We produce all kinds of materials. While we are a Christian company, as long as your project is clean, i.e., does not contain any swearing or sexually explicit material, and doesn't contradict Christian values, we are usually open to just about anything.

Generally speaking, and there are some exceptions to this, the price of producing an audiobook is $250 per finished hour of audio. This included narration, proofing, editing, mastering, and helping you with anything you need to actually publish your audiobook on a platform like Audible or Findaway.

The quickest way to estimate the cost of producing your audiobook is to take your total word count and divide it by 9,600 (roughly the amount of words in an hour of audio), then multiply by $250.

For example:

Manuscript: 45,000

Divided by 9,600: Your audiobook will be roughly 4.6 hours long.

Estimated Cost of Production: $1,166.00

This will likely not be the exact price, because every book requires different pacing and speed depending on the content, but this will give you a pretty close idea of the final cost.

The exceptions for this are usually for churches/ministers, ministries, missionaries, and missions organizations. In those cases we will occasionally provide what is called a Royalty Share plan. This is when instead of paying the full fee upfront, a portion of the fee, or possibly none at all, is paid upfront. Royalties are then split between the author and Living Audio. The percentage changes based on how much of the fee is provided upfront, if anything.

Please note, however, that authors who request the Royalty Share plan should come prepared with a distribution plan. This should include your expected audience size, sales expectations, marketing strategy, etc... Any request for a Royalty Share plan without this will not be accepted.

Step 1: You contact Living Audio and email a copy of your manuscript. We will get back to you with availability and a cost estimate.

Step 2: Once the price is agreed upon, we will send you a short sample. Once approved by you, we will send you a basic contract/agreement for the agreed upon service.

Step 3: Once the contract is signed by both parties, Alan (or the chosen narrator) will record fifteen minutes from your book. Generally, this will be the first fifteen minutes of the book itself. However, if there are different characters, we may record segments with those characters for you to hear the voices. You will receive the fifteen minutes, and either approve them, or request any changes. We will always work with you to get as close to your vision as we can.

If your book has fantasy elements, places, people, or things that can't be researched on an online dictionary, you will need to provide those words written out phonetically. Otherwise, the narrator will read them exactly as they are written in the text.

Step 4: Once the fifteen minutes are approved by you, and the list of words (if needed), is provided, Living Audio will then take over the full production of your audiobook. Generally, at this point we ask for 50% of the final production cost.

This is how the production process takes place:

a. We remove all front and back matter from the manuscript (acknowledgments, table of contents, etc...) We also remove any footnotes, references (except Bible verses) graphs, and other material that is not conducive to an audio format. In books with lots of graphs and photos, it is recommended that you create a separate PDF file that can be downloaded along with the audiobook.

b. The narrator then records the audiobook in its entirety.

c. Once the initial narration is complete, the audio files, along with the manuscript, are sent to the proofer. This is a person who listens to the entire narration while reading the manuscript to check for any mistakes in the narration. These mistakes are missed words, maybe the mic got bumped and the narrator didn't notice, a misspoken Bible verse reference, etc...

d. The proofer sends back the list of mistakes to the narrator, and he/she goes back and re-records all of the sections where they were made, providing error-free audio that is a word-for-word match to the manuscript.

e. The narrator then sends the completed, raw audio to an audio engineer. The engineer then mixes and masters it to make sure the audio sounds amazing, is leveled and fits all of the standards for Audible or other distribution platforms.

f. You will then receive your entire audiobook, ready for distribution! At that point it is all yours. If you need help uploading it to Audible, we are happy to help with that as well.