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How to Choose an Audiobook Narrator

Writer's picture: K. L. MiracleK. L. Miracle

Updated: Jan 31



Turning your book into an audiobook is a wonderful way to generate sales, reach new audiences, revive a book that may have stopped selling, and (most importantly) contribute to the blind community and other readers who may struggle to (or can't) read due to disabilities. But now that you've made that crucial decision, there are a few more things to decide. Possibly the most important decision you'll make about your audiobook is who should narrate it.  


In this article (click to jump):


Should you narrate your own book?


To answer this, let me ask you a few questions.

1) Do you like talking a lot?

2) Do you have experience talking in front of a crowd?

3) Do you have a ton of free time on your hands?

4) Are you tech-savvy?

5) Do you have the finances available to buy equipment or rent a studio?


These are all questions you'll have to consider if you want to narrate your own audiobook. The first question is one I asked my students when I was teaching narration to voice actors. A good way to tell if you have both the stamina and the desire to read your book is to actually do a dry run. Grab your book and start reading out loud to yourself for an hour. In that hour, write down how often you had to stop to correct what you were saying. This can just be tally marks. Don't forget to take a break for water! (I actually recommend drinking a glass or two of water an hour before narrating to really hydrate your vocal cords). Once the hour is up, see how many words you were able to narrate in that hour and write it down. Now, consider how you feel. Could you sustain this pace for the amount of words in your completed book? Do you even want to?


If you find you like reading aloud and think you could do it long term, great! Do you have any experience reading before a crowd? Or just reading to someone else? If not, grab a volunteer and read them a chapter of your book. Practice things like changing your pace during certain scenes, fake yelling and whispering, see what you need to do in regards to pace, tone, and character voices to keep your audience engaged, and ask them for their thoughts. Avoid monotone, you don't want to bore your audience.


Done? Right, next question...how much time do you have to commit to narrating your book? The average audiobook narrator narrates 9,000 words in an hour. Add to that the number of times you had to stop and restart because you missed a word or misspoke a word and you are looking at anywhere from one hour (for experienced narrators) to three hours per 9,000 words. On a 30,000-word novel, that's around six hours of your time. Without breaks. Just to narrate. Now add in the hours it will take you to edit and master that novel to meet the standards for your publishing company (be it Audible or Apple books, etc.). My students ranged from some taking two weeks to finish a 30k novel to some taking over a month to finish a 30k novel.


Finally, let's talk about equipment. You can rent time at a local booth, use the podcast room in your library if they have one, or go into a closet with a door and lots of clothes and narrate your novel. Make sure to be aware of any sounds that might seep into your recording like the hum of your air conditioner, the barking of a dog or birds singing outside your window, kids laughing, the rustling of your clothes, etc. For the physical equipment, you will need a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) which is software like Adobe Audition (my recommendation), an interface and microphone, XLR cables for your mic-to-interface connection, and USB cables for interface-to-computer connection, headphones or speakers to listen back on, and a desk of some sort to put all this on. Oh and a computer. You can use a laptop if it is quiet enough but most of them have a loud fan that will absolutely get picked up into your recordings. Try to keep your computer out of whatever booth you are using and instead run cables to your interface and microphone. If you host your own podcast, you may already have all of these things and can use those.


Do note: I do not recommend using Audacity or a USB mic. My students could all tell the difference when I showed them A/B samples between XLR with interface mics and USB mics...and so will your audience. Especially since they are used to listening to audiobooks and know what a good clean book sounds like.


Numerous videos on YouTube will walk you through the process of narrating and editing an audiobook on Adobe Audition.


If all of that sounds like way too much work, especially when you have your next book you need to be writing, then never fear! There's a narrator near!


Should you use AI to narrate your book?


Again, let me ask you a few questions. How often have you sat on hold tuning out the robotic voice telling you, “Someone will take your call momentarily.” How often have you heard a robotic voice come over the speakers in a store to make an announcement and you’ve turned to whoever you are shopping with and said, “What did they say?” How often have you missed your turn because you weren’t paying attention to your GPS?


Is that how you want your listeners to feel about your book?


At the end of the day, the truth is that we’ve been trained to tune out robotic voices, no matter how good they are, due to time spent (sometimes hours) on hold waiting desperately to talk to a human. This is why GPS now gives an alert noise when you use it. It's trying to get your attention.


YOUR BOOK DESERVES TO BE HEARD.

Your book deserves to capture your audience’s attention, engage them, and keep them listening.


Ignoring the current stigma around using AI at all in the creative world, there are a few other reasons not to choose AI to narrate your book.


1) Supporting your fellow human creatives. Narrators need work, too. I won't go too far into this as an audiobook narrator myself but it does need mentioning.


2) AI narration is not engaging. My twelve-year-old (who listens to audiobooks because he struggles to read due to learning disabilities) refuses to listen to anything narrated by AI, including YouTube videos. When I asked him why, he said, "I can't pay attention. My brain just doesn't like it."


NCBI did a study on this and found the following:


“Comparing the electrophysiological data of the participants’ EEG while listening to different newscast agents revealed that brain activity responses were greater when listening to a human newscast than to an AI voice newscast. And β bands in left posterior temporal lobe were significantly different, suggesting that participants’ brain were better at processing, comprehending auditory information, and storing working memory when listening to a human reporter than when listening to a voice generated by AI. Moreover, the ERP results and the interaction effect of content valence and agent voice demonstrated that the human voice generated greater cognitive effect, which may reflect participants’ trust in the credibility and fluency of the human voice news.”


What does all that mean? Humans prefer listening to humans, comprehend information better coming from humans, and really do want to support their fellow humans. At the end of the day, we want to be a community. That’s why there’s such a growing support for indie creatives, after all!


A note before we move on: please DO NOT give your voice to an AI so that it can narrate your book in your voice for you. As of the writing of this article (2025), there are NO protections for identity theft for your voice. This means that anyone with access to your AI voice can now use it to say whatever they want, including derogatory or hate-filled rhetoric. I know of an instagram user who had his voice stolen so that the thieves could use his voice to talk to his followers and get them to sign up for a scam. That was without him giving them a sample to use. You cannot sue whoever takes it, as there are no legal protections, yet. There is also currently no way to destroy that AI-created voice. Once it has been created, it is out there forever.  


Okay, so how do I find a human narrator?

I'm so glad you asked!


If you are traditionally published (or hybrid) first you will need to talk to your agent or producer to check your contract to see who has the right to produce the audiobook. If you own the right, you can head over to the internet.


The EASIEST place to find a human narrator is on marketplaces such as ACX (Amazon's marketplace for audiobook narration). However, you will get AI narrations submitted along side human narrations and you will get a range of professional...and not-so-professional narrators.


The BEST way to find a narrator is through referrals. You can listen to a few audiobooks in your genre and look up the narrators. You can check out #narrators on social media and listen to samples. You can reach out to authors in your community and ask them who they used to narrate their audiobooks.


Most narrators provide a free audition for your book and most of us have an account on ACX. If you are more comfortable working on a platform, you can ask your narrator to send you their ACX profile and directly send them a contract through the platform. You can then let ACX handle things like royalty share, contracts, etc. for you.


I personally like Author's Republic more than ACX for numerous reasons (higher royalty share for authors being chief among them and a wider distribution that includes Audible, Apple books, Google Books, local bookstore supporters like Libro.fm, and library apps like Libby), but they have limited narrators on their platform (I'm not on there as they were full) so I suggest having the narrator you've chosen send you files directly through email or dropbox so that you can upload your audiobook wherever you wish.


For tips on marketing your audiobook, check out my article!


A final note on off-platform narrators: Always ask for a contract. It protects you and your narrator.


Whether you decide to narrate your book yourself or choose to hire a human narrator, I hope this article was helpful to you.


Leave a comment in the chat and let us know where you found your narrator!


And remember, stay creative!


  • K.L. Miracle

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