Audio Book

Has anyone here ever published a book in audio format? If so, what was the experience like? What advice do you have?

It's something I've considered and have no experience with.

If you don't want to hire anyone to do it for you, the basic technology to create an audio book is fairly simple. You just need a $40 microphone and some software. It's pretty easy.

The actual recording his harder. I recorded a travel magazine for a local lower power FM station and it's harder than it looks. You don't hear until it's played back all the little noises you make that distract from the experience of listening.

To do it right, you need a good reader and a sound editor. At the minimum get a good sound editor. It'll go along way towards making your audio book great.

If you want to know the type of microphone and the software I used to record my parts were, let me know.

Thank you for the information. My husband and I have recorded our own music and that of others. I have never recorded an audio book or anything like that. I would definately like to have good readers; someone other than myself. I think it would be beneficial to have a male and female reader.

What mic do you use? Did you use software specifically for recording an audio book?

I have a 24-track, which burns to CD.

The software I used to record the magazine was Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

It's free and it does a decent job. If you use it, make sure to download the MP3 support as well.

The microphone I used was similar to this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Shure-550L-Desktop-Station-Microphone/dp/B0002JEUOQ/ref=sr_1_53?ie=UTF8&qid=1321711748&sr=8-53

It was good because I could have the pages on a stand in front of me and read.

But whatever microphone you use, you get an omnidirectional microphone. Omnidirectional microphones pick up your voice from any direction, so you can turn your head to read without dropping any sound.

Microphones like the ones in webcams or ones designed for webcams are unidirectional and only pick up sound in one direction. Don't use one of these. Spend the extra and get an omnidirectional microphone.