Hear’s a story

I can barely believe that exactly one year ago, I met a freelance editor over mochas and handed her a red binder containing what I thought was my pretty-much-done book for its first review. Between that editor and even more so Rob, I was rather surprised to discover a few weeks later that I had a lot of writing yet to craft.  Nevertheless, I thought the hard part of self-publishing a book was mostly behind me.

Bwahahahahahaha!

It turns out producing a book almost entirely by yourself is quite a process. Especially when you have never done it before. But thanks to stubbornness and YouTube, I eventually cracked the code on Amazon’s extensive formatting requirements for both a print and e-reader version of my book. I was ecstatic to finally claim victory over Kindle Direct Publishing just a few brain-stretching months after the mochas and announce to the world that my book was available to read.  WHOO HOO!

But the celebration was short-lived because I knew there was still one critical hurdle left to leap over: producing an audiobook version.

 

I kept envisioning my recording studio would look
something like this, minus the groovy hot pants.

Why bother making an audiobook?

When you are in pain, sometimes reading or even holding a book can take way too much energy and be way beyond your capabilities. I distinctly remember having to abandon reading the newly popular Harry Potter series while recovering from my first back surgery. The mystical tomes were too big and heavy and slid around on my plastic back brace when I tried to prop them up while reading in bed.  I had to settle instead for the movies.

So my gut told me that an audio version of my book about living with chronic pain would meet a distinct need of my target audience. But my head told me it was full and tired from being stuffed with so much new information from learning how to birth the print and e-reader versions. So I took a little breather. Which stretched into about six months. Apparently I needed a lot of air.

I eventually made some progress by editing my book for listening instead of reading. Changes like describing charts, removing photos, deciding how to speak years (“two thousand twenty” or “twenty twenty”?), introducing and ending quotes, adding in a greeting, deleting the index and bibliography, and setting up a page on my book’s website that includes links to resources I reference.

Then I stalled out due to fear of the unknown.

In an effort to convince myself I wasn’t totally procrastinating, I poked around a little here and there, trying to figure out how one goes about making an audiobook. Most of what I found terrified me. It was either going to cost me thousands of dollars to rent a sound studio and its accompanying engineer, or it was going to require learning a whole new world of sound production and software involving concepts like “room tone” and “noise floor” and “headroom.” So I mostly avoided the Audiobook Project, busying myself instead with discovering that Amazon Ads is quite a money maker…for Amazon.

Eventually, though, I couldn’t stand it anymore. That lingering, persistent sense that there were people out there who might be helped by my book who nonetheless could not easily read it.

Indeed, I had two very real examples.

Donna is a dear friend’s mom who has a host of health issues which make reading both challenging and exhausting. Serena is the blind daughter of a woman Rob went to college with. Both friends gently asked early on if an audio version of “I’m FINE.” was available. So I knew there was a demand of at least two listeners. Frankly, that was enough to confirm my hunch and keep me motivated. Seriously. I kept photos of Donna and Serena next to my microphone to remind me – often – that the insanely steep learning curve of a DIY audiobook was undeniably worth climbing.

I just figured out a new app to blur their beautiful-
but-respecting-their-privacy faces! Go barely-
keeping-up-with-the-times me!

Trudging up the learning curve

The process of making an audiobook all by my lonesome was pretty intense. Yes, that means I recorded the book myself using my own voice. My research said that non-fiction audiobooks are very often read by the authors and that listeners actually prefer it that way (fiction books with lots of characters and dialog are another story). I loved that confirming little nugget since I was not about to hire a narrator. I am both too cheap and too much of a control freak to let my words and heart be spoken by someone else.

The next step was figuring out what software to use. My research (soooo much research) pointed to some audio recording and editing software called Audacity. Its biggest advantages were: 1) I had the barest of familiarity with it from editing podcasted sermons at my church years ago; and 2) it is free. 

Audacity’s biggest disadvantage was that it is used for all sorts of audio recording applications so it has a ton of features I would never need. And trying to decipher the useful from the extraneous was going to take a lot of work. Not to mention trying to figure out how to match up Amazon’s mind-boggling audio requirements with Audacity’s menus upon menus of choices.

A ”what have I got to lose?” question thrown out to a Facebook group of self-help DIYers yielded a much better alternative.

Hindenburg Narrator’s biggest advantage was that the software was designed specifically for people to record, edit, and produce audiobooks. SCORE! It also has an amazing sanity-saving feature that automatically fixes your files to make Amazon happy. That made me SUPER DUPER happy. Decibels, smeshibels. Narrator would take care of it!!

Narrator’s biggest disadvantage was, despite appearances, the paltry instruction provided online or elsewhere to give solid direction to the newbie audiobook producer. So I had to trudge through the Hindenburg forest largely on my own with only the most general of maps to guide me. There was a lot of trial and error and lots more disparaging words as I eventually figured out how to use the darned software. I am now lightly considering learning how to produce a “How To Use Hindenburg Narrator” YouTube video to help spare other DIY authors the pain of self discovery.

Next up: my “sound studio.” Yet more research suggested I needed to find the quietest room in my house, which for most people is a closet. Yep, a closet because it is filled with clothes that absorb sound. It also does not likely have a vent that blasts in noisy air. That all made sense but it sounded rather cumbersome. I really didn’t relish the idea of having to sidestep a table, chair, and microphone every time I needed to change clothes. Not to mention asking Rob to do the same.

It took about a week of orders, returns, borrowing, reconfiguring, redecorating, and revisiting the photos of Donna and Serena to finally determine a recording setup that would yield good quality sound without totally disrupting our lives or killing my back (or so I adorably thought). I tried 2 locations, 3 chairs, 4 microphones, and 3 desks before finally landing on this:

I get a little twitchy just looking 
at this photo. Dismantling my
"studio" was a happy day!

A couple of abandoned set-ups. Among items not shown:
gaming microphone headset, music stand, bar stool, 
wireless keyboard, and noise-canceling headphones.
SUPER grateful for Rob helping me brainstorm solutions!

My sound studio was a guest bedroom with a closed air vent on the opposite side of the room. I sat on a desk chair with 3 pillows, had a stepstool covered with a pillowcase as a footrest, and placed a box lined with acoustic foam on a craft table covered with a thick blanket. I placed my small laptop deep into the foam box and wore a lapel microphone clipped to the center of a crewneck t-shirt. My laptop's increasingly too-small screen showed both my manuscript and the soundwaves as I spoke into the microphone connected to the software. By shimmying up close to the box, the foam surprisingly absorbed lots of extraneous sound. I remain mystified why my research talked a lot more about stuffy closets and a lot less about foam boxes.  For what it was (cheap and functional), the "portable vocal booth box" worked quite well.

 

The process

I quickly identified a Recording Uniform. Each day I was recording, I wore quiet clothes – cotton pants, socks without shoes, and a crewneck t-shirt so the clip-on microphone was always in the same place. And always short sleeves since the air vent and door were closed leaving the room pretty stuffy. I didn’t wear earrings or my watch (yeah, I’m old that way). And, after several days of searing headaches and weird dizziness, I added computer glasses over my bifocals which ended up helping a ton.

Unfortunately, I cannot read very well with my
monovision contacts, so this was the best solution.
I also discovered wearing two sets of glasses
made my nose hurt. Fun times!

My days eventually fell into a pattern of recording from late morning to early evening and then editing at night. I discovered my voice was sort of scratchy and phlegmy at the beginning of the day and super tired and low energy at the end of the day. Plus my back hurt and my eyes and head ached from sitting and staring at a bright screen while recording, so lounging in bed while editing files provided a good body balance.

I determined drinking cold water was best; anything hot produced phlegm and a lot of throat-clearing. And bubbles were a big, burpy no-no. Based on research (did I mention I did some?), I snacked on green apples to keep my stomach from making noises while also keeping saliva at bay. I also avoided dairy.

Editing was by far the most time-consuming part of producing my audiobook. It took at least 5 times as long to edit my 200-page book as it did to record it. What was I editing out? Some computer noise and mouse clicks but mostly breathing. So much breathing. Turns out I breathe a lot.

I also had to stop and rerecord frequently. Flubbed a word, wrong pronunciation, too fast, too slow, no energy, phlegm, trying to say “anonymity.”

And I discovered – despite living in a rather remote, rural setting – Woodhaven is LOUD. Things I never noticed before were SO NOISY when I was trying to record. Things like soft rain falling, snow melting, Rob laughing on a phone call downstairs, hunters entertaining themselves with target practice, the &*$# birds in the morning. I was astonished by how noisy nature is.

For the most part, the short lines needed to
be deleted. This is about two-sentences worth
of sound. Imagine 200 pages of sentences...

The stats

By the time I was done, I had clocked about 69 hours of recording and editing to produce an audiobook that is 6 hours and 6 minutes long. Yes, I kept a log and no, oddly, it is not in a spreadsheet…yet.  

And how long did it take me to slog through those 69 hours?

11 days.

Yes, I worked on my audiobook for 11 days straight. The longest day was 10 hours, the shortest was 2.5 hours. I spent an average of 6.25 hours per day working on the audiobook.  I do not recommend this speed of attack.

But you see, once I got going, I wanted to be done. It was such a tedious process (the editing), I just wanted to get it over with. And we were going on a trip and I didn’t want the project hanging over me while we were gone. Plus, you know, Donna and Serena. 

But the real driving force behind the marathon sprint to complete the audiobook in near record time? The Hindenburg software had a 30-day free trial. Did I mention I’m cheap?

Oh, it gets worse.

The price per month to lease the software after the 30-day free trial?  $12. Yep. Did I also mention I am very driven and goal-oriented, especially when I have a deadline – even a self-imposed one? You can’t put a price on that. Not even $12 per month.

Rob took amazing care of me during my hiatus from life. He knows his wife well and that there was no point in trying to stop me once I had my goal in sight. Turning the tables on some of his most intense grad school classes, Rob kept me fed and watered as I went to work upstairs each morning, utterly absorbed in finishing in a few weeks what should have taken at least a few months.  As expensive as a sound engineer might have been – and believe you me, there were times I fantasized about having hired one – you cannot buy that level of support, encouragement, understanding, love, and acceptance of reality.

 

The finished product

By the time I was finally done talking into a foam box, I had 25 audio files ready to upload for Amazon’s final scrutiny and (hopefully) approval. Research (again!) revealed Amazon has actual humans listen to submitted audiobooks before being accepted for sale on their platform. What these humans were evaluating is a mystery. And how I might have fixed any problems they identified was an even greater mystery, as I was pretty tapped out on learning what Narrator has to offer.

So it was with ENORMOUS relief that I opened the “Congratulations!” email from Amazon nine eternal days after submission. And with six days to spare on my 30-day free trial! Gold star for driving hard towards a goal! And for the concession that perhaps the drive was a little too much and a whole lot unnecessary.

Making the audiobook version of “I’m FINE.” was by far the most daunting, frustrating, tedious, and literally painful part of this whole authorship adventure so far. And also one that I am particularly proud to have conquered. Although having an agent or a professional publisher to guide and hold my hand through all these steps would have been much less terrifying and overwhelming, I am pretty stoked that this middle-aged dog can still learn some new tricks, especially when $12 per month is at stake.

Is my audiobook professionally produced with consistent pacing, uniform voice tone, and the complete absence of unidentified background noises? No.

Is it done and available for listeners who need it?  YES! 

Hallelujah and amen!

Among the many delightful surprises along the
way was learning I needed a square cover for the
audiobook instead of a rectangular one. 
Rockin' graphic designer to the rescue!

You can find it on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes!