Lend me your ears: Copywriting tips for authors thinking about audiobooks
Audio is becoming an important delivery mechanism for our words. In fact, some estimates expect the audiobook market to be worth 35 billion US by 2030. As a word wrangler who works with written and spoken words, as well as a voracious reader, I find this very exciting. In fact, my mind explodes with the possibilities inherent in the rise of audio books and digital storytelling.
‘The new reading’?
Audible has claimed ‘audiobooks are the new reading’. There’s no small amount of bias in the biggest audiobook retailer in the world making this claim. But audiobooks aren’t a new thing. As a kid I remember listening to a single book on cassette over and over again. I can still hear the exact intonation of the narrator as he said “when you hear this sound, turn the page.” So while books on audio aren’t new, the ability to carry in our pocket multiple, high-quality, unabridged works as audio recordings certainly is.
A good narrator can bring out meaning you don’t notice on the black and white page. What’s more, audio is an intimate medium. It’s personal. And these days, it’s delivered via earbuds like a whisper in the ear from a proverbial angel (or devil) on the shoulder.
The changing face of audiobooks
Our smartphones have a level of computing power and storage unheard of by previous generations. This makes listening to audiobooks so much more accessible than in years gone by. They are also cheaper to produce. The rise of audio more generally has democratised the recording process. Recording equipment has become less expensive, narrators are easier to come by and you no longer have to hire a studio or engineer to get a professional sound. So in the last 20 years audiobooks have gone from a niche product, mainly used in education and by vision impaired people, to an essential format.
As a result, reading no longer has to be sedentary. Audiobooks allow us to stay involved in the world of story (if we are reading fiction) or learning (if we are reading non-fiction) as we go about our lives. We can take our stories to the gym, on the commute, into nature. This is great news for voracious readers like me. I can toggle between my ebook and audiobook…which means I NEVER HAVE TO STOP READING. Say what you like about stolen focus and how multitasking is changing the way we think, but my house is definitely cleaner now that I can read and do housework at the same time!
Theatre of the mind
When I trained as a voice and dialect coach, we spoke about radio as ‘the theatre of the mind’ because of the power audio has to make you see things inside your head. Written books can do that too, but good words well spoken are an incredibly powerful way to paint a mental picture.
A good narrator can bring out meaning you don’t notice on the black and white page. What’s more, radio is intimate. It’s personal. And these days, it’s delivered via earbuds like a whisper in the ear from a proverbial angel (or devil) on the shoulder.
It’s an amazing privilege the listener grants you as a writer to literally speak straight into their mind. It should make us all weigh the content of our words very carefully. But we also need to craft them well or readers will revoke our privilege of speaking to them in this intimate way.
Radio writers like journalists and advertising copywriters know how to pair down their writing to make every word work. These are some of the strategies they use when writing to be read aloud.
Copywriting tips to make your writing easy to read aloud
Radio writers like journalists and advertising copywriters are experts at this. They know how to pair down their writing to make every word work. These are some of the strategies they use when writing to be read aloud. But even if you aren’t looking to produce an audio book, these tips–collated by a copywriter and a journalist–will help make your writing better, clearer and more precise.
Err on the side of shorter sentences. Of course you need a variety of sentence lengths to keep things interesting. But consider whether your commas can become full stops.
Stick to one idea per sentence. This is especially true if you are writing non-fiction.
Limit dialogue tags. You’ve heard the advice that you don’t need to use any tag other than ‘said’ to describe dialogue, but I’m suggesting you forgo those tags entirely. If conversations are just between two people, write them in a way that you don’t need to use tags.
Pay attention to the way the sound of the words can impact the pacing of your text. For instance, long open vowels take time to say, while short, sharp consonants give a staccato sense of urgency.
Declutter your writing and remove words that don’t convey meaning. Scour your text for unnecessary words. (For instance, nine times out of ten, the word ‘that’ can be struck out.)
Remove passive sentences. Active ones are easier to understand both on the page and when read aloud.
Test your work by reading it aloud. This is a tried and true technique for the proof-reading process, but it is even more critical if you want to create an audiobook from your text. Look for combinations of words that are hard to say and consider how you can change them with the reader in mind.
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