Casting

We often cast our projects within a pool of narrators we regularly work with. We’ll make recommendations and provide samples upon receiving the following information:

• Genre and synopsis.
• An overview of main characters and setting, in addition to any notes on specific accents.
• The deadline for delivering the final audiobook.

Once the rights holder has given us a list of narrators they’d like to audition, we’ll cut an audition piece from the manuscript that we feel will allow the rights holder to make a well-informed decision. We’ll always find passages including main characters and those with specific voice requirements such as an accent.

Preparation

When reading the book our producers are creating a plan for the production, concentrating on the following:

• Characters – Who they are, who they interact with and how they can be voiced.
• Narrative structure – Personally, I like to think about the tempo of passages and emotion, looking at how the story transitions from page to page, so I can offer suggestions and guidance to the narrator if I need to.
• Checking pronunciations including character and place names.
• Highlighting issues where the text doesn’t cross over so well to audio and offering solutions.

Recording

Every audiobook production is different and the final duration of two books with the same word count can vary for a number of reasons including the narrator’s natural pacing and the construction of the narrative.

Most of the narrators on our website deliver 30,000-35,000 words in a session so we book in 3.5 x 7 hour sessions for a 100,000-word book, which does of course include breaks.

Wherever possible we’ll record each chapter in order, though sometimes we may change for various reasons. One example: grouping all chapters with one particularly difficult accent together can make it easier for the narrator. As we’re recording, we’ll be following the manuscript, making notes for the editor and sending content to them at regular intervals.

Post Production

The post production process includes the following:

• Editing – taking the raw audio from studio sessions and following the producer’s notes and editor’s ears to remove anything that shouldn’t be in there to leave a clean read.
• Mixing – using a combination of equalisation (EQ) to adjust the tonal characteristics of the narrator’s voice and audio compression to ensure a constant volume level throughout a chapter.
• Mastering – using compression, limiting and noise reduction to achieve a finished audio book that is consistent in volume and quality throughout to make for a pleasant listening experience.