Narrating an audiobook: 7 things authors should know

Editing my first book took so much time that I didn’t give the audiobook a moment’s thought until Wired for Music was sent to the printer.

Weeks later, I spent more than 30 hours in a recording studio narrating my science memoir. Fortunately, my publisher handled all dealings with the production company, but I had to learn how to narrate on the fly.

Here are seven things about audiobooks that authors need to know:

First day in the studio recording the audiobook version of Wired for Music; check out the giant mic and the screen scrolling the text

1. Don’t assume you’ll be the narrator.

   Even if listeners say they prefer audiobooks narrated by the author, this preference does not apply to authors with an erratic reading pace or a monotonous voice.

   Writing and narrating are very different skills — and in standard book deals, publishers buy the rights to produce (and profit from) the audiobook edition. Several authors have told me their publisher turned down their offer to narrate their own book.

   I had to submit an “audition tape” to narrate mine. Using an iPhone, I recorded myself for five minutes of nonstop reading, trying to get the nuances and pacing right. (Not as easy as it sounds.)

   Although my audition landed me the part, I was told to speed up my reading in the studio — I had overcorrected my fast talking pace.

2. It helps to listen — and read up.

   To get a sense of what works and what doesn’t, I downloaded highly rated audiobooks by author-narrators such as Brené Brown (Atlas of the Heart) and James Clear (Atomic Habits). Then I listened to previews of audiobooks described by reviewers as “boring” or “annoying.” (In most cases, I had to agree.)

   For practical tips, I read this article in the Guardian and this one by my former Globe and Mail colleague Marsha Lederman (author of Kiss the Red Stairs).

   I learned that audiobook producers often have a director to guide the narrator (mine did not). And that voiceover artists recommend eating apples at break times and drinking hot liquids with lemon to soothe the throat. Some even spritz their throat with Chloraseptic (mine got scratchy, but never that sore).

3. In the studio, there’s a lot going on.

   Reading from a brightly lit screen, I could hear my own voice streaming through the headphones simultaneously — along with the clicking and tapping of controls from the sound engineer in the adjacent booth.

   As the pages scrolled down, I tried to anticipate how I would read each line and scan ahead for a complex sentence or tricky word. (Tip: Look up less familiar words and place names in advance on a site such as YouGlish, a handy pronunciation tool.)

4. The mic picks up everything.

   The rustling of clothing. Stomach gurgles. A subtle shift in weight from one foot to the other. I got in the habit of wearing “low noise” clothing (leggings and a soft sweater) and eating at least an hour beforehand to keep hunger and digestive noises at bay.

5. You become hyper-aware of your writing choices.

   I didn’t want my science memoir to be a slog to read, so I kept chiseling and chiseling at the sentence level. All that editing was a huge advantage at the audiobook stage, as I rarely found myself stumbling over my own syntax or regretting a long, back-ended sentence that didn’t flow from the previous idea.

   (Many thanks to my stellar book coach, Marial Shea, who encouraged me to read early drafts to her over the phone.)

6. Narrating is a lot like acting.

   I discovered that action verbs such as “struggled” or “pummeled” sound better if you draw them out. To make the science passages sound more like a story, I sped up in places to show my excitement in the material and slowed down in others to let a big idea sink in.

   For words in quotations, I altered my voice slightly to cue the listener that they came from a different source. In memoir passages, I tried to picture the scene and remember the emotions I felt, allowing these feelings to leak into my voice.

7. The job is tiring, but rewarding.

   For inexperienced narrators like me, audio studios budget about three hours of recording for every finished hour (my audiobook is about 9.5 hours long). Even with breaks, it takes a lot of focus to read with expression for three- to four-hour sessions, standing all the while. (Some studios give narrators the option of sitting, but standing helps keep the diaphragm open.)

   To my surprise, I was not given the opportunity to listen to the full audiobook before the final edits. (I assume this is standard practice to avoid unnecessary retakes, especially with first-time narrators, who may not like the sound of their own voice.)

   Even so, I enjoyed the experience. Narrating allowed me to express the thoughts I’d written in my own voice and convey the right tone for musical and scientific terms, as well as non-English words in travel scenes. I’m not sure a professional narrator would have understood their significance in the same way.

   The hourly wage was a bonus, too: A typical narrator’s fee ranges from $120 per edited hour of audiobook to more than $200.

Wired for Music is available as a hardcover, e-book and audiobook (paperback to be released in Fall 2023)

My brief role as a narrator piqued my interest in the runaway popularity of audiobooks (mine is available wherever audiobooks are sold).

In 2021, audiobook sales reached $4.2-billion U.S., with a predicted growth rate of 26.5 per cent by 2030. Meanwhile, sales of print books are expected to decline or remain flat.

But as conveyers of ideas, how do the two formats stack up?

Freelance writer Markham Heid probed this question in an article for Time magazine.

Compared to audiobook listeners, he reported, book readers tend to consume information faster and retain more of it. They also save money, since paper and e-books generally cost less than audiobooks.

But audiobooks are better for multitasking — you can listen while flipping burgers or on a daily commute. And audiobook fans describe the format as a more intimate experience, especially if the author is narrating.

I’m not about to quit writing to become a full-time narrator, but this review of my audiobook made the effort feel worthwhile:

Wired for Music was moving, enlightening and somehow comforting as well. It was a wonderful weaving of personal story and science read beautifully by the author, Adriana Barton, who has a lovely voice!

Years of reading to my child must have helped. (We kept up the habit until he turned 12.)

To other authors, especially those who enjoy reading out loud, I highly recommend narrating your audiobook if you get the chance.

7 reasons to read book acknowledgments

“Thanks for mentioning me in your acknowledgments!” a friend said recently, before sheepishly admitting she hadn’t started reading my book. Did I mind? No! I often read the acknowledgments first—even if I don’t know the writer personally.

Acknowledgments offer behind-the-scenes glimpses of the writing life. As a first-time author, I’ve learned a lot from the list of thank-yous at the back of a book (including how to write them).

More than 80 names appear in the thank-yous at the back of my book “Wired for Music”—and I wish I’d included more.

From glib one-pagers to thank-the-Oscar-committee laundry lists, acknowledgements speak volumes about the author, their writing process and how the book came to be.

These pages may reveal:

1. Names of literary agents

2. How a magazine article turned into a full-length manuscript

3. The editor at the publishing house who took a chance on the book

4. Mentors, writing groups and book coaches who helped with the writing craft

5. Funding sources from foundations and grant institutions, and names of writers’ retreats

6. How the author approached book research and structure

7. The friends and family who cooked meals and did laundry so the author could write

Most of all, acknowledgments shed light on the tremendous effort and sheer volume of people involved in the gestation and birth of a book.

The thank-yous in my new book Wired for Music fill two-and-a-half pages—and I still didn’t fit everyone in:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

If Rob Sanders, publisher of Greystone Books, hadn’t invited me to discuss book ideas over coffee, Wired for Music wouldn’t exist. He said my initial pitches sounded saleable enough, but then he looked me in the eye. “Do you have anything else?” I told him about my nerdy interest in music and health, and that I’d just turned down a spot in a graduate program in ethnomusicology. Then I mentioned my checkered past with the cello. His eyes brightened. “That’s the one.”

Many thanks to Greystone for publishing my first book, to editor Lucy Kenward for her structural advice, copy editor Erin Parker for her lovely manner, and editorial director Jennifer Croll, proofreader Jennifer Stewart, and text designer Belle Wuthrich for going above and beyond in the final stages.

Credit also goes to my agent extraordinaire, Martha Webb, for believing in this book through its many detours.

I am extremely grateful for friends and mentors who gave crucial feedback along the way: Angie Abdou, Dominic Ali, Susie Berg, Galya Chatterton, Sylvia Coleman, Elee Kraljii Gardiner, James Glave, Sarah Hampson, Jane Henry, Jillian Horton, Caitlin Kelly, Carol Murray, Susan Olding, Sue Robins, Gary Ross, Amy Kiara Ruth, Eric Unmacht, and Jennifer Van Evra. I owe you big-time.

Colleagues at The Globe and Mail taught me a great deal about writing and science journalism. In particular, Dakshana Bascaramurty, Zosia Bielski, Ian Brown, Wency Leung, Hayley Mick, Chris Nuttall-Smith, Paul Taylor, and Carol Toller. Sinclair Stewart approved my leave for a family gap year (sorry for taking a buyout at the end!) and Jana Pruden gave me excellent advice on structure. Early in this book project, a pivotal conversation with Marsha Lederman rescued it from the brink.

All my life I’ve been blessed to have teachers of music, formal and informal. Special thanks to Navaro Franco, David Hutchenreuther, and Alexandra Jai. A big “Obrigada!” to Kleber Magrão and other members of Brazil’s mangue scene. And as they say in Zimbabwe, “Tatenda!” to the musicians and scholars who shared their knowledge of mbira music and Chivanhu culture with me: Musekiwa Chingodza, Jonathan Goredema, Kurai Mubaiwa, Ambuya Mugwagwa, Fradreck Mujuru, Patience Munjeri, Chiedza Mutamba, Florence Mutamba, Moyo Rainos Mutamba, Alois Mutinhiri, Caution Shonhai, Joyce Warikandwa, and the lovely people at Ubuntu Learning Village. Much appreciation, too, to Erica Azim of mbira.org and Jennifer Kyker at Eastman School of Music.

As a layperson, I couldn’t have written this book without the many researchers and scientists who agreed to speak with me or review technical passages, including Bernd Brabec de Mori, University of Innsbruck; Wade Davis, National Geographic Society; Jessica Grahn, Western University; Ethan Hein, New York University; Henkjan Honing, University of Amsterdam; Mendel Kaelan, Wavepaths; Costas Karageorghis, Brunel University London; Anton Killin, Australian National University; Kevin Kirkland, Capilano University; Samuel Mehr, Harvard University; Moyo Rainos Mutamba, Ubuntu Learning Village; Andrew Newberg, Thomas Jefferson University; David J. Rothenberg, Case Western Reserve University; Michael Thaut, University of Toronto; Laurel Trainor, McMaster University; and Robert Zatorre, Montreal Neurological Institute and McGill University. (Any errors are entirely my own.)

I can’t imagine finishing a book without friends and family to commiserate with and celebrate small victories. Eternal gratitude to Ksenia Barton, Marta Becker, Galya Chatterton, Sylvia Coleman, Emily Corse, Sandrine de Finney, Jennifer Van Evra, Hal Wake, Adele Weder, and many others.

At the sentence-by-sentence level, though, no one helped more than my empathic book coach turned dear friend, Marial Shea. From the proposal stage to manuscript delivery, she was like a mother to the writer in me. (If anyone needs handholding through the writing process, hire her!)

To my way-cooler-than-me parents, Susan Feindel and Russell Barton, thank you for setting the course for an unconventional life—and for never reproaching me for quitting the cello. Your acceptance helped me heal.

To my beloved husband and son, I know it wasn’t easy living with my frazzled side in the final months of this writing project. Scott, you have supported me in every possible way, from paying the bills when I left my Globe job to believing in me when I couldn’t. I cherish you and all the joys you have brought to my life.

Finally, a big thank-you to every stranger who said they’d like to read a book like mine, from a distinguished music critic to a waiter at the Keg. Every reader is a gift.

The virtuoso girls I'll never forget

So many memories have resurfaced as I write my book. This one hit hard.

The summer I turned 15, I loaded my cello onto a bus and took a day’s journey from my hometown of Ottawa to a music academy in Charlevoix, Quebec.

Aruna Anantaraman at 15, after winning the Edythe Young Browne Trophy for top marks in violin. Photo: Courtesy Anant Anantaraman

As the bus lumbered along the St. Lawrence River, I gazed out the window, willing it to go faster. I couldn’t wait to be reunited with musicians from my youth orchestra, and maybe get pointers from an international soloist or two. 

After the sweltering ride, I lugged my cello past a cluster of weathered buildings to the girls’ dormitory. I saw many familiar faces as I unpacked my things. But the bunk beds were filling up fast, with no sign of our principal violinist, or her whiz-kid sister from the second violins. Strange. Normally they’d be there.  

I called out, “Where are Rupa and Aruna?”

The room froze. Everyone stared. 

“Didn’t you hear?” one of the girls said at last. “They died in the Air India crash.”  

The room of faces blurred before my eyes. Dazed, I shook my head. “No way,” I said. The terrorist bombing had been all over the news. But Air India Flight 182 had departed from Montreal—not Ottawa. Rupa and Aruna couldn’t have been on board.  

If only that were true. 

The two sisters had traveled to Montreal to catch the flight. On June 23, 1985, the bomb exploded while the passenger jet was in mid-air, sending the bodies of all 329 people—Aruna, Rupa and their mother, Bhawani, too—hurtling into the Irish Sea.

A cellist from my orchestra filled me in. “One of their violin cases was found floating in the wreck.”

Oh, God. I felt nauseous, sickened by the news. Everyone must have been talking about it for weeks. But I had kept myself scarce all summer, avoiding my expectant mom. Nine days before I left for music camp, she gave birth to a baby sister in my parents’ bedroom. I’d spent my days working for a family friend, stacking boxes in her clothing warehouse and wiping the dust off her orange tree, leaf by leaf.  

I didn’t know how to explain my ignorance of the tragedy to the girls in my orchestra. While everyone else filed out for dinner, I just stood there, stunned.

I couldn’t believe I’d never see Rupa and Aruna Anantaramana again. We’d played together in the National Capital String Academy every week for more than two years.

I got the feeling she was enraptured by the music, and wanted to sweep everyone else away too.  

Aruna was my age, studious and wildly talented. Music took up most of our free time, but we always smiled at each other during rehearsals. I had a soft spot for little Rupa, too. The youngest in our group, just 11 years old, she followed her big sister like a duckling.

Aruna had impeccable technique on the violin, but I never thought about the mechanics of bow strokes or hand positions when she played. I got the feeling she was enraptured by the music, and wanted to sweep everyone else away too.  

Rupa was fast on her heels, displaying a talent some described as “almost Mozartian.”

Their father, Anant Anantaraman, and mother, Bhawani, came to every concert, every Saturday afternoon rehearsal. Their lives seemed to revolve around music out of sheer joy.   

Music, it turned out, was the idea behind the Air India flight.

Music, it turned out, was the idea behind the Air India flight. Their mother was taking them to India to give her family a chance to hear her daughters play. Their father, a scientist in the Department of National Defence, stayed in Ottawa for work.

I could hardly imagine his horror. He lost his entire family in a flash of light.

Months went by.

The following spring, I performed in the Kiwanis Music Festival—my first competition. Shaking with nerves, I stammered my way through the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto. Nevertheless, the judges gave me top marks, and declared me the winner of the Edythe Young Browne Trophy for strings. But where was the prize?

“Wait here,” one of the festival organizers said.

I waited so long that volunteers in the auditorium began to stack up the chairs. Then, from a far corner of the room, a man walked up to me holding a golden cup the size of a punch bowl. His eyes were sunken, and his hair was pure white. Startled, I realized he was Aruna’s father. The last time I’d seen him, his hair was black. 

I stared at the hunk of gilded metal in his arms. Aruna must have won the trophy the previous year. I didn’t know what to say. He handed it to me, not saying much either. Then he gave me something else: a photo of Aruna, radiant and beautiful, holding the golden cup near her face.

I thanked him, my face burning.  

Me at 16, holding Aruna’s trophy a year after I won the prize. Photo: Russell Barton

The trophy collected dust in a corner of our house for a year until it was my turn to pass it along. At the last minute, my stepfather convinced me to pose for a photo in the park down the street. “We should document this,” he said. I squinted in the sunlight, gripping the trophy with a forced smile.

I still have the photo of Aruna holding the same cup, brimming with happiness, two months before she fell from the sky.  

Thirty-five years have passed since the Air India bombing, the biggest mass murder in Canada’s history. Two of the kindest, brightest girls I’ve ever known will be forever listed as victims of terrorism. This saddens me now more than ever.

During this brutal pandemic, hundreds of thousands have died—of opioid overdose, police violence, COVID-19. I cannot say their names. There are too many to remember. Instead, I’ve found myself shedding fresh tears at the thought of Aruna’s warm smile, and the little red jacket Rupa used to wear. My grief takes me aback. After all, it’s been years. But this is a cleansing pain, searing through the numbness that comes from reading so many names, on so many lists.

Aruna and Rupa’s names are engraved in the Air India Memorial in Toronto, in Humber Bay Park East. Photo: Artur / CC BY-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Last month, I searched for news of Aruna’s father, wondering what happened to him. I read about the music scholarships he set up in his daughters’ names, and the foundation he established in honour of his wife.

Then something dawned on me: His gift to me of Aruna’s photo that day might have been a first step in making sure his family was never forgotten.

Years after the crash, Dr. Anantaraman founded a tuition-free school in southern India for children in need. The school offers hot meals and high academic standards, emphasizing the values of tolerance and peace. “I was searching for a reason to live, any little straw, any little twig, to give a point to my life,” he told a reporter.

Working with children helped him cope with the loss of his family, especially his daughters, he said.

“Aruna and Rupa, to me are still 15 and 11. They never grew up. They are just the way I saw them the last time, so beautiful, so innocent, wonderful, and talented, playing their Bach and Vivaldi.”

That’s how I will always picture them too. 

In memory of Aruna and Rupa Anantaraman.

Postscript: Last month I got in touch with Dr. Anantaraman, now in his 80s, to ask his permission to publish Aruna’s photo. We hadn’t spoken since I was a teenager, and I didn’t want to add to his pain. To my relief, he welcomed my letter. In his twilight years, he wrote, hearing from a friend of his daughters brought vivid memories, and “moments of tearful joy.”

5 ways to use music to soothe your anxiety

LISTEN: Press play below to hear my interview with CBC Radio, Canada’s national broadcaster:

In these plague times, fears run wild. We try to laugh away our anxiety with memes of the feral hairdos we’ll sport after months away from the salon. But jokes are no match for the Invasion of the Body Snatchers unfolding before our eyes.

Huddled at home, many of us can do little but watch as an invisible pathogen overwhelms hospitals and threatens to sicken the people we love. As fresh horrors flash across our screens, some of us can no longer bear to look. “Today I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath,” said a friend on Facebook. She wasn’t coming down with the virus, she realized: “I was having an anxiety attack from reading the news.”

Anyone longing for a Xanax right now is not alone, because this virus not only infects throats and lungs—it’s tightening its grip on our hearts and minds. In a survey of 1,055 Americans, 41 per cent singled out anxiety as a major pandemic concern.

Music can help.

For weeks, I’ve been combing through stacks of research on music and anxiety for my book on music and health. Here’s what I found: In studies of people about to undergo invasive procedures, such as open-heart surgery, music calmed patients as effectively as Valium and other benzodiazepine drugs. Without the side effects.

“Music calmed surgical patients as well as Valium and other benzodiazepine drugs, without the side effects”

Too good to be true? Not according to the Cochrane network, a global authority on evidence-based medicine. After conducting four stringent reviews of music for acute anxiety, Cochrane gave music thumbs-up.

In this age of contagion, people worldwide have turned to music. We rejoiced at the balcony singers of Florence, Siena and Milan, whose plucky faces and dented pots and pans were so very charming, so Italian. Many of us told ourselves that if they could summon beauty and grace amid devastating loss, then maybe we could too.

Even if we’ve never touched a musical instrument in our lives, recent findings from neuroscience can help us tap into music’s stress-reducing effects. Here are five evidence-based listening tips:

1. Choose the music you love most. The more you light up the pleasure and reward system in your brain, the more music activates the same pathways stimulated by morphine and cocaine (but to a safer, milder degree).

2. Try music at 60 to 80 beats per minutes, the pace of a resting heart. Brain areas involved in regulating heart rate and breathing tend to synchronize with the tempo we hear. In a large 2019 review, slow-paced music was the most effective in lowering stress. (Playlists organized by beats per minute are easy to find online.)

3. Listen for 20 to 30 minutes. That’s the typical duration used in studies of music’s sedative effects.

4. Close your eyes and do nothing else. Multitasking increases production of cortisol and adrenaline, driving up stress.

5. Pick a sad song to make it better. Sad songs tend to move us more than happy songs, offering a cathartic release of tension, and feelings of relief. 

In this pandemic, there’s no shortage of glorious music to choose from. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma has serenaded healthcare workers in a series of videos posted under #songsofcomfort. Neil Young reached out to fans with a fireside session in his home. Many other artists, from James Taylor to Jann Arden, have given online performances to lift our spirits.

Amateurs, too, are sharing their music. Martha Smith of Florida posted a video for her 76th birthday of herself playing “Solace” by Scott Joplin, king of ragtime. “Despite mistakes,” she wrote on YouTube, “I kept going, as we all must.”

(P.S. The tips above are for mild to moderate anxiety and stress. If you have moderate to severe anxiety or stress, please seek professional help.)

Disclaimer: Discussions about health topics provided in this blog, or in any linked materials, are not intended and should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. The author accepts no responsibility or liability for any health consequences relating to information published on this blog.