Audiobooks with Descript

Set up and stub out your project before you get started:

• Create a Project

• Create a Composition for every major section of the book (including conclusion, acknowledgements, etc.)

• Create “Opening Credits” and “End Credits” Compositions

• Create a “Retail Sample” Composition

Read from a PDF (position it side-by-side with Descript on your desktop).

? Note that one page of text is a good length for a single recording session.

To check your settings:

• Click “Record” → “Audio only”

• Make sure the correct microphone is selected

• Click the Input settings icon and turn on “Studio Sound” and “Transcribe”

• Click the ⚙️ to open Recorder settings and choose your language

Choosing a mic and accessories:

• Spend $150-200 on a microphone

• Get a pop filter

• Get a boom arm (or add padding beneath the mic)

Controlling how you hear yourself:

• Plug your headphones directly into the microphone

• Leave one earphone on, one off the ear

Positioning to record:

• Mark your microphone position

• Mark where you will sit for each session

• Find a single quiet location to record the entire book

Equipment links (note that you do not have to use these exact models):

• Blue Yeti mic: https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphone-Streaming-Podcasting-Play-Silver/dp/B002VA464S/

• Rode boom arm: https://www.amazon.com/Rode-Professional-Studio-Microphone-Extension/dp/B0BR4GHJ1B/

• Pop filter: https://www.amazon.com/Neewer-Studio-Microphone-Filter-Shield/dp/B00ACFAULC/

Editing as you go makes it possible to catch and correct issues like:

• Mismatched pacing or energy level from one section to the next

• Improper tone

• Issues with handling footnotes, diagrams, etc.

Reasons to ignore this advice:

• Limited access to a recording environment

• Extreme resistance to editing

Remember: Ideally, you record (approximately) one page at a time, then edit and make corrections.

To delete mistakes:

• Highlight in the transcription

• Press “Delete”

To remove gaps:

• Position the cursor at a dot

• Hit “Backspace”

To re-record a section:

• Position the cursor at the end of the section you’ll be replacing

• Hit “Enter” a few times to create a blank space

• Click “Record” → “Record into script”

• Pause a moment before you start speaking

Notes

• Have a pre-recording ritual to place your mike and position yourself

• Keep some water at hand

• Be aware of how dairy, sugar, caffeine, and alcohol affect your voice and performance

• Consider trying some vocal warmup exercises (search YouTube)

• Listen and talk along with your most recent recording as part of warmup—at least when you’re picking up in the middle of a section

• Sit in silence for about 5 seconds before and after speaking

  • This silence is easy to see in the transcript

  • Audible requires a bit of silence at the beginning and end of chapters, so just leave it for now

Your audiobook doesn’t have to match your book word for word!

Some suggestions:

• Charts: Consider telling a story to convey what a it’s meant to communicate

• Footnotes: Try working them into the text, or simply skipping them, or adding them to the end of the chapter (and telling the listener they’re okay to skip)

• Images: Skip them if you can

• Layout and typography: Reframe the text to clarify things for the listener

• Audible allows you to include a PDF with the audiobook; don’t rely on this to make your audiobook comprehensible

• Consider repeating yourself more often than you would in a written work—listeners can’t skip around the way readers can

• You might want to shorten long quotes and stories

• It’s okay to modify the text to be more conversational!

Notes:

• Click “Show timeline” to reveal two tracks—the audio waveform and a word-by-word transcript track

• To add space between words, just drag the word to the right in the timeline

  • You can also click and choose “Add gap clip”

  • Use this same technique to dial in your one second of “room tone” at the beginning and end of each clip

• To remove space, drag the word to the left in the timeline

Congratulations!

The only challenge is to maintain a recording and editing habit (the same as you did with your writing habit).

If you need help with that, consider joining the Useful Books Community: https://www.usefulbooks.com/community

Sound settings for quality and export

Descript offers an excellent selection of audio effects, which we’ll use to both improve the sound quality, and also to adhere to Audible’s loudness requirements.

We’ll use 3 or 4 audio effects: 1-2 for sound quality and 2 for loudness requirements.

Note: These sound settings are applied PER-COMPOSITION (not per-project) and must be set for each chapter of your book, as well as the intro, outro, and sample compositions. (You’ll get a reminder about this in the final checklist.)

• Studio sound:

  • Reduces echo, background noise, and other environmental noises ([learn more](https://help.descript.com/hc/en-us/articles/10327603613837-Studio-Sound)). If you have an excellent recording studio, you may prefer not to use this, but it’s generally a win.

  • Suggested settings

    • Intensity: 100%

    • Notes:

      • If your voice sounds at all choppy with studio sound enabled, try reducing the intensity to 70% or 50%

      • Studio sound takes a minute or two to apply to newly recorded clips, so you won’t hear it immediately

      • If you’re using OSX, there’s a similar “AI sound cleanup” feature built into the operating system. In my experience, it’s a bad idea to have both enabled, which feels as if it causes more audio glitches. As such, I prefer to disable the OSX feature and use only Descript’s Studio Sound (since the latter can be tweaked during editing).

• Compressor

  • Smooths out the volume levels between the loudest and quietest bits of your voice ([learn more](https://help.descript.com/hc/en-us/articles/10327543269133-Compressor)).

  • Suggested settings:

    • Pre-set: “Classic Voiceover”

    • Notes:

      • This one is required unless you plan to do professional sound mastering elsewhere. Beyond sounding a bit better, this helps achieve Audible’s requirement for average loudness between -23 and -18dB.

• Limiter

  • Prevents the volume from spiking above a certain level ([learn more](https://help.descript.com/hc/en-us/articles/10327508828941-Limiter)). This is required for Audible’s requirement that peak volume is -3dB.

    • Suggested settings:

    • Pre-set: “-3 dB Ceiling”

    • Note:

      • This one is required by Audible unless you plan to do professional sound mastering elsewhere.

• [OPTIONAL] High shelf EQ

  • “The high-shelf EQ (equalizer) lets you boost or cut high-end frequencies in your audio. It provides a simple way to quickly shape your sound - tame shrill recordings with a high-shelf cut or clear up a muddy vocal with a high-end boost.” ([learn more](https://help.descript.com/hc/en-us/articles/10327529581837-High-shelf-EQ))

  • What I use:

    • Pre-set: “12 kHz Medium Cut”

    • Note that I use these particular settings specifically to compensate for my tendency to hiss my “S” sounds. If you have a similar verbal tick, try playing with the presets to find something that sounds right for your voice and habits.

Audiobook publishing checklist

ISBN

• ACX will happily assign you one, or buy your own via bowker

Opening and closing credits

• Opening credits must note

  • the name of the audiobook,

  • name of the author(s),

  • and name of the narrator(s).

• Closing credits

  • must at minimum state: "the end."

• Music is allowed within the audio credits, and should be mixed at a proper level so it does not obscure the narration.

Retail sample

• 1-5 minutes long.

• Consider using the beginning of the book as your sample. It's often the best set-up, and might be the simplest, most effective way to intrigue a listener. (Note that iTunes automatically uses the first five minutes of the book as their sample.)

• The sample must start with narration, not credits or music.

• The sample must come from the audiobook.

• Explicit material is not permitted in the sample.

Audio quality

• The RMS (average loudness) of your audio files should measure between -23dB and -18dB RMS.

• The peak values (maximum loudness of audio file) should hover around -3dB.

• The noise floor should fall between -60dB and -50dB.

• The files should be MP3 (one of many audiobook formats) at 192kps, Constant Bit Rate (CBR).

• The sample rate should be 44.1 kHz (frequency).

• All files must be in mono or stereo, but not a combination of both.

Cover image

• Square (without any rectangular borders or cropping)

• 2400x2400 (or larger) jpg, png, or tif

• 72dpi resolution, <8MB in size

• https://help.acx.com/s/article/what-are-the-acx-audio-submission-requirements#b

mp3 files

• Each file must contain one chapter. However, each file cannot be longer than 120 minutes.

• One file must contain the opening credits (title, subtitle, author name, & narrator name).

• One file must contain the closing credits which could be as simple as “The End.”

• One file must contain a retail sample, which is a recording used for marketing.

• Each file must contain 0.5 to 1 sec of room tone at the beginning and 1 to 5 sec of room tone at the end.

Chapter names

• https://help.acx.com/s/article/acx-chapter-names-faq-s

• Chapter Name entry titles should be capitalized according to the same Chicago Manual of Style rules as book titles

  • Link to online capitalization tool: https://capitalizemytitle.com/ (Select Chicago and Title Case)

  • Chapter Name entry titles should not be in all capital letters

  • The following words should not be capitalized unless they are the first or last word in the entry title: the, and, of, in, on, at, by, for, from, onto, with

  • Verbs must always be capitalized, regardless of number of letters. Examples: Be, Do, Go, Is.

• Profanity cannot be used in chapter names and must be abbreviated, e.g. "F--K"

• If chapters are numbered, numbering must be uniform. For example, “Chapter Three” cannot be followed by “Chapter 4” or “Chapter IV”

• Chapter numbers and titles should be separated by a colon. Example:

  • Chapter 1: The Beginning

  • Chapter One: The Beginning

  • 1: The Beginning

  • One: The Beginning

Distribution

• acx.com

  • Authors or businesses from US, UK, Canada, Ireland with valid TIN

  • Distribution to Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes, as well as their global partners.

  • Optional settings:

    • global reach: https://www.acx.com/global-reach (makes book available in unlimited audiobook subscription services)

• findawayvoices.com

  • https://support.spotify.com/es/findawayvoices/

  • Authors from ~anywhere

  • Distributes to everywhere (”keep 100% of your royalties on Spotify and 80% everywhere else”)

That’s it for the course, but we’re here to help you finish your book (and celebrate its launch).

If you’ve got questions, why not join us in the Useful Books Community?

https://www.usefulbooks.com/community