An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other large work being read out loud. Magic Studios offer professional Audio Book Recording Services.
Producing an audiobook consists of a narrator in a recording booth reading text, while a studio engineer record the performance. The audio is provided to major online publishing houses to undergo quality assurance. Then online distribution occurs on channels like Amazon, Audible, Spotify and others.
In 2020, Deloitte predicts, the global audiobook market will grow by 25 percent to US$3.5 billion.
Audio Books are great for the visually impaired or basically anyone who enjoys to read but can’t find time. Australia is a huge country and the daily commute can be long. Audiobooks are great way to pass time. Whether on the train or in your car, you can listen to them just about anywhere. Close your eyes and be transported somewhere completely different. Your imagination is the limit. Alternatively, learn something new by listening to an educational audio book.
At Magic Studios we bring Audio books to life.
There are usually two methods of voice over production and both have pros and cons.
Have you ever searched for a book to listen to? Perhaps you didn’t enjoy the voices that were narrating? At Magic Studios we specialise in dialogue recording and editing and would love to help you record your Audio book. We offer Audio Book Recording Services at affordable rates.
You can pick from a range of voice over artists available on our website. Most of our artists have experience in character voices and narration and we even have an international database if you are searching for a specific accent. If you would like to make it a little more personal or are on a tighter budget, you can come into the studio and record it yourself using your own voice. We have state of the art equipment and audio engineers who are more than happy to help, regardless of your knowledge about recording audiobooks.
Picking the right voice actor is crucial to a good audio book as they are at the heart of your production. For smaller audio books you can often have multiple voice actors, such as one per character, or one for male lines and one for female lines. When you get into larger audiobooks to assist with keeping costs down we would recommend using one voice actor who can do several voices. If budget allows then multiple voices are definitely recommended to bring more characters to life.
(CLICK HERE to learn more about voicing characters for an audio book) To hear a range of Audio Book samples from our professional voice overs CLICK HERE.
Why not read your own novel? Apart from the savings there are some other major benefits.
You know the content better than anyone else and hence you will better predict and accentuate the emotion and important points of a script.
The author will often have a key relationship within the topic and this means the listener will relate better to the character and personality.
The term ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ applies very much to the production of an audio book also. Unless your book is extremely short, it can take several days, even weeks or months for the voice talent to complete the audio book. Most voice actors can do 2 to 3 hours of recording at any given time before their voice starts to fatigue. Characters with a vivacious personality require a lot of effort from a voice actor to keep the sound consistent and can lose that charm faster compared to a more relaxed character read style. Therefore multiple recording sessions are recommended to preserve the narrators’ voice and the intensity of a character. Our voice overs are able to maintain the tone of the book and characters from one session to another. It is important that the listeners hear a seamless cover to cover narration.
Depending on the length of the book, these can be quite extensive projects. It roughly takes the same amount of time to edit as it does to record, so generally each hour will be two hours of studio time. As a rough guide to estimate script length, we generally work on the estimate of about 130 words per minute.
At Reading Length you can search for your favourite book and find out how long it will take to record at 130 Words Per Minute (remember reading in your head is quicker than narrating). If you are unsure and need assistance in working out the script duration or costs give us a call on 08 9278 8888.
When it comes to recording audiobooks there are generally two components.
This is the cost of recording, editing and mixing the audio. This includes voice over, recording, editing and final mastering.
Typically, the average length for most audio books is 60,000 to 70,000 words. This takes about 10-11 hours to listen too so to voice and record the audio with pick-ups (corrections) editing and mastering. We also normally allow approximately 20-25 hours studio hire. For larger projects we offer a reduced hourly rate of just $120+gst per hour in the studio including sound engineer/director. For a self-read project, the approximate cost is about $3000+gst depending out your reading ability. Remember you may find other studios may be cheaper but Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.
Most e-book publication houses create a royalty share agreement. You pay a certain percentage of the sales revenue that the book receives. For example, if you have a 25% royalty share scheme and the book sells for $8, the publisher gets $2 of the $8. As you can probably tell, how much money you earn depends heavily on how many sales your book gets. Publication of Australian audio books overseas is a midfield. Magic studios have several quality publishing partners and can assist with both domestic and international audiobook publication
Recording an audio book can be a difficult but very financially rewarding task. Magic Studios has years of experience in Audio Book Recording Services and make the process as easy as possible. More importantly we have the voice talent to deliver a quality result every time. Listen to an author interview with our client David Cooper as he describes the moment he hears his characters bought to life for the first time. Click here.
If you have any questions about the recording process or pricing, feel free to send us an email of give us a call on 08 9278 8888.
