Going Audio

I had never considered making my book(s) into an audio format. I believed the cost would be just too expensive. I started thinking about it a few weeks ago when I attended a writers conference at Rose State College in Midwest City, Oklahoma. One of the paths included a session on audio books. It turns out that an author has two choices when hiring a narrator through ACX (Amazon/Audible). One is to pay an hourly rate based on the finished product. The other is to do a shared royalty where the author and the narrator split the income without any initial cost. All this is covered at the ACX site.
First, you must choose narrators to audition. You can choose based on whether the listener will be YA, adult, middle-aged, etc. and the type of voice you're wanting, for instance smooth, straightforward, storyteller, quirky, etc. The list initially starts with thousands of names, decreasing in number as you fine-tune the parameters. Each narrator has sample readings to listen to. I sent audition requests to eight. Two declined because of busy schedules, and three were interested. I downloaded my manuscript to the ACX site and they sent back their auditions. It was extremely hard to choose. I listened to additional samples of their audio books on Amazon. For now, I'm going to withhold the name of the one I chose. He now does a narration of the first fifteen minutes of my book for my review. At that point, if there is a problem, we each can end the process and I can start over with another narrator. Hopefully we will get past the fifteen minute hurdle. If so, he believes he can have a finished product by early December. His narrative and character voices will make for a great audio experience
I'll let you know as the process proceeds.