Audio Book Editing
The editing of your audio book is among the most important factors in how well the quality of that book will be perceived.
Have you ever listened to an audio book and noticed all manner of clicks, pops, breaths, mouth noise, dogs, cars, etc, all within the reader's performance? Ever notice starts and ends of words that are sharply cut off?
These are indicators of poor or no audio editing. Nothing could be less professional, or worse, annoying to listen to. Go ahead and put those headphones on and you'll really be able to hear what's going on. Most people listen to audio books on headphones. But they won't be for long if the audio editing has not eliminated all of these distracting problems.
But audio book editing is not only about what is removed and how. It is also about properly spacing and adjusting the performance. The timing and phrasing of the reader, as adjusted by the audio editor, are the very difference between coherence and cacophony. The number of audio editors who can hear and work at this level is few, but at DAVEbooks, this is simply the standard to which we work: the Gold Standard.
If you are ready to have your audio book recorded, simply Choose a Narrator, answer some questions and you'll be on your way.
Being alerted to the issue of editing, some companies have turned to an automated process called the "noise gate" as a way of getting around the tedious and labor-intensive process of audio editing. But it's nothing more than a cheap trick, as noise gates introduce all sorts of other problems.
There is no substitute for genuine, manual editing performed by an audio editor who specializes in audio books. This is the way we do it for Hachette and other top publishers. It's just the right way to go.