Seeking Advice – Audio Book Creation

This blogging community has authors of all experience and success levels. One of the things I’ve been contemplating to take my writing to a new market is the creation of an audio book.

As I contemplate this, and I have on an off for the past three years, I’m trying to find the most economic, but effective way to make this happen for my first book. I would then like to used the increased revenue from the additional market to fund audio versions of my other books.

With this in mind, I thought I would leverage this community to get some advice from those of you that have created audio books. I will tell you that my first inclination was to record it myself. This can be done for a relatively low cost, but I just didn’t like the sound of my voice. I have a nasal, monotone voice that sounds much different in my ear than it does when it’s recorded.

So, here are my questions. I appreciate any information that you can provide:

1. Did you hire a professional voice actor/actress to record your audio book?
2. Approximately how much did this cost? Giving a range or price per word count is fine.
3. Have you seen an uptick in sales or significant revenue for the audio version of your book?
4. How does your marketing differ for audio books?
5. Are there any other things I should know going into this venture?

I understand if you are reluctant to share information. I would even be grateful if you pointed me in the direction of resources you have used to research and create your audio books.

I truly appreciate this blogging community and respect your experience and knowledge. I hope that I can help you out with similar advice at some point.

Thanks,

Don Massenzio