7 Ways Audiobooks Benefit You and Your Health

“Why listen to audiobooks when I can read an actual book?” A question I asked myself all the time when first hearing about the existence of audiobooks. I ended up doing some research on it to see if it was really for me and found out why people do listen to audiobooks instead of actually reading books. Here’s 7 reasons why audiobooks can greatly benefit you and your health for the better. 

1. Improve Listening Skills in Children

Developing something as important as listening skills in young children is crucial, given their age. This is where the majority of their learning skills are developed which makes it so that they are able to learn and adapt to things quicker - like a sponge. 

2. Build and Improve Your Own Literacy Skills

Who says we stop learning and bettering ourselves once we become adults? There is always room to grow and improve ourselves and it can start with the skills that we learned from young. Listening to audiobooks can help build up your literacy skills, particularly in those with learning disabilities or when it comes to learning a new language like English.

3. Positively Affect Your Sleep

Our screens have a blue light that impacts our eyes and brains in not a really great way. It can affect your sleep in drastic ways, making it hard for you to even get to the act of falling asleep. Steering away from the screen and occupying yourself with an audiobook can allow for a sooner and better night’s sleep. 

4. Reduce Negativity In Your Head

In place of unwanted thoughts, listening to something else can allow for a much more positive mood, disrupting any negative thought processes that may occur.

It also makes any menial, everyday tasks more enjoyable when listening to an audiobook while performing them and can assist in helping manage your time. 

5. Just Like Reading A Book

Minus the physical act of holding the book and reading it with your own two eyes, listening to an audiobook does cause the same activity in the brain as it would when having the physical copy in front of you.

6. Relax Your Eyes

On a daily, many people are staring at their screens for most of their waking hours. This can lead to many negative health issues such as poor eyesight, and blurred vision. Putting the phone down and listening to an audiobook can definitely help give your eyes a much-needed break.

7. Immerse Yourself Into Another World

Lay back, relax and fully immerse yourself into the world of the story. Many readers (like myself) visualize the words written across the page, or in this case, the sounds being delivered through our headphones. Through audiobooks, it can make this visualization much more real without the need to focus on what’s in front of us, but rather what we hear. 

Conclusion

There are many benefits to transitioning into audiobooks such as improved literacy skills in children and adults, time management skills, mood (diverting negative thoughts into positive ones), which can also lead to better sleep. It also helps with completely immersing yourself into another world within the pages without the distraction of hundreds of words laid out in front of you. Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, which ones are your favorites and why? Let us know!

Written by Tina Phong

If you need help turning your book into an audiobook, we offer audiobook production services that will help you reach a wider audience and increase your book sales. 

Learn more here and listen to some of our audiobook samples.

5 Tips For Narrating Audiobooks

Have a book you want to turn into an audiobook? If not, then you should seriously consider looking into it as audiobooks are becoming very popular with book lovers!

If so, then consider writing your book, from the very start to sound appealing, rather than visually. This is definitely a change in one’s mindset especially if you’ve been a writer for a while now, but if you’re choosing to go into the audiobook market, then you’ll need to cater to its audience.

Keep on reading for tips and tricks on how to be a better narrator for your audiobook and keep your listeners engaged and interested as your story unravels.

1. Clear Audio Writing

The typical audiobook listener will have their focus split between the audio and whatever it is they’ve decided to do that day: driving, walking, and doing the dishes. Even if they were to give it the full attention, they only have that one chance to hear what you’re saying as the story continues with its flow, making it very different from physically reading the book as you can always backtrack and reread what it is you didn’t quite understand.

How to keep the reader engaged and still know what you’re saying is to include connecting words such as finally, therefore, then, while, and so as it draws attention to the contrast in what you’re saying. And don’t forget, repetition such as names is important as well.

So keep these in mind when recording that your words need to be clear and easy to understand. 

2. Audiobooks Are Performance Scripts

Write your story as a performance script from the beginning to make it easier to narrate for the audiobook. This way you can easily connect with your audience as the tones, rhythm, pace and any other audio signals throughout your story would’ve already been thought about - leaving you with little editing.

3. Repetition and Rhythm

Writing an audiobook based on how it sounds is similar to that of oral storytelling and slam poetry. Each writing performance has its own structures to it, but one aspect to note in particular is that of repetition and rhythm, and to land the nouns. So that even if your words aren’t super clear, the listener will still be able to understand what is going on. Basically, place more emphasis on nouns as opposed to other words.

However, make sure to change up your rhythm every now and then as it can get repetitive and boring and you don’t want to lose a reader.

4. Long Sentences and Breathing

Watch out for any long and wordy sentences in your story. Not only will it make it harder for the listener to understand what you’re saying, but you may run out of breath by the end of the sentence and ruin the quality of your work.

Read your sentences out loud more than once at any and each stage you progress on with.

5. Listeners Need Attunement Time

Hearing an unfamiliar voice can be a bit strange to people, especially to new audiobook listeners, so they’ll need time to adjust. 

Just as with any radio show host, they’ll have an opening line to ease the listener into their segment, as the words can get lost starting off, so avoid using any keywords in the first sentence. Try starting off the section with its main orientation words and then later on including important plot points of the story.

BONUS: Whispersync

Whispersync is a feature created by Audible as a means to synchronize your audiobooks with Kindle’s ebooks in case you or any of its many users decide to switch audiobook platforms and that way your progress in the story doesn’t get lost. In fact, it’ll start you right where you left at.

Be wary that not all audiobooks are compatible with this feature, but for those who use Amazon as their main platform will have easily granted access to it (except for books with images, that’s where it gets a bit tricky and you may as well not bother). 

CONCLUSION

Narrating your audiobook isn’t as easy as speaking into a microphone. You’ll need to be able to speak clearly, write your story as a script, make use of repetition and rhythm, watch out for long sentences and breath, and allow for listeners to adjust to your voice. Do you have any other tips on how to better narrate your audiobook? Let us know!

Written by Tina Phong

If you need help turning your book into an audiobook, we offer audiobook production services that will help you reach a wider audience and increase your book sales. 

Learn more here and listen to some of our audiobook samples.

How to Create and Self-Publish Your Audiobook

If you’re an author looking to expand your market, publishing audiobooks might be right for you. You already have the written material, so converting it to an audio format is the easy part. 

If you’re unsure how to start creating and selling your audiobook, keep reading, I’ll be breaking it down below

Why You Should Sell Your Audiobooks

The global audiobook market is valued at around 3 billion dollars and is constantly expanding. Audiobooks are considered the fastest-growing segment in publishing and they generate more income than ebooks. They offer authors another way to make money from their books. 

Is self-publishing right for you?

Self-publishing is not for everyone so it’s important to know if it’s right for you and your audiobook. 

You can learn more about self-publishing vs. traditional publishing in this article from Jony Studios.

Here are some traits that will help you be successful with self-publishing

• Your audiobook delivers content the audience wants to hear

• You have an understanding of your audience, budget, and marketing

• You are willing to put in the work to get your book published. 

Different genres of audiobooks do better than others. For example, mystery, thriller, and suspense audiobooks have the biggest audience, while sci-fi and fantasy have more engagement than any other genre. There is a clear market for shorter audiobooks, and non-fiction authors tend to have more success with online marketing than fiction authors do. 

Many factors could make your audiobook successful, so it is easy for anyone to publish an audiobook in any genre.

Self-publishing can also be costly depending on how you decide to record your audiobook. Narrating, editing, and publishing your audiobook can cost anywhere between $150.00 - $700.00 to purchase the equipment and it will require a laptop/computer that can handle recording software.

Here is a list of the basic equipment you’ll need to record your audiobook from home:

• Microphone 

• Audio interface

• Microphone stand

• Headphones

• Audacity or Garageband, free recording software

If you decide to work with a narrator and audio production company, it can cost $3000.00-$6000.00 for an average length audiobook which is about 10 hours. Renting a studio can cost $50 - $200 an hour and narrators can cost $100.00-$400.00 per finished hour. 

The most expensive but easiest option is to hire a production agency as they handle recording, editing, and narration for you. 

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Another option which is becoming very popular is to record your own audiobook at home using your voice but hire a professional recording studio to handle the editing, mixing, mastering for Audible standards, and walk you through the entire upload process, which will save you a lot of time, money, and hassle.

Learn more about our remote audiobook production services here and request a free estimate!

Creating your Audiobook

The first step in creating an audiobook is to write a script. Scripts are important because they will ensure the content you are recording will be comprehensible in an audio format. 

If you are recording an online article, make sure you leave the following out of your script.

• Hyperlinks

• Captions and footnotes as they can be written into the spoken text

• Visuals

• Call to action or ‘click here’ buttons

If you are hiring a narrator, do research and hold auditions to make sure you are finding one that suits your audiobook. 

You can find narrators using freelance websites like Fiverr.

If you decide to narrate the audiobook yourself, there are some things to consider.

1. Do you have an engaging voice?

2. Do you have voiceover skills to effectively tell your story?

3. If you listen back to the audio you have narrated, are you distracted by the way your voice sounds?

Keep in mind that a bad narration is a turn-off for many listeners. 

When you are recording at home make sure you do the following

• Turn off all equipment that makes noise. A mic will pick up any small sounds that a person might not think of

• Record in a carpeted room to avoid reverb and reflections

• Don't move while you’re recording

• Keep your voice at a consistent volume and don't hold your breath

• Read from an electronic device so the sound of turning pages is not picked up.

• Schedule multiple recording sessions and re-record if necessary.

When you edit your audiobook, eliminate any mouth sounds, harsh ‘s’ sounds and make each chapter its own file, if you need help with this we have you covered with our remote audiobook editing services.

The final package should include a sample audio track, engaging book description, and cover art/image. 

Audiobook Platforms

There are multiple different platforms you can choose to put your audiobook on. You can stick to one or upload it to a couple of different ones. 

ACX

ACX is owned by Amazon and is a full-service audiobook/distribution arm. Through ACX you can distribute to Amazon, iTunes, and Audible. 

There are a couple of different options if you chose to work with ACX.

1. Exclusive with ACX. You receive 40% of the royalties. If you worked with a narrator and don’t pay them upfront, they receive half of the royalties. This is a seven-year contract

2. Non-exclusive with ACX. You receive 25% of the royalties. You are unable to split the royalties with a narrator in a non-exclusive deal so they need to be paid upfront. This option allows you to work with other distribution platforms. 

If you choose to publish with ACX you will not have control over the price of your audiobook. Click here to view the pricing guidelines from ACX.

Findaway Voices

Findaway Voices allows you to choose where you sell your audiobooks as well as how you price them. They have a distribution market that reaches over 170 countries and they work with library, retail, and school markets. 

To learn more about ACX and Findaway voices, click here.

Soundwise

Soundwise allows authors to easily build an audience, Pro and Platinum plans that offer 100% of profits, and a place for listeners to leave comments. It is very easy to use and Authors have full control over their pricing strategy. 

Click here to learn more about Soundwise.

Marketing Your Audiobook

As a self-published author, you will have full control over your marketing strategies. This can seem like a lot, especially if you have no idea how to go about marketing your audiobooks.

Here are some marketing tips to help you when you first get started

• Pitch your audiobooks to booktubers, blogs, and book-related podcasts

• Be active on social media and audiobook related Facebook groups

• Submit for awards

• Share your audiobooks with journalists

Check out this video for some more tips on how to market your audiobook. 

Written By: Leah Gerber

Conclusion: Making your audiobook successful

You are now equipped to self-publish your own successful audiobook! 

Before you get started, here are some important things the remember:

• Self-publish if it’s right for you

• Create content that listeners want

• Choose platforms that will work for your needs

• Engage with your listeners through social media

Have you ever self-published an audiobook before? What was your experience like? Which platform did you find most helpful? Let us know in the comments below.

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If you need help turning your book into an audiobook, we offer remote audiobook production and editing services that will help you reach a wider audience and increase your book sales. 

Listen to some of our audiobook samples here to get started.