The questions start with why, how and who.
When you get to the point of publishing your memoir in traditional book form, you’ll probably give some thought to also developing a memoir audiobook to let readers decide whether they want to read your book themselves or listen as it’s read to them. People like options, and today many are choosing to acquire the content of a book through its audiobook.
Some nonfiction books are best digested through print. They include two types of books that are kind of polar opposites of each other—those that give you more information than you want, so you end up skimming sections or skipping entire chapters, and those you want to read so carefully that you go back to some parts to reread or take notes. Neither of those categories makes the book a great fit for an audiobook.
But your memoir falls into neither of those groups. Therefore, will your memoir make a good audiobook? Yes! Oh yes. Very much yes.
My deal with myself is that when I run, and only when I run, I get to listen to a memoir audiobook. That is largely my motivation for running. I focus mostly on celebrity memoirs, and thanks to my deal with myself I’ve not only been able to stay in relatively decent running shape, but I’ve also listened to a library’s worth of celebrity memoirs available on Audible. So I have a lot of opinions on audiobook memoirs.
Where to Start to Make an Audiobook Memoir
Of the many questions you may ask on this topic, the “how” question is probably the one holding you back from creating a memoir audiobook to accompany your print memoir. Making an audiobook is a complicated process. In addition, there’s no inexpensive way to do it. If your memoir is destined to be your only book, it doesn’t make sense for you to invest in the purchase of equipment and claw your way through the steep learning curve that creating the audiobook will entail. But hiring a whole company to do it for you will cost an even prettier penny.
If your book gets picked up by a publisher, you probably won’t have to worry too much about the audiobook, because the publisher will make the arrangements and absorb the expense. But even then you may have input into one critical decision—who supplies the narration. It doesn’t have to be you.
Scribe Media explains all the steps and choices that go into creating an audiobook for your memoir or for any book—here’s a link for you to read that yourself. Scribe Media sells services to create the audiobook for you, so keep that in mind. But I feel that the information they provide is worthwhile and gives you a realistic idea of how much each option will cost you—although to find out their prices, you’ll have to get deeper into the process.
Reasons for Not Narrating Your Own Memoir Audiobook
It was interesting to learn that for her new memoir’s narration, Britney Spears chose actor Michelle Williams to do the voice. Why would she do that? There are lots of reasons—a little about time investment but primarily about the quality of the finished product.
The average narrator will deliver three to four times the amount of usable narration. This means that if the book’s print word count is 90,000, the audiobook will take roughly seven hours when completed, and you’ll spend up to 28 hours to produce those seven usable hours. A professional actor might be able to cut that down, but either way at least the author doesn’t have to spend the time on the task.
Anyone can read, but reading aloud without error and with proper inflection is harder than you might think. I imagine it would get really frustrating to flub the same sentence multiple times or have trouble keeping up a consistent level of energy after a couple of hours of reading. It would make sense to schedule multiple sessions rather than doing the whole book in one sitting, but then each time you come back to it you have to regroup whatever team you’re using, get back into your narrator head space and start up again.
Voiceover and other types of actors are the perfect choice for delivering the audio for any book, even a memoir. A professional in any field is more experienced than a novice, hobbyist or enthusiastic amateur. The Britney Spears memoir provides a great point of reference, because even though Spears is a seasoned performer comfortable at the microphone, a singer is still not an actor. Voiceover is a specialty skill.
People who purchase an audiobook for a celebrity memoir may want to hear it read by the author because they are familiar with the author’s voice. When I listened to the memoirs of musicians Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Ricki Lee Jones and Dave Grohl, I loved hearing their voices even though they weren’t singing. With the audiobook for Minka Kelly’s Tell Me Everything, it felt as if I were spending time with Lyla from “Friday Night Lights.” But you are not a celebrity, and your voice is not recognizable by the masses. You may not even have a pleasant speaking voice. No one will mind if you put in a beautifully voiced pinch-hitter to knock your memoir out of the ballpark.
A Big Reason to Narrate Your Memoir Audiobook Yourself
The best-case scenario, of course, is if you’re both the author and a great actor—like Viola Davis, whose Finding Me: A Memoir audiobook is magnificent partly because she narrates it, bringing her award-winning acting talent to the task of reading her own words. No one could top the end result of that effort, because she delivers not only intuitive pacing and that fabulous, full-throated voice, but also the emotion that accompanies a life story that belongs to her and her alone.
For me, it’s that last part that matters. I’m partial to the author reading the work, because that’s what establishes my intimacy with the story I’m hearing. While I enjoyed the Keith Richards memoir, Life, I feel it lost something as delivered in Johnny Depp’s American accent rather than Richards’s authentic voice.
Author credit of Life lists a professional writer along with Richards. Similarly, Britney Spears reportedly had a ghostwriter. I have to wonder whether authors who don’t write the book themselves feel less connected to the work, making it easier for them to hand over the narration to a surrogate.
Less Professional Can Mean Less Canned
While voiceover artists will apply their own style to narrating your book, they still will all sound similar—maybe even a little dry. Professional is not quirky, and the quirky narrations are some of my favorites.
For example, Jennette McCurdy narrates her best-selling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, at such a quick pace that I was getting out of breath just listening to her. But that helped her memoir audiobook stand out. She just speaks fast, I guess. Or maybe she wanted to get the reading over with. Before long, I got accustomed to her pace.
I can’t imagine anyone but journalist Tina Brown narrating The Vanity Fair Diaries. Her educated, lofty, British delivery is just so perfect, not surprisingly since she wrote the words.
Then there are the comedians and comic actors. Would you want Bossypants read to you by anyone other than Tina Fey? Could some other narrator deliver any of Mindy Kaling’s autobiographical works? Harvey Fierstein is a hoot but also sentimental as he reads his memoir, I Was Better Last Night.
A real outlier here is Leslie Jones, who takes a unique approach to narrating her memoir, Leslie F*cking Jones. Instead of reading the words on the page, Jones uses her book as a guide to deliver what can only be described as a very long standup routine. Imagine that Leslie Jones begins to tell her story on stage, and after four hours leaves to use the restroom, then returns to the microphone and starts chapter two. It’s like that. She laughs throughout her own stories except for the times she cries as she shares episodes like her parents’ deaths. It’s completely charming.
You, too, may be able to make your voice sound charming or your delivery heartfelt or whatever mood defines your chapters. I suggest doing a sample few pages even if your equipment is not professional. Then play it for a few friends and also someone who doesn’t know you. Watch their reaction. Unless they cringe, practice until you’re confident that you can narrate your own memoir at least as well as a stranger can. And then just do it.