Audio books are not my thing. When I have to listen to mine to okay them for release, I struggle to maintain focus. I have to sit in a chair and force myself to do nothing but listen, because if I let myself think about what I could be doing, I wake up some time later and find that I've missed a page, or even a chapter.

But many people love audio. I have friends who listen while they do their chores at home, friends who listen in their cars as they travel, and friends (well, one friend for sure) who listens at work. Don't ask me how she does that.

The problem for authors is that making audio books is expensive. ROI, return on investment, is low, because it takes a lot of money to hire a narrator (the bare minimum is $100/hour)  and an author like me will probably never get that money back in sales. AI narrators are available now, but I won't replace an artist with a machine if I can avoid it. I had put the audio part of book releases on hold. Then at lunch a month ago, one of my audio book loving friends said, "You should read your own books. I love it when the author reads."

Yeah, maybe Stephen King...but...wait. I was an English teacher too. Like King, my job was basically using my voice to keep people entertained, wriggly people who didn't want to be in the classroom in the first place. Other friends at the table cheered the idea, so I looked into the details.

It turns out that making audio files is doable with a few piece of basic equipment: a computer, a microphone, and headphones. There's a free download, Authenticity, that provides the technology to make sound files and edit them. With those things and hubby's help, I began setting up a "studio," actually the closet in my guest bedroom. It's small and has a door where I can shut myself off from noise and distractions. This morning I set up the apparatus and recorded a few pages of a book so I could listen to myself reading. It's weird to hear that voice from outside my head, but I think I can do this.

I'll keep you informed when I start trying to edit files. As Hamlet would say, "...there's the rub."