The audiobook market is growing at an incredible pace, with new audiobooks being released every day in the hundreds. The size of the market for 2019 was 3.2 billion dollars, and this is forecast to grow by a further 25% over the next three years.

But have you ever thought about what goes into the creation of an audiobook? How do they get made?

At Behear, we love what we do. We love taking your stories and turning them into something special. But the process of taking a book and creating something magical, an audiobook like no other, a dramatised Audiobook, is no easy feat. The time it takes is surprisingly long. What we are really doing is going through the process of creating a film just without the images. The creativity and editing required are no less time-consuming.

When we get asked to take someone’s story and work our magic, the first thing we do is have a discussion amongst the team to see if the story lends itself to our style of creating and working. Having had that discussion next, we read the book. Just like we would read any book. To try to get a feel for the characters and the story itself.

From there, we have a discussion with the author and talk about how they envisage the characters and the world they have created. We then take the book and mark each voice separately so we can understand the size of each character’s part and how they grow within the story.

Having understood the story and the characters, we look to cast the characters of the book. We reach out to our talented bank of voice artists, and we put out an audition call. We are always on the lookout for exceptional voice talent. We then chose the voices we want for each character.

We invite each voice artist into the studio to record the character they will bring to life. The process of creating the right voice is extremely collaborative, with direction coming from the Behear team, listening to the other voices and the possible music that may be used for the dramatised audiobook.

Each character is recorded, and the team will listen back to the audio and recall any voice actor that is needed for any corrections in the audio.

So far in the process, as a team, we have probably expended around 6 hours per single hour of audio.

Once we are happy that we have all the audio we need, we then go back through all the audio and the book and chop up each of the voice files into the sections it needs to be and separate these into chapters. We then join each character’s audio with all the others to create a seamless dialogue and interaction and begin to bring the story to life.

Once this is done, taking probably a further 4 hours of editing for each hour of audio, we are ready to add effects and music. This is when the whole story really begins to come to life. It is magical and often creates some exclamations of joy and some tingling in the nerve endings.

We then treat all the files, making sure the sound is consistent and everything can be heard correctly. And then we sit and listen yet again to the story and feel the audiobook drama come to life.

To get to the finished product as a team, we will probably have expended somewhere in the region of 10 hours per actual single hour of audio for the book. But at this stage, it’s done, and we love it and at the same time are sad to have finished. We have lived with these characters and stories for so long they have come to be part of our lives.

Episode 17 of “The Light Watch Chronicles” Released!

In a fantastically creative fusion of space opera, the Golden Age Elysium, and Earth-bound cyberpunk settings, four young warriors called the Quarta begin their journey in a Special Forces military academy.

Yet after the terrifying surprise attack of the Shadow demons that destroyed their homeworld, the scattered Quarta are forced to flee to Earth and the seeming safety of Tokyo, Japan.

Here, the remaining three comrades blend into society as an undercover boy band, while mounting a desperate search for their missing battle brother.

Episode 17

The future, the past and the present begin to unwind for the Quarta

Season 1 – Episode 6 of “Blood Roots” Now Available!

Andi Carmichael an Ex MI5-agent and investigator gets a call from her old boss about the discovery of a dead girl and the voices start inside her head.

With the help of her friend Jules a cousin to the royal family. They discover a connection to a US-based Tech Company and rumours of sect-like occurrences.

Episode 6

Jules introduces Andi to Peter and they go to meet Edwardo.

Behear Nominated for YorkMix Best New Business 2023 Award!

At Behear we create amazing stories that allow people of all abilities to be transported to worlds they may not be able to reach by normal books or audiobooks.

We are determined to bring fully immersive stories to everyone.