Along with ‘How Much Does It Cost To Make An Audiobook’, this is genuinely one of the most popular questions we get asked. It can depend on quite a few things, but let’s assume your manuscript is in tip top condition (as in, you’ve had it properly copy edited or proofed) and you’re ready to go.
So the biggest factor that will affect how long it will take to produce your audiobook will be the number of words that make up your book. The longer your manuscript is, the longer it will take to create. So, for the purposes of this article, let’s all take an average book (and audiobook) length of about 100,000 words as our guide and take it from there.
Once we’ve all had a chat and agreed to work together, the cogs really start turning.
Casting: 2-4 weeks
If you’re using a professional narrator, we’ll start the process of finding and whittling down a selection of possible candidates for you to listen to so you can find the right one to narrate your book. Once you find a narrator you like, we will also pin down their availability for the next few weeks.
If you’re self-narrating, we’ll start the process of finding a suitable studio for you and prepping you to narrate.
Assemble Your Production Team & Prep 2-4 weeks
We only start this once we know your narrator’s availability as we want you to have the same team to take you from beginning to end. That starts with them having time leading up to and during your narrator’s availability.
In this period, the team will pour over your manuscript, getting it record-ready and start making some notes for both you and your narrator to talk through on your call together.
Recording, proofing & mastering 2-3 weeks
Once we’re all happy that we’re ready to go, we’ll start recording. For a 100,000 word book, this will take around 22 recording hours (give or take a couple in either direction). That’s works out to about a week of recording sessions.
While your narrator is busy in studio recording, your producer, editor and proofer are working behind the scenes catching retakes, cleaning up audio, and making sure that nothing’s been missed out (or repeated!).
Once they are all happy that the audio sounds it’s absolute best, it will be mastered, ready for you to upload to your favoured distribution platform.
So all told, you’re looking at somewhere between 6 to 11 weeks.
Things that will slow you (and us) down
A poorly edited manuscript
As we mentioned above, having a well proofed and / or copy edited manuscript is vital to produce an easy to listen to, good quality, audiobook recording. If your manuscript is hard to read, or needs lots of amendments, we won’t be able to produce your book for you until you’ve had time to get it into shape, so to speak. It’s really worth getting a fresh pair of eyes on this, and a very good place to start is the Chartered Institute Of Editing And Proofing. They have a vetted list of professionals that can help you out.
Availability Of Your Narrator
If you’ve fallen in love with a particular narrator (as you always should!), you may need to wait for a slot in their schedule to open up to prep and record and your book.
Thinking of turning your book into an audiobook?
We're here to help!
Here at Bengo Media, as an experienced audio production company, we can answer all your audiobook questions, build an audiobook team around your individual needs, guide you through the production process and give your a beautifully crafted and mastered audiobook at the end.
Check out how we work, and if we like what you see, pop on over and grab yourself a free estimate.
Looking forward to chatting!