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Audiobook production services for your title
Narrator auditions, studio recording, proofing against the text and retailer-ready masters. Your audiobook rights stay yours, and so do the finished files.
What it is
The narrator decision is most of the project
Production quality is a solved problem. Casting is not, and it is what listeners either stay with or abandon in the first ten minutes.
So we start with auditions: three to five narrators reading the same passage from your book, usually one with dialogue and one with exposition. You listen without knowing who is who. Accent matters more than most authors expect, particularly for Australian settings where a mid-Atlantic read undercuts the whole thing.
After that it is process: recording in blocks, proofing every file against the text, and mastering to retailer specification. Memoir and self-help work especially well in audio because the voice carries the intimacy — there is more on self-help publishing, and audio costs sit inside our guide to what it costs to publish a book in Australia.
- Three to five narrator auditions from your own text
- Recorded in a studio, not a spare room
- Every file proofed against the manuscript, word by word
- Masters delivered to retailer specification, and to you
In detail
What production actually involves
Three stages, and the middle one is where quality is won or lost.
Casting the voice
Auditions from your text, judged blind. We will also tell you honestly whether you should narrate it yourself: memoir and non-fiction often benefit from the author’s voice, and fiction usually does not.
- Three to five narrators reading your own pages
- Australian narrators available for Australian settings
- A candid view on author narration, either way
Recording and proofing
Recorded in blocks with a pronunciation guide agreed first — names, places, invented words. Then every file is proof-listened against the manuscript, which is the step cheap production skips.
- A pronunciation guide signed off before recording
- Proof-listened word by word against the text
- Retakes booked while the narrator still sounds the same
Mastering and delivery
Levels, noise floor and file structure mastered to retailer specification so the files are accepted first time, plus one chapter-marked master you keep for anywhere else you want to sell it.
- Per-chapter files at the required loudness and noise floor
- Retail samples cut from a passage that sells the book
- Full masters handed to you, not held by us
How it works
How an audiobook gets made
Five stages, two to three months for a standard-length book.
- 01
Auditions
Weeks 1–2Three to five narrators record the same two passages from your book. You listen blind and choose, or ask for another round.
Your part: Pick the passages, then listen without reading the names.
- 02
Pronunciation guide
Week 3Every name, place, invented word and foreign phrase listed with your preferred pronunciation. Settled before recording, because fixing it later means recalling the narrator.
Your part: Fill in the list. Only you know how your characters’ names sound.
- 03
Recording
Weeks 4–8Recorded in blocks in a treated studio, with a director for dialogue-heavy fiction. You hear the first chapter before the rest is recorded.
Your part: Approve chapter one. Changing direction later is expensive.
- 04
Proofing and retakes
Weeks 8–10Every file proof-listened against the manuscript, with a line-by-line error list, then retakes recorded while the narrator’s voice still matches.
Your part: Nothing, unless you want to listen along. Many authors do.
- 05
Mastering and release
Weeks 10–12Mastered to retailer specification, samples cut, metadata built, and the title submitted to audiobook retailers. Masters handed to you.
Your part: Decide where it sells, and whether you want exclusivity.
You keep your rights
Full copyright and royalties stay with you
Fixed written quotes
The quote you accept is the amount you pay
Australian owned
Local team, AUD pricing, GST invoices
Work you approve
Nothing goes to print without your sign-off
Packages
What an audiobook costs
Audio is quoted separately from the packages below, because the cost is driven by finished hours — roughly one hour of audio for every 9,000 words. We will tell you if the budget is better spent elsewhere first.
Manuscript
Get the writing right before you spend anything on design.
for a 60,000-word manuscript
- Written manuscript assessment
- One round of structural editing
- Line edit and final proofread
- Australian spelling and style sheet
- A call with your editor at each stage
Publish
Everything needed to turn a finished manuscript into a book on sale.
for a 60,000-word manuscript
- Everything in Manuscript
- Original cover design, print and ebook
- Typeset interior for paperback and ebook
- ISBN registration and legal deposit
- Retailer and print-on-demand setup
- A printed proof copy before you sign off
- You keep the rights and the royalties
Publish and launch
For authors who want readers to find the book in its first month.
for a 60,000-word manuscript
- Everything in Publish
- A launch plan with dates and owners
- Author website with an email sign-up
- Retailer advertising for the first 90 days
- Review and bookshop outreach
- Monthly sales reporting for six months
Every quote is confirmed after we read your manuscript. Prices in Australian dollars and include GST. Longer books and illustrated books cost more, and we will say so before you commit.
Related services
What usually comes next
Questions authors ask
Audiobook production: questions authors ask
It is priced per finished hour, and a 60,000-word book runs to roughly seven hours. That makes audio one of the larger line items in self-publishing, usually comparable to editing. If your ebook and paperback are not selling yet, we will say plainly that audio is unlikely to be the fix.
Sometimes. Memoir, business and self-help often benefit from the author’s voice, because the authority and the intimacy are the point. Fiction rarely does, because sustaining character voices and pace for seven hours is a trained skill. We will record a test chapter and let you hear the difference before deciding.
Only if you ask for it, and we will tell you what you are trading. Synthetic narration is much cheaper and is improving, but it still flattens emotional beats and mispronounces invented words, and some retailers require it to be disclosed. For most books a human narrator is the difference between an audiobook and a text-to-speech file.
You do. The audiobook rights never leave you and the masters are handed over at the end, so you can sell it anywhere, re-release it, or licence it later. The narrator is paid for the work, with their performance licensed to you — we will show you the terms before recording.
Two to three months for a standard-length book: two weeks for auditions, a week for the pronunciation guide, four to five weeks recording in blocks, two weeks proofing and retakes, and two weeks mastering and submission. Rushing the proofing stage is the most common false economy.
Yes. An audiobook is a separate format, so it needs its own ISBN and its own bibliographic record, and some retailers require one before they will list it. If we registered your other formats it is a small addition; if not, we can register it on its own.
Still have a question? A real publisher will answer it.
Start your publishing journeyFree, no obligation
Hear your book read aloud
Send the manuscript and we will arrange auditions from your own pages, so you can hear three or four narrators before committing to anything.
- Narrator auditions from your own text, judged blind
- A candid view on narrating it yourself
- Every file proofed against the manuscript
- Rights and masters stay with you
- 1. You send it
- 2. An editor reads it
- 3. You get a written price