator, you then
7. Share your manuscript with the narrator.
8. Wait for your audio files to be uploaded. For me, this took about two weeks.
9. Review audio files, making notes of changes — at this stage, you can only correct mispronunciations, audio weirdness (pops and crackles), and so on. You have 10 days to do this.
10. Review corrected files and approve final project. Then pay the fee based on length of your book.
11. Sit back and wait for your audiobook to undergo quality check and be uploaded for distribution. In my case, this took two weeks.

It is a remarkably simple process. Throughout, the Findaway Support Centre is available via email, with a usually reasonable return time. I made several mistakes, what with this being my first audiobook, so there was a bit of stuff to work out, but both my narrator and Findaway were wonderful and incredibly helpful.

A somewhat obvious tip: make sure the manuscript you upload at the very beginning is exactly how you want your audiobook to sound.

Overall, the process took a bit longer than I’d expected, most of which was probably on my end due to aforementioned mistakes and life-induced delays in turning around my notes. My narrator and I had a conversation at the very beginning about timelines and she was wonderfully honest in letting me know that it might take a bit longer. In fact, it took a month longer than anticipated, but I had made it very clear that I wanted quality, rather than speed. For my next audiobook — and there will be one, just as soon as I have the money — I’ll set aside three months for the process to make sure there’s no stress.

Thank you so much to Findaway Voices and my narrator Caroline Cole for making my dream a reality! If you’d like to listen to the final result, the Chronic Christmas: Surviving the Holidays with a Chronic Illness audiobook is available on Amazon and iTunes (plus everywhere else soon).

Do you love audiobooks? Have you created one?