To Self Narrate or to Hire, That is the Question

Friends,

I am working on the audiobook version of my book, Forgotten Twin. And, on a side, note, yes, I wish I had the audiobook ready at launch time! Anyway, I have just started doing my own narration. Here is how it is going:

• I have a good audio set up. That was the easy part.

• I am about two weeks into this project

• I try to do a little every day, but sometimes things get in the way. I have to hang out my sound damping curtains and do a little bit of other set up and make sure I am hydrated and you can’t narrate right after lunch and some days the city is mowing the lawn of the park next door and you can’t record.

• On a good day, I get a page… one page of useful narration done.

Here is the question. Should I continue with self-narration or hire out. Here are my considerations:

• my book is a memoir. Some folks like hearing a memoir in the authors voice.

• at 65K work count, I guessing I could save myself between $1000 and $2500 in per-completed hour fees from a professional narrator.

• If I learn to do it, I can do narration on future books.

On the other hand (here is where the opportunity cost start to mount up…)

• at this pace, narration will take a whole year!

• I can hardly get a page done most days. But I can easy write 500 to 2000 words most days if I don’t focus on narration. Or, I can write a blog post, or work on other promotions or do a therapy session (thats my real job, therapist)…. or I can clean house, run, walk the dog.

• And thats just during the work days! During school breaks and evenings and weekends, I don’t want to lock myself in my office and narrate.

So, thats my dilemma. Has anyone else walked through something similar? What have you experienced? What helped you make the call? I would be especially interested to hear any details you are wiling to share or surprising things you experienced along the way.

Thanks everyone!

Matt