E2A 081: Adapting book manuscripts for audio (a rebroadcast of The Audiobook Podcast) 

Episode Transcript

Please note: The transcript is produced by a third-party company from an audio recording and may include transcription errors.

Scott MacMillan:

You're listening to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast.

Announcer

Welcome to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast, the podcast that brings you practical strategies for building authority and growing your business. And now, here's your host, Scott MacMillan.

Scott

In this episode of the Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, we're doing something a little different. Recently, I had the pleasure of being on the other side of the mic as a guest on the audiobook podcast, where I spoke with host Justine Sloane-Lees. We had a really interesting conversation about audiobook production and how we approach audiobooks at Grammar Factory in quite a different way than most other publishers.

So what we've decided to do is rebroadcast that episode to the Entrepreneur-to-Author audience so you can benefit from it also. And if you enjoy our discussion, I'd encourage you to search for the audiobook podcast and subscribe to it on your favourite podcasting platform.

Justine Sloane-Lees

Hi, I'm Justine Sloane-Lees. Welcome back to another audiobook podcast. And today we're joined by Scott McMillan, Chief Strategist and Executive Publisher of Grammar Factory Publishing Company.

Scott's a Toronto-based bestselling author, publisher, entrepreneur, and strategy advisor to startups with a passion for helping entrepreneurs grow their business by extracting, productizing, and publishing their knowledge and expertise. He's also the host of Entrepreneur-to-Author podcast, which you can check out. Today we're focusing on his work with Grammar Factory, a professional service publisher founded in Melbourne and headquartered in Toronto.

Since 2013, Grammar Factory has helped hundreds of business owners from Canada, Australia, the US, the UK, Europe, and Asia to write and publish expertise-based non-fiction books that build their authority and grow their business, focusing exclusively on publishing books that support an entrepreneur's business goals by delivering exceptional editorial quality, world-class design, and publications that aren't only a great read, but also connect strategically to the author's core business.

So Scott, tell us about the journey of Grammar Factory.

Scott

For sure. So like you mentioned in the intro, Grammar Factory was originally founded in Australia, in Melbourne, and I came across Grammar Factory in 2019. I didn't found the company.

It was actually founded as an editorial freelance company. And I had spent my career in media and management consulting, and I was looking to make the jump into entrepreneurship. And so I came across Grammar Factory in 2019 and acquired the business.

And ever since then, I've been really focused on positioning Grammar Factory at the intersection of editorial excellence, design excellence, and business strategy. I think that's, you know, really at that intersection point is a real differentiation compared to other publishers in the space. So that's where we are.

Like you said, we're based in Toronto, and we're really 100% focused on helping entrepreneurs and business leaders write books that build their authority and publish those books and help grow their business.

Justine

Well, we first came into contact, us here at Square, with you at Grammar Factory when creating audio book productions for some of your authors, including Julie Rouse, Alison Coghlan, Cassandra Goodman, and Gaz Mills. And we were impressed with the level of professionalism these authors had in their content. And on a production level for us, the studio, we were provided with audio scripts rather than text scripts, which is often not the case, despite it being an important part of many non-fiction audio books, especially those with graphs and tables that contain visual elements that require adaptation.

So can you talk us through that process, how you do it, that adaptation?

Scott

Yeah, for sure. And perhaps I'll start with a little bit broader context because it speaks, I think, to our overall philosophy to publishing. And, you know, I mentioned those three pillars that we have at Grammar Factory, design excellence, business acumen, and editorial excellence.

Like I mentioned, we were founded as an editorial freelance business, and it's at the heart of everything that we do. And so when an author brings us their manuscript, we do quite extensive editing. We typically do four rounds of editing, starting with an extensive structural edit that looks at the overall structure of the book, as well as the structure of the chapters within.

And, you know, we want to ensure that the flow of the content is balanced, that it supports the goals that the author has, both for the reader and for themselves. And so we're identifying and eliminating extraneous, redundant, and repetitive content. And then we're also identifying areas where perhaps additional content would be beneficial to better engage the reader, whether that be, you know, stories or anecdotes or evidence and the like.

So after that structural edit, the manuscript goes back to the author for review and revision. And then it comes back to us for another round of content editing. And this is largely a copy edit, or what some might call a line edit.

So here we're really looking mostly at the paragraph and sentence level, with a goal of making the prose clearer and easier to read. And then the final two edits are proofreads, which are more mechanical in nature. They're focused on cleaning up the grammar, the punctuation, spelling, and consistent application of editorial decisions.

We do one proofread in the Word document before the book is laid out, and one after the book has been laid out in its final form, so that we can check design elements for consistency as well. Now, when we're producing an audiobook edition of the book, it's between these two proofreads where the project splits off. And the reason that I went through all of this background context is that by this point in time, the author's manuscript has really been through intense editing.

And so we know that it's structurally sound, and that it's engaging for readers. But after that first proofread, we take the manuscript and we do what we call an audiobook edit to optimize it for the listening experience. And that's what you were referring to in the question.

So in that audiobook edit, we modify the manuscript to convert it into a recording script that our authors or a professional narrator can bring into the recording session to support their read of the book. And so what we do in this type of audiobook edit, well, we add opening and ending credits, right? These are required for packaging the audiobook and distributing it out into the distribution ecosystem.

We remove content that isn't needed for an audiobook, so things like the imprint page, the table of contents, and things like that. We rework references to visuals like you referred to, so things that won't be seen when somebody's listening to the book. And so we'll often refer to those visuals or describe them as text rather than saying, refer to figure, you know, figure two, for example.

Yes. We also rework exercises, activities, and other types of content that may not work well for listeners who will often be driving or otherwise physically occupied.

Justine

Yes, yes. Like, oh, you know, note down your top five goals for this year type of thing, you know.

Scott

That's right. That's right. That's hard to do when you're running out on a trail, for example.

Yes. And, you know, we'll do some simpler things like just replacing references to reader with listener or book with audiobook. And the last thing that I'll mention is when the audiobook is going to be read by a professional narrator rather than the author, we'll also usually include some pronunciation guidance.

But if it's going to be narrated by the author, we tend to leave that out unless it's an especially problematic word, since the author usually already knows how to and names that they've included in their book. But the end result is, one, it's a much less distracting read for listeners. And two, it's a clear, easy to navigate script for the audio record.

Justine

Sounds like a dream to me because I see so many scripts that aren't like this.

Scott

I can only imagine. Yeah.

Justine

Some publishers include a downloadable PDF. Is that something you guys ever look at?

Scott

Yeah, we do that sometimes. In our experience, not all platforms will provide the PDF, but some of them do. And so we've used it in a couple of instances.

So sometimes we will include a PDF with all of the visuals, particularly if there are some visuals that are really interesting that, you know, even if we're rewriting the script itself, that it would be helpful for listeners to be able to go back to and look at visuals. We might include those in the PDF. We might include some of those exercises if they're important to the author's methodology.

Sometimes there are references like sources and citations that we want to include. So, yes, certainly we do include a PDF alongside the audiobook itself.

Justine

And so that process of adapting it to audio, what role does the author play in that? Or do you have your dedicated team who know what to look for and do that?

Scott

That's exactly right. We do that entirely. And then we'll send it to the author.

And what I always encourage the author to do before they actually go into the studio and do the record... Is read it out loud. Exactly.

Exactly. Read it out loud because, you know, there are certain things that when it's written in text, you know, our brains just kind of make that connection and it's easy to kind of read through. But when you're trying to actually read it out loud, sometimes there are things that you'll stumble over.

And it's hard to know ahead of time what the author is potentially going to struggle with. And so I always like them to read it out loud, make notes in the margins of changes that they want to make, pauses where they want to emphasize something, just some of those reading notes that they can then refer to when they're actually doing the record itself.

Justine

In the way a professional narrator or actor would mark up their scripts. That's right. Exactly right.

Do you think having an audiobook is something all authors can benefit from?

Scott

No, actually. I don't know if that's a surprising answer, but look, I love the format personally. I am a huge audiobook listener.

I rarely buy printed books unless I first listen to the audio version. So, you know, I love audiobooks full stop. But when it comes to producing an audiobook, it has to fit with the author's overall goals, their audience and their content.

The easy ones to exclude are the highly visual books, right? We've published books that are very photography heavy, almost coffee table style books that obviously wouldn't transfer well to audio. But taking those out of the conversation, I'd say the decision really comes down to the author's audience and how they prefer to consume books.

And then it also connects with the author's goals. So, you know, for most of our authors, they're not publishing their book in order to sell books at $20 a copy, for example. They're publishing it to get their message to an audience of people who may ultimately be their ideal clients for their business.

So, you know, depending on their business, a new client might be worth $2,500 or $10,000 or even $50,000 or higher. And so when you think about it that way, if there's a meaningful portion of your audience who will only consume your book if it's available in audio, it doesn't take many conversions from listener to client to return the investment of adding an audiobook alongside the print and ebook formats. And, you know, the last thing that I'll add is that for authors who either already have a loyal audience of podcast listeners, for example, or who plan to do a significant amount of podcast interviews to promote their book or their business, then I would absolutely recommend publishing an audiobook because then, you know, you'll be able to drive listeners directly to the appropriate medium that they prefer.

Justine

And where do you stand on whether or not the author should narrate their own book? And when do you bring in a narrator?

Scott

Yeah, you know, I generally don't have a strong opinion here. Again, I think there are some instances where it makes a lot of sense for the author to narrate their own book. That author who has a podcast, for example, their audience will already know their voice, right?

And that's right. They'll probably expect to hear it. Same thing would be true if they do a lot of video on social media or YouTube.

But otherwise, I think it comes down to how comfortable you feel with audio. You know, for my book, Entrepreneur to Author, I hired a voice actor and was really happy with how it turned out. That was before I launched my podcast, which like you mentioned, the intro is also called Entrepreneur to Author.

And I think now I would probably narrate it myself because I feel much more comfortable behind the mic, but I didn't at the time. And so that's why I made that choice. But look, I often hear from people for whom English is their second language who are worried about narrating their own audio book.

I think there's something honest and authentic about an accent, for example, when that's your honest voice. Yeah. And as long as your voice is clear and listeners can understand what you're saying, I think you should feel very comfortable narrating your own book if that's what you want to do.

So again, I think both paths are equally valid. Once a listener starts listening, it's all about the content and the quality of the read and the quality of the audio and less about who's doing the actual reading.

Justine

Have you come across a situation where someone's come to you with a book, someone who maybe has had a podcast and they've decided to create a book or they've been approached to do a book, and when it comes to time in the studio, we've had this experience, I will say, you learn that the book was actually ghostwritten because the author struggles in the studio to own the material because they actually haven't totally created it themselves.

Scott

You know, that's a really interesting situation. I haven't seen that specifically in our business, although, you know, I'm thinking of an example of a book that we're working on right now where that could actually come up because we've done a fair amount of ghostwriting on it. That said, the author is very engaged in the content and reviewing it.

So I don't think that will come up in that case. But I could certainly imagine a case where if the author hasn't been very deeply involved in iterating with the writer, that could be a problem. The way that we do ghostwriting is a very, it's a more collaborative approach than I think some others might take.

So rather than somebody saying, please go off and write a 30,000 word book on this subject, you know, we have a fairly intensive interview process. And then the back and forth and the collaboration on the content itself is quite collaborative as well. So we haven't run into that, but I can certainly imagine that that would be the case in some cases.

Justine

I actually think ghostwriting is a subject for a podcast from us down the line.

Scott

Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's a, it's definitely a worthwhile one.

Justine

Yeah. Cause I don't think people realize, I mean, I'm not saying it's everywhere, of course, but it does exist. I know someone who is a ghostwriter and I think it would be interesting to talk about how those people go about getting into what the author is trying to say.

So yeah.

Scott

Yeah. That's becoming exacerbated now with generative AI, right. And people effectively ghostwriting their own books.

And I see more of that. We certainly see that in our editing work where a manuscript will come in and the author really doesn't have a good grasp of what's actually been written by chat GPT or whichever generative AI platform they've been using. And so, you know, a lot of the, the nature of editing really changes when that happens.

So rather than what we would traditionally do, like what I described earlier in our editing process, yeah, yeah. And instead of that, it becomes a lot more about giving the author guidance of where they need to go back in and insert their voice because what has been written is very generic. It sounds like it's been written by a generative AI and you know, it doesn't have those telltale signs of humanity, at least not yet.

Maybe that'll change, but at the moment, you know, that is a problem that we have to address in editing.

Justine

So in the five or so years you've been involved, what trends have you noticed sort of emerged with your authors creating audiobook content?

Scott

You know, there's, there's certainly more interest in audio as a format, I think. And I think some of that is the result of the growth of podcasts, actually. I find more authors have podcasts of their own and more are seeing podcast interviews as a great publicity channel to get the word out about their book and about their business, frankly.

And so that I think is part of what's driving the increase in interest in the audiobook format. You know, another thing I've seen is authors releasing all the chapters of their audiobook as podcast episodes, whether that's into an existing podcast series or even as a standalone limited podcast series itself, which is an interesting approach. You know, repurposing audio from the audiobook as social media content, and then layering over B-roll video is something I've started to see, although I'm a little bit surprised that we haven't seen more of that because I think that's actually a really great content strategy.

One trend that I've seen a fair amount of that I'm actually not a huge fan of is authors going off script in their audiobook to add additional commentary. And I don't know if you've seen this, but I get what they're trying to do, right? They're trying to add some additional value to the format.

But I find it's often distracting to the listening experience and it pulls you out as a listener. So I think there's certainly a space for unique audio-only content. But in my view, that should be thought about well in advance, should be scripted in and integrated well into the broader editorial.

Yeah, not ad-libbed in the moment. That's right. Yeah, because it ends up just feeling very ad-libbed and disjointed.

Justine

Well, and I imagine it probably freaks out Audible's algorithms as well.

Scott

Well, mine, right?

Justine

Yeah. So what's a fundamental piece of advice you'd give to someone who's thinking to publish a non-fiction title with someone like you?

Scott

The most important advice I have for an aspiring non-fiction author, it's probably true of fiction too, but I don't think as much about that space, is to know why you're writing the book. Of course, there's the specific why connected to the content and related to your reader and what it is you want for them. But I'm talking about, as an author, your own goals.

If your goal is simply to check off something from your bucket list, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And knowing that actually takes a lot of the pressure off, but most of our authors at least have an important business goal related to their book. It's often to build their authority and position themselves as the go-to expert in their niche, to separate them from the competition.

For others, it might be about articulating and crystallizing their intellectual property and packaging it in a form that can underpin content across their business and across their products. And for still others, their primary goal might be very much about getting their book into the hands of their ideal clients and then converting those leads into sales of their core products and services. None of these are wrong, but the choices that you make throughout the author journey may be very different depending on your goals.

And so that's why I think it's very important that you start there so that you're heading off in the right direction rather than making that decision about what your goal is later on and having to rethink a lot of the things that you'd previously worked on.

Justine

So let's talk about you and audiobooks. When did you first become an audiobook listener?

Scott

Oh my goodness. It's been a long time. I subscribed to Audible pretty much when it first came out.

I don't even remember when that was, but it's probably been, I don't know, what, 20 years? Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

It's a long time ago. Long time ago. But yeah, I've been a subscriber ever since.

So every month I'm using my credit to listen to at least one audiobook and then I often find I'm buying packs of three credits so that I can download some other ones. And what kind of things do you listen to? Almost entirely nonfiction.

I listen to the odd fiction, but of that nonfiction, it's really split between expertise-based nonfiction, the type of stuff that we produce at Grammar Factory. So a lot of stuff that's around entrepreneurship and specific, whether it's business marketing, business strategy, things like that. About half of it is that.

And then the other half is really historical audiobooks. So I love history, anything ancient, even modern history. So any of those really, I get excited about.

Justine

And have you ever heard an audiobook where you just went, I really don't think they should have done that?

Scott

Oh, I'm trying to think. It just hasn't worked to some.

Justine

Yeah.

Scott

Yeah. You know what? Recently I downloaded a book.

I can't even remember the title of it. It was about AI. I expected it would be kind of a bit of a good primer on the topic.

And it turned out to be a lot more tactical around coding for AI and not being able to see code samples and what they were talking about really just made it useless. So I got through maybe a chapter and a half, and then I had to turn it off.

Justine

Which actually takes us back to what the work you do is about making it a satisfying audio experience where you don't feel like you're missing something.

Scott

That's right. I'm not sure that that particular book really made sense at all to turn into an audiobook, right? I would almost lump that in the same category as those coffee table style books where the value of it is the code or the photograph.

Justine

Yep.

Scott

Right. So in this case, I would have probably skipped the format, saved the effort for a book that was more narrative in nature.

Justine

Yes. Scott, I really love your description of that four-stage editorial process because honestly, I see books that I just think, hello, where were the proofreaders? Hello, was there an editor?

Scott

Yeah. And sadly, oftentimes there weren't, right?

Justine

Yeah. Well, that's exactly the question. Even the big publishing companies just seem to...

Scott

Just mail it in.

Justine

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was recording yesterday in North. She's a comedian and a performer reading her memoir, and she was distressed by some of the edits she found.

And it's like, what? They took that out? Oh my God, they never asked me about that.

Scott

Oh no, you're kidding.

Justine

And also typos. She was taking photos of the typos so that they could try to kind of catch those before the e-book was published. So at least they wouldn't have been in the e-book, even though they're obviously in the print edition because that's been gone off to China to be printed.

Oh, of course. Of course.

Scott

Yeah.

Justine

Yeah. Yeah. Incredible.

So how long have you been in Toronto, Scott? So I grew up in Ottawa. You were visiting Melbourne.

You weren't born here. You're not Melbourne.

Scott

No, no, no. So although the business was originally founded in Melbourne... Yes, you said, yes.

Yeah. Yeah. So the founder lived there and that's where it started.

But no, I'm originally from Canada. I spent a decent amount of time, like maybe six months or so in Sydney when I was in management consulting. So I did a fair amount of work with one of the large financial institutions in Sydney and loved it.

I mean, it was just a really easy country to kind of drop into as a Canadian. Culturally, I felt very much at home.

Justine

Yeah. I think I had a Canadian sister-in-law. She's still Canadian, but no longer my sister-in-law.

Scott

Fair enough. That does happen.

Justine

But I think we're much more similar than, say, Americans and Australians. We have a similar vibe. Yeah.

So Scott, how can entrepreneurs and authors best get in touch with you and the Grammar Factory community?

Scott

The best place to connect with me directly is on LinkedIn. So my handle is Scott Macmillan. That's S-C-O-T-T-M-A-C-M-I-L-L-A-N.

Otherwise, I'd love if people would subscribe to my podcast, Entrepreneur to Author. And if you had a book, I'd love to chat about that. So head over to grammarfactory.com, click on the Get In Touch button and book a time in to chat. I'd love to learn more about what you're working on.

Justine

Well, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We really appreciate it. And you've made a great, valuable contribution to what we're trying to do with our podcast.

Wonderful.

Scott

Well, thank you so much for having me.

Justine

Welcome. Cheers.

Thanks, Scott. Bye.

Scott

As we wrap up this episode of Entrepreneur to Author, remember this.

Now is the time. Time to write, time to publish, and time to grow. I'm Scott MacMillan.

Until next time.