Sound Up: Taking a Dive Into Audio Books

A Literal Literary Loser Looks for Listeners

I don’t listen to audio books. I find them too slow. I like to read at my own pace, which often involves skimming. It’s hard to skim an audio book. My kids, who do listen to audio books, tell me the solution is to play them at double-speed. But it feels weird to have literature read to me by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

However, I’d say easily a fourth of my readers told me they listened to “The Nesting Dolls” as an audio book. So far, it is the only one of my works available in that format.

I’d like to have more. I own the audio rights to “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region,” and have listed it on the ACX site looking for producing and performing partners, but have gotten no takers so far. (“The Nesting Dolls” audio book was produced by the publisher, HarperCollins. They sent me sample clips from three potential narrators, and told me to pick my favorite. Of the one I chose, a friend of my mother’s said, “She’s good, but every time she tried to pronounce a Russian word, I wanted to punch her.”)

“My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” is, as it says on the tin, a novel. A novel needs a professional actor to do it justice. I am not a professional actor.

On the other hand, my best-selling, self-published book, “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten,” is non-fiction. The book is purely informational. (Though, because it is written by me, it does have witty asides. Just like this witty aside, here.)

For the 2024-2025 admissions season, I am thinking of recording an audio version myself. I already do NYC Schools podcasts and videos. This would be like a continuation of the same.

I don’t think a professional actor is as needed for non-fiction as they would be for a novel. I think I could pull it off. The folks buying an audio version of “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten” should be more interested in what I have to say, than in the exact timbre of my voice when I say it. (You know, the way voters care more about a politician’s ideas than they do about their wardrobe choices. Insert heady laughter, here.)

This is what I think. As always, I could be extremely, comically, stupidly wrong.

What do you think? Is it worth me trying to record my own audio book? Have you done it? What was your experience? What do I need to know? What do I not even know that I need to know?

Got tips? Warnings? Heckles? I want to hear them all!

And if you’d like a preview of my voice - does it make you want to cover your ears and run away, sobbing? - you can listen to me talk, below: