A couple of years ago I wanted to put my books on audio. Since people seem to prefer listening to books rather than reading them these days, I thought it would be great if people could listen to my books too. So I decided to do a little research. I asked around on Twitter to see how much it would cost to have a professional narrate my book. I also Googled it. When I found out it could cost anywhere from $300 – $1,000 or way more to pay a professional I knew my audio book wasn’t happening. This had me extremely sad. So I kept dreaming about it. I figured at the time that was all I could do. Since I don’t have that kind of money.

A couple of months ago I was telling someone about my books. They asked me if any of them were on audio. I told them no, but I really wanted to get them on audio, but money was an issue. The next day I decided to search Google to see if any authors did their own narrating for books. I discovered that some did! So that got me thinking, who better to tell my story than me. After all the first book I wanted to put on audio was my book about my miscarriages. There is no one else who is going to be able to have that emotion when it comes to reading my books than me. My books are memoirs so in this case it also makes sense that it would sound right being read by me.

I then needed to figure out how I would be able to sell my book in audio format. It turns out that indie authors can publish their books on audio using ACX. ACX is similar to Create Space, but for audio books. It publishes to Audible and iTunes. Now that I knew it was possible to record it myself, and I knew there was a place to sell it, I could get started.

My next step was to figure out how I was going to get this done. This is where my husband came into the picture. I told him I wanted to put my books on audio and that I planned to do it all on my own. I gave him my phone and I asked him to find a good microphone app that I could use. A few minutes later he handed my phone back to me and showed me how to use it. The app I use is VoiceRecorder.

My husband would have to do some post-processing to get the audio quality correct to be accepted by ACX, but we knew this could work. I’ll tell you more about my experience recording the book and what was needed for the next steps in next weeks blog.

Currently the first of my books that I have on Audiobook is titled – Miscarriages My story – I share my experience with 3 miscarriages in the audio. I explain how many children we wanted and how many we had. I share how I needed to talk with my husband and rely on God. I talk about how we used our miscarriages to make our marriage stronger. I share what it was like for me being around other pregnant women while I was going through my grief and crying all the time.

Kathleen Smith is an indie Author, blogger and she has her own podcast Kathleen’s Korner. You can read about her life in Brooklyn and Upstate NY . You can also either read or listen to her personal story of how she and her husband kept their marriage together through 3 miscarriages in Miscarriages My Story