How is a Tate Publishing Audio Book created?

Good morning! I am back from Missouri, and have an exciting blog from our Associate Director of Multi-media, Melissa Madole. She is sharing a bit on the audio book process, and what to expect. Enjoy!

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Hi! I’m Melissa Madole, the Associate Director of Multi-Media at Tate Publishing. My division includes both the audio book and book trailer creation, but today I'll be sharing on how our voice talent helps bring your book to life in the form of an audio book. I just wanted to take a moment to take you through the audio book process from beginning to end.

For fiction and non-fiction authors who opt to have the audio book (out of the choices of audio book, book trailer, and the new option of website- which will be available in a few months) they typically hear from us when they’re still going through the editing process, so they have time to begin abridging their book and to chose a narrator's voice. Currently, only fiction and non-fiction books that are over 10,000 words are asked to abridge to 75% of their total published word count. The reason we ask authors to abridge is simple. The retail cost of an audio book is based on the number of 80-minute discs it takes to contain the book. Obviously, the shorter the book, the lower the retail price and the more likely the audio book is to sell. Also, with our fast paced lifestyle these days, a shorter audio book is more appealing to listeners.

The website (www.tatepublishing.com/narration) features our different narrators reading three different kinds of books. Once we have the abridged manuscript for a book and a narration selection from an author, we’re ready to begin our production and help bring the book to life!

The actual production process of a fiction/non-fiction audio book lasts for three months.

The first month, the narrator voices the audio book. Our narrators send each author a sample of their reading and talk to the author by phone for help on difficult pronunciations and other suggestions before continuing the narration of the remainder of the book.

The second month, the narrator edits out any mistakes made during the narration (misspoke words, unnecessary pauses, etc.) and sends the author a link to their edited audio files. This is where the author gets to hear their complete book for the first time! Much like the process of “proofing” their written copy, an author is asked to use their ears to “proof” the audio version. Our authors’ ears are the last ones to hear the book in its entirety before it is manufactured.

In the third month, our narrators make any needed corrections to the audio book as noted by the author and put the final touches on the audio, before sending it forward in the production process.

The final step in the audio book production process is in our graphics department, where a designer adapts the book’s original cover to fit an audio book case.

So, there you have it! That is how our wonderful team of producers makes your audio book.

While I have the floor (or the blog in this case!), I also wanted to take an opportunity to let you know what to expect in your audio book.

Our audio books represent story-telling at its best! We want our listeners to be entertained by what they’re hearing. We try to think of ourselves as teachers reading to a group of students or parents reading a story to their children. At the same time, they are not an old-time radio drama, with actors playing the different parts of a novel. While we will use different inflection, tone and sometimes accents to differentiate between characters when necessary, we try to steer clear of taking any characters in the book to extremes. Many authors request their entire book be read in a particular accent, especially if they are from a certain area of the country or even the world, however, we’ve found that narrating the entire book with an accent takes away from our efforts to tell the story.

I hope this has given you some insight into what to expect as your book enters the audio book phase at Tate Publishing.

We look forward to working with you!

~M