How to record an audiobook

What do you need before you start recording an audiobook?

Before the first session, you need:

• the audio rights;
• the final, edited text, because changes after recording mean re-recording;
• a narrator: the author or a professional voice;
• the target platform, which sets the technical specifications;
• time and a budget.

Start with the rights. If you are the author, check whether your publishing contract has already given the audio rights to the publisher. Audio rights are often dealt with separately from print and ebook rights, so read the contract or ask the publisher. This is general information, not legal advice.

For narration technique in general, from marking a script to clean takes, see how to record a voice-over.

How long does it take to record an audiobook?

First estimate the finished length. ACX, Audible's production platform, says that most audiobook narrators read about 9,300 words an hour, so dividing the book's word count by 9,300 gives a rough length in hours. An 80,000-word novel comes to between eight and nine hours. Your own pace may differ, so read one chapter aloud, time it and work from that.

Recording takes longer than the finished length because of retakes, breaks and rests for the voice, and editing and proof-listening come on top of that. Plan several hours of work for every finished hour. Sessions of two to three hours with breaks, at the same time of day, keep the voice consistent.

The cost of recording an audiobook depends mostly on the finished length, because that sets the studio hours, the editing and the proof-listening. It also depends on whether the author or a professional narrator reads, how many characters and foreign words the text has, and how many passages need re-recording.

How do you prepare the text and the voice?

1. Read the whole book once before you record.
2. Mark the script: pauses, stresses, emphasis and breath points.
3. Make a pronunciation list of names, places and foreign words, and check it with the author. In the Baltics that can mean Latvian names in an English book, or Russian names in a Latvian one.
4. Give each character a few traits (pace, pitch, manner) and write them on a character sheet, so that the voice sounds the same on day five as on day one.
5. Look after your voice: water, rest and a warm-up before each session. A few diction exercises make a good warm-up.
6. Turn pages silently: read from a tablet with notifications switched off, or from loose pages rather than a bound book.

The same applies to narrating any long text: the better the script is prepared, the fewer passages you will have to record again.

Recording an audiobook at home or in a studio: how do you keep the sound the same?

Keep these the same in every session:

• the room;
• the microphone and its position (mark the distance on the stand or the desk);
• the input gain;
• the recording format, for example WAV at 44.1 or 48 kHz, 24-bit;
• the chair;
• the time of day.

Listen out for the fridge, traffic, the heating and the rustle of your clothes, and record room tone at the start of each session.

Punch-and-roll recording saves hours of editing: when you make a mistake, stop, roll back a sentence and record over it. Many recording programs support it. A second person who follows the text and stops you at mistakes makes the takes cleaner still.

To treat a room at home, see acoustic panels for recording. If you would rather work in a voice studio, our studio in Riga records voice-overs, adverts, audiobooks, dubbing and vocals on professional microphones. Voice recording costs €60/h, with sound mastering included.

What do audiobook platforms require?

Each platform publishes its own specifications, and they change, so read the current page before you record. The values below are what the pages said in October 2026.

ACX itself is currently open only to residents of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland, according to its help page, so check that page before you plan around ACX. Its Audio Lab checks a finished file on eight metrics, including RMS, peak levels and bit rate.

Prepare the files like this, then adjust them to each platform's requirements:

• one file per chapter;
• opening and closing credits that name the title, the author and the narrator;
• room tone at the head and tail of each file;
• the same loudness in every file;
• no music under the narration, unless the platform allows it;
• a retail sample.

If you record at home or elsewhere, our editors can edit and clean up the recording for €40/h.

Where can you publish a Latvian audiobook?

Availability depends on your country and the book's language, and it changes, so check each page before you choose:

• BookBeat, a subscription service for audiobooks and ebooks with a site for Latvia. Its page does not explain how authors submit books, so ask BookBeat or your publisher;
• Aural, an app for audiobooks in Latvian by local creators. Its App Store description says anyone can join its creator community and narrate and publish audiobooks;
• Google Play Books, whose country table currently shows that partners in Latvia cannot create a seller account and that buyers in Latvia can buy ebooks but not audiobooks;
• Apple Books, through Apple Books for Authors, which covers publishing an audiobook you have already produced;
• Spotify, through Spotify for Authors, where self-published authors can publish audiobooks directly;
• your own publisher, if it releases audio editions.

Latvijas Neredzīgo bibliotēka, the Latvian Library for the Blind, lends audiobooks to readers with visual impairments, dyslexia and other reading difficulties.

Should an AI voice or a human narrate your audiobook?

• AI narration is faster and cheaper.
• Platforms treat it differently. Google Play Books runs an auto-narrated audiobook programme that reads ebooks with a digital voice. It requires the audio rights and an EPUB file, Latvia is not on its list of publisher countries, and neither Latvian nor Russian is among its languages. ACX's requirements say the audiobook must be narrated by a human unless ACX has authorised otherwise.
• Latvian AI voices vary in quality.
• Fiction with characters and emotion is better served by a human narrator.

The guide to choosing an AI or a human voice compares the two in depth.