Casting an audiobook is not casting an advert. You are choosing someone to hold a listener’s attention for nine hours, get every name right, and still sound like the same person in chapter 40 as in chapter one.
The short answer
Pick for stamina and consistency before you pick for tone. Audition on your hardest two pages rather than your opening, check the narrator can hold character voices across a long book, confirm they meet the technical delivery standard your retailer demands, and agree who pays for pickups before you sign. A great commercial voice is not automatically a great narrator, and the reverse is just as true.
Most audiobook projects that go wrong do not go wrong in the booth. They go wrong at casting, when a voice that sounded wonderful on a two minute demo turns out to be exhausting over eight hours, or cannot keep a character’s accent stable between chapters, or is unavailable for pickups three weeks after delivery. Here is what to look at instead of the demo reel.
What actually decides the right narrator
Four things, roughly in this order.
- Endurance over charm. A voice with a strong personality is a gift in a 30 second advert and a liability across nine hours. Listeners forgive a plainer voice. They do not forgive one that becomes tiring.
- Character load. Count how many speaking characters your book has and how distinct they need to be. A single narrator memoir asks for warmth and clarity. A fantasy novel with 24 named characters, half of them non English, asks for a performer with genuine range and the discipline to keep a character sheet.
- Point of view. First person fiction is a performance. Third person literary fiction is closer to storytelling. Non fiction is teaching. Business and self help usually want authority and pace. These are different skills and few narrators are equally good at all of them.
- Believable match. If the narrator is a young woman from Manchester and the protagonist is an elderly Dublin priest, the listener will notice for nine hours. Author narration falls down here more often than anywhere else, which is a separate decision worth taking seriously.
Cast for the ninth hour, not for the first two minutes.
How to run an audition that tells you something
The standard mistake is sending chapter one. Chapter one is written to be the most polished thing in the book and it tells you almost nothing about whether a narrator can handle it.
- Send the hardest two pagesThe scene with four people talking at once. The chapter with the technical terminology. The emotional peak. If they can do that, the easy pages take care of themselves.
- Include a name listEvery character, place and specialist term with your preferred pronunciation. How a narrator handles this in an audition tells you how they will handle it across 400 pages.
- Ask for it uneditedA lightly processed raw take shows you the room, the microphone and the mouth noise. A polished audition shows you their editor.
- Listen at listening speedNot on studio monitors at your desk. On phone speakers in a kitchen, and at 1.5x, because a significant share of your audience listens sped up. Narrators who over enunciate fall apart at 1.5x.
- Compare on the same passageThree narrators, one passage. Different passages make comparison impossible and you will pick whoever got the best scene.
The one thing authors underweight
Consistency is worth more than brilliance
Audiobooks are recorded over weeks. A narrator who is outstanding on Monday and merely fine on Thursday produces a book that sounds like two books. Ask any narrator you are seriously considering how they keep character voices stable across sessions. The good ones have a real answer involving reference clips and a character sheet. The rest say they have a good memory.
The three ways narrators get paid
| Model | How it works | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per finished hour | A rate for every hour of completed audio, regardless of studio hours spent | Publishers and funded projects that want the rights clean | Budget from finished hours, not word count. See audiobook narration pricing |
| Royalty share | No upfront fee, future royalties split with the narrator | Self published authors with no upfront budget and a real audience | Usually tied to a platform’s terms and often exclusivity. Check the current conditions before committing |
| Hybrid | Reduced upfront fee plus a smaller royalty share | Authors with some budget who want a stronger narrator than the fee alone would buy | Get the split, the term and the reporting in writing |
Per finished hour is the industry standard and the only model where you own the recording outright from day one. Royalty share looks free and is not: you are paying with the part of the revenue that keeps arriving for years. Our full breakdown of the numbers is in what audiobook narration costs in the UK.
The technical bar
Audiobook retailers reject files on measurements, not on taste. Whoever records your book has to clear the same bar every time, chapter after chapter. ACX, Audible’s self publishing platform, publishes the standard most of the industry works to:
- RMS loudness between minus 23dB and minus 18dB. Consistent across every file.
- Peaks no higher than minus 3dB.
- Noise floor below minus 60dB. This is the one that kills home recordings. It means a genuinely quiet, treated room, not a duvet over a desk.
- Each chapter as its own file, opening and closing with one to five seconds of room tone rather than digital silence.
- Consistent format across the whole book. All mono or all stereo, 44.1kHz.
A narrator who has delivered books before will hit this without you asking. A narrator who has not will send you chapter three at a different level from chapter two and the fix lands on your budget. If you would rather not police it, that is what audiobook production and mastering exist for.
What to agree before you commit
- Pickups. Who pays when a mispronunciation is caught at proofing, and how quickly they are turned around. Agree a reasonable free window rather than arguing later.
- Proofing. Who listens to the whole book against the manuscript. Somebody has to, and if nobody is named, nobody does.
- Availability for a series. If book two is coming, a narrator who is unavailable in eighteen months is a problem you are creating now. Recasting a series loses listeners.
- The retail sample. Which passage becomes the sample buyers hear. It sells the book. Choose it deliberately.
- Rights and credits. What the narrator may use for their own demo reel, and how they are credited on retail pages.
- The pronunciation list, signed off. Before recording starts, not during.
How long the whole thing takes
Recording is the short part. Plan on roughly one finished hour of audio for every 9,300 words, and several hours of work behind each finished hour once recording, proofing, editing and mastering are counted. We set out the full timeline in how long it takes to record a voice over. The practical point at casting stage is that a narrator’s calendar matters as much as their voice: the best performer in the world is no use if they can only give you two days a fortnight and you have a publication date.
How we cast audiobooks
A shortlist, not a search box
Send the manuscript or a representative chapter, the genre, the character count and the delivery date. You get a short list of narrators who can actually take the work in your window, with auditions on your passage rather than their demo. Casting usually comes back within hours. See how the audiobook side works.
Frequently asked questions
How do I choose an audiobook narrator?
Audition three narrators on the same difficult passage from your book, not on chapter one and not on their demo reels. Judge stamina and consistency before tone, check they can keep character voices stable across a long recording, and confirm they can meet the technical delivery standard and your deadline before you discuss fee.
Should I narrate my own book?
For memoir, personal non fiction and anything where your name is the reason people are buying, author narration adds real value. For fiction with multiple characters, it usually does not, because reading aloud for eight hours at a consistent level is a trained skill and listeners can hear when it is not there. Record a difficult chapter first and listen to it at 1.5x before deciding.
What is the difference between per finished hour and royalty share?
Per finished hour pays a fixed rate for each hour of completed audio and leaves you owning the recording. Royalty share pays nothing upfront and splits future income with the narrator instead, usually through a platform with its own terms and often an exclusivity condition. Royalty share lowers the upfront cost and raises the long term cost.
How many hours of audio will my book make?
Divide your word count by roughly 9,300. A 75,000 word novel is about eight finished hours. That figure, not the page count, is what quotes and schedules are built from.
Can a commercial voice over artist narrate an audiobook?
Some can, many cannot. The commercial skill is delivering a perfect 30 seconds. The audiobook skill is delivering a consistent nine hours, tracking characters, and keeping the same energy in week three. Ask specifically what long form work a narrator has completed rather than assuming the disciplines transfer.
Do I need a studio or can it be recorded at home?
A properly treated home booth can meet the standard, and many experienced narrators have one. The measurable requirement is a noise floor below minus 60dB with consistent levels across every chapter. If a narrator cannot show you that from previous books, record in a studio instead. Ours are in London, Birmingham, Amsterdam and New York.
Get a narrator shortlist for your book
Send the manuscript, the genre and the publication date. Auditions on your passage, usually back the same day. Call 0207 183 3750.
