I hope you’re having an excellent new year. I just wanted to do a bit of a status update and response to an enquiry I’ve had many, many times since publishing The Self Made Stand Up. That question is “Do you have an audiobook version? When will you do the audiobook version?”
I get it, trust me. I’m also an audiobook guy. I still read books, but I consume about 20 audiobooks for every text based book I read. I love my Kindle, but I can’t read a book while I’m driving a car or walking my dog. And let’s face it; stand up comedy is a spoken-word medium, so wouldn’t it make sense to have an audiobook version of my work?
Absolutely. I wish it were that simple. As I’ve explained to a few people. coming out with an audiobook will involve many additional complications to resolve. I’ll briefly outline what the complications are and what I’m doing about them.
The first and most obvious of these is the expense. On one hand, anyone in the world of self publishing will tell you that digital iterations of a book are a much better profit proposition for an author than the print version. It’s almost 100% profit, as opposed to maybe a fifth of that from a paperback.
That’s great for the e-books, and thank you from the bottom of my heart if you’re one of the people who bought one of mine, but the complication with the audio version is that there’s more front-loaded costs in production.
For many writers, they’ll be looking at the cost of having a narrator read their book. Those are not cheap, but it’s not going to be an option for me anyway. I mean, my book is about speaking in public so it would be ridiculous if I, the successful public speaker, didn’t read my own fucking book. Honestly, if I pick up an audiobook about stand up comedy and it’s not read by the author, I’ll assume that it’s not written by someone who knows what they’re talking about and that it’s probably some bullshit AI slop instead.
In fact – I’ve experienced this and fucking hate it – it might even be read by AI. Look, some books might be able to get away with this, but there’s no excuse with stand up comedy. If you’re someone who knows enough about stand up comedy to teach it, there’s no good reason why you wouldn’t be the one presenting your work.
Except for the costs. Because even if I read it myself, I still have to spend a fuckload of money renting studio time and audio engineering services. And they reckon it could be up to five hour’s worth for one hour of book. And an hour of book is about 9,300 words. My book is about 130,000 words (it’s a substantial book. You should buy it), which means a 14 hour book which might need a minimum of 30-40 hour’s studio time.
Turn that into dollars and you’ll see it’s not a consideration – not when I consider that it might take another 5+ years for the book I’ve already published to pay for itself. It’s be an idiot to pour another $8,000 into my vanity project. It’s not gonna happen.
BUT this does touch on one of those reasons why people use AI narrators for their audiobooks. I hate them and hate listening to them, despite how far they’ve come. And don’t get me wrong, they’ve come a very long way. Some of those AI voices are quite convincing, until they mispronounce a word in the most stupid way.
I want to write to some of these faceless YouTube channels that perpetrate this slop and ask them whether they even listen to their own videos before uploading them, because it’s so obvious that a robot is doing the talking. The only thing that stops me is my knowledge that the people behind them are making money and don’t give a fuck about their quality or my opinion.
But the people who do them aren’t just saving money on a narrator. They’re saving money on studio time and audio engineering. If I ever considered using an AI voice for my audiobook , it would only have been for a millisecond and motivated entirely by the cost of studio time.
That’s not the only obstacle though. I’m 100% positive that for any author on Amazon, getting an audiobook on their Audible platform is a no brainer and will do about 50 times better than the actual book does. There have been lots of issues with this that are hotly debated and ranted about in various communities, which are based around Amazon’s relationship with it’s content contributors.
Nothing new there, but my own roadblock is that I can’t even open up an account with ACX which is Amazon’s audiobook business that publishes to it’s Audible platform. This is because they require a Tax ID for America, Canada or the UK before I can even register with them, and I’m just not equipped for that bullshit at this point in my life.
But I’m still going to bring an audio version of my book. At least I’m going to try. I want to. It’s been on my to-do list since I started writing the thing. I feel like there should be an audiobook version of The Self Made Stand Up. It really is the book I wish I’d found when I started, and I know I would have bought it in audiobook format if given the chance.
So here’s where I’m at. I have or am getting some decent budget hardware at home. I’ve got decent software and I’m not the world’s worst audio engineer (I learned a lot as a musician). I’ve identified a platform that lets creators retail their own digital content with 100% of the profits. That means if I can record the thing on a shoestring budget, I can make it available on a shoestring budget
It might not sound like it was produced in the ACX studios, and it won’t have Audible’s audience, but it’ll be good and I can make it available to everyone. If you’re anything like me, you’ll prefer to hear the author talking from their home studio than a robot with slick production.
I talk a lot in my book about the punk and DIY ethos, why it’s important to me as a creator and why it’s a good fit for stand up comedy, so this approach is the right one for me even if it doesn’t bring me wealth and fame (in fact, especially so – success would be very off-brand for me!)
Anyway, watch this space. I have another creative project I’m working on right now, and it’s not comedy related at all, but the audiobook has always been at the front of my mind and I’m going to try and get this one done in the next couple of months.
The Self Made Stand Up is available as a paperback or e-book from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and lots of other places.
More than a how-to book, The Self-Made Stand-Up is an essential resource for developing yourself as an effective comedian. If you’re a comedian, or looking to become one, The Self-Made Stand-Up is the emotional support animal you need.
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Sean Cooper, Comedian 