In The New York Times, there’s a wonderful story about how the actor who performs Moe on the Simpsons. doubts he’ll ever be an AI voice, even though there’s 36 years of his voice to pluck from. It’s not just the voice, Hank Azaria reminds us [gift link].
Why does this matter to you, as an author? You might have an interest in getting an audiobook out as your first step into publication. Print could come second. Your average novel could be produced for $3,500 in professional acting and engineering fees, or even less.
Okay, so that sounds like a lot. You could easily spend that much in just an edit of your book, if it’s bigger than 100,000 words, including proofreading. What you get with an audiobook that is not on a page is a performance. One author ally tells me when his novel got produced as a audiobook, he felt like it came alive again in a new way.
Audiobooks reach a different audience and can land with a meatier punch. My friend got his book published first in the printed word version. That gave him the script, if you will, for the audiobook actor to perform. Look into the services of ACX for a way to do an audiobook with a reasonable investment from you. Or get an agent who will find you a producer after your print book comes out. Hold back those audio rights for yourself.
One book that’s a joy to listen to is Nora Ephron’s only novel, Heartburn. It was published in 1983 and took 30 years to gain its audiobook. The audiobook has Meryl Streep recreating her character in the 1986 movie. One New Yorker reviewer said that the book finally became what it should have been once Streep performed it for audio. Ephron says if you can get Meryl Streep to read, do it. It can be surprising, how talented the very affordable audiobook performers can be.
