When Allie Pleiter and I wrote our most recent book, Writer Crisis Hotline, we had a clear vision for the book’s content and format. We wrote it in the style of a Dear Abby help column, with aspiring authors writing to us about their most challenging writing obstacles. These challenges were taken from our work as book coaches with clients who had faced these and similar roadblocks, and we wrote them in the voice of hypothetical writers such as Vulnerable Valerie, Incomplete Ian, Redundant Rita, and Endlessly Editing Eduardo.
In addition to our paperback and Kindle format, we knew we wanted an audiobook as well. Since Allie and I are both professional speakers, we wanted to narrate the book ourselves, but were uncertain about how we would share the recording and incorporate the different voices of our writers.
In a fortuitous turn of events, I met Scott Ellis of Scott Ellis Reads at a Florida book fair, and during our conversation I learned that he could send us a self-contained recording device for our narration and then his team of voice-over professionals would narrate the writers portions and his editing team would put it all together to create a unique product. This was a great solution.
First, I edited the book and broke it up into recording scripts: one for Allie, one for me, one for Scott’s female voice-over actor, and one for his male actor. Scott sent his equipment to me first, and gave me instructions about how to create my own office “studio.” Since my home office overlooks the busy street where we live, I opted to set up my studio in my laundry room. I pulled together my quilts, and attached them to the walls, added a table, chair, and Scott’s equipment, and I was ready to hit “record.” I also uploaded my script to an electronic tablet so I could quietly turn the pages as I recorded.
I first did a test recording for Scott, then recorded my portion of the book. I completed the work within two-half days. He checked my recording and I made some corrections, then my part was done. Scott’s experience as a classroom teacher came out as he patiently walked me through the process of set up, room treatment and equipment usage.
Next, I sent the equipment to Allie, who repeated the process. Meanwhile, Allie and I had the chance to hear several actors audition for the parts of our troubled writers, and we made our selection. Scott handled those recordings in his studio. We asked the actors to use different voices with unique speech patterns for each of their readings to add interest to the audio product.
Once Allie completed the recording, Scott’s team did their editing magic and we had the final files for Audible.
If you are interested in getting your book into audio, please reach Scott’s company by visiting www.ScottEllisReads.com. They provide a one-stop shop of all of the resources you need to get your book into audio!
We’re excited about this audiobook, since it really reflects the spirit of the book.