Fear of the Audiobook

I really want to make an audiobook. I don’t have the money to pay someone professionally, but I have all the equipment and I know I can do a good job with it. So what’s stopping me?

This particular procrastination is brought to you by the letter T… for “time.” Recording and editing an audiobook is a serious time constraint. My job involves editing videos and making subjects like international law interesting for college students (not the easiest job in the world). That being said, I’ve only dipped my toe into audio recording, and that was many years ago.

I know it’ll take a lot of time. Reading my own book, Defending Our Sacred Honor, is the easy part – somewhere I’ve got to find… let’s say eight hours of uninterrupted time to do this and not something else. This is not easy with a wife, a young teenager, and a pre-teen in the house. Sure, I could break it up into smaller chunks, but why do that when I can write short stories, or play computer games, or get drunk? 🙂

Which leads to my next concern – physical space. I have my bedroom, but I’m worried that since I don’t have sound cancelling foam around me, it’s gonna sound tinny and awful. What’s worse, even though I’ve got software to correct a lot of that, I don’t have a sound editor’s ear. What sounds perfectly fine to me might annoy the crap out of a potential customer because there’s an air conditioning buzz in the background. I’ve got a microphone and editing software – that’s it. Don’t have a closet that’s soundproofed to get this done.

So even though audiobooks sell almost as many copies as ebooks, I’m reluctant to put in the time for an inferior product. I suppose offer it cheaper and put in a warning that there might be background noise, but I fear that’ll scare off the potential customer.

So I’m torn. Has anyone out there experimented with audio? Any hints on how to get over my fear of failure? Let me know in the comments below!