

But that moinker falls apart when you upgrade to Audible Premium Plus. I mentioned earlier that Audible Plus is the “Netflix of Audiobooks,” and that’s true. Think About How Much You Get With a Monthly Subscription Add all this together, and the production costs could rival that of a small feature film to produce an audiobook for a best-selling title.

Other times Audiobooks will feature big voice casts for maximum immersion in a tale. Big publishers often hire producers, sound engineers, and musicians to make their titles into audiobooks. Then the raw recordings need to be edited together, requiring hiring a sound editor. Properly recording an audiobook can take days or even weeks, depending on the narrator and the length of the book. Even the best narrators can’t read a 10-hour book in one sitting with no mistakes. Plus, you need to consider the overhead of recording an audiobook. This increases the cost of making audiobooks-especially good ones. Some audiobook narrators will take a flat fee to read a book upfront, while others (especially celebrities) want royalties from every audiobook sold. And hiring a quality narrator isn’t cheap, especially if you want one with a track record of reading audiobooks in a way that grips the listener. Authors often read their own manuscripts, but others prefer to hire a professional to read their books for them. The costs of recording an audiobook shouldn’t be discounted either.
