My Spotify for Authors Publishing Process...So Far

 

For a silly little project, it took me far too long to decide which novella to publish as a Spotify for Authors audiobook. I knew it had to be a novella in order to avoid the app's character count ceiling (which I still don't understand, but I have to assume that my 114,000-word novel had a lot of hidden metadata).

Finally, I picked Lies and Love. It's short—81 print-length pages, or a little under 19,000 words.

This time around, the upload process was a breeze; I would estimate one-to-two seconds long. First, though, I had to convert the book to an epub, which is the only format Spotify for Authors accepts. I was unsure about including the title and author name in the epub, since anything printed will be read aloud. Google gave me some convoluted instructions for removing that from calibre before converting, and I asked, "Can't I just delete it from the document?" "Oh. Well, sure." (Google takes delight in leading us down twisting roads.) Of course, on second thought, why didn't I just leave it and allow the AI narrator to voice it? I really don't know. As currently configured, my book was apparently authored by "Unknown".

Next, I uploaded my cover image, which was (naturally) the wrong size. An audiobook requires a perfectly square image, 2400 x 2400 pixels. Thus I had to pull up my free photo software and resize it to specifications. 

For my voice, it was a relatively easy choice between the two female American accents offered. One sounded too juvenile and the other, Sarah, seemed a bit world-weary, but I, too, am a bit world-weary, so Sarah is was.

Next came pronunciations. Spotify flagged 26 words that required review. That's not many, but it's also deceptive. If the narrator goofs, the author needs to fill in the corresponding field with a phonetic spelling. On the plus side, the majority of those 26 words were pronounced correctly. It seems that Spotify is wary of place and business names, but luckily the ones I'd dreamed up weren't fancy. They were mainly compound words, such as "Bridgeview", which the app had no trouble pronouncing. It also flagged my main character's name, Drea, but that, too, sounded just fine...at first. 

Where I ran into trouble was with expressions, such as "Ahh" and "Aww" (which are different, BTW). "Ahh" is a realization, whereas "Aww" means "That's a shame" or "Isn't that cute?" How does one spell those phonetically? I thought I already had. I experimented with adding more H's to "Ahh", but that hardly changed how it was spoken. Adding extra W's to "Aww" only made things worse. Also, if a character starts uttering a word, but is interrupted (signified by an em dash), that completely balls up the pronunciation. A supporting character's name is Gil, and I had a sentence of dialogue that began with "Gi—", which, of course, the narrator pronounced as "Gee", as in "geese". I had no recourse but to correct it to the full name.

While my AI narrator had no problem whatsoever pronouncing Drea the first time, a bit later "she" went rogue and began choosing weird variations. I could find nowhere to make corrections when listening to the playback, so I had to resign myself to that.

As for emphasis, the passages I heard really weren't badly done. Or maybe I just imagined them the way I'd written them; not sure. But they weren't jarring or flat.

What I would recommend to anyone undertaking this process for the first time is to copy your manuscript and paste it into a new doc, then start phonetically spelling out any word or name that could potentially cause a problem. You won't catch them all, and it's a giant pain to do, but it'll beat being embarrassed. I didn't do that, because I didn't foresee any words or names being an issue. I was wrong.

Next came pricing. I had no clue how to price my audiobook, so I asked Google how much audiobook novellas generally went for. It told me between $6.99 - $10.99, so I chose the lowest number. 

Lies and Love translated to 2:34 hours of spoken word. Did I listen to the whole thing? 🤣More like five minutes. Sorry, just couldn't do it. I like my words, but I'm not in love with them, so much so that I just have to hear them again. Yes, I'm aware of Spotify's penchant for mispronunciations, but since there was no visible way to fix them, why torture myself by listening all the way through? 

I am kicking myself for not including the book title and author name in the epub, because while there was a separate field for typing in my name, it would be preferable for it to be voiced (if the audiobook's purpose is author awareness). Apparently, I'm unable to set up my author profile until my audiobook is live, and taking my current anonymity into account, a profile will be important to have.

Publishing an audiobook can take up to 72 hours. I have a feeling Spotify will shoot for the 72-hour mark, since my project is still sitting in "submitted" status. Imagine if I'd uploaded a full novel, instead of a novella.

Overall, I've had worse website experiences than this. It was relatively painless and I knew what I was getting into using virtual voice. Again, though, it was free. 

Spotify's free upload limit is 5 books. Be aware that if you upload one and for whatever reason (such as with my novel) you decide to delete it, that counts toward your five-book limit.

Quick Facts on the Creation Limits

The Limit: The free Audiobook Creation Tools are limited to 5 audiobooks total per account.
The Rule: Each project you start counts as 1 slot. Deleting it permanently burns that slot.
Next Steps: If you accidentally exhaust your 5 slots on test drafts or deleted projects, you will need to directly contact Spotify for Authors Support to request assistance or extra access.

I wouldn't count on getting any kind of dispensation by contacting Support if this happens. My previous conversations with Support were unsatisfactory. So, bottom line, either accept the weird pronunciations or figure out how to fix them in your already uploaded manuscript. (As I noted, I did not see a way to do that, except for the 26 words it flagged at the start.)

Barring any unforeseen issues arising, I'll report back once my audiobook is live. If that ever happens. KDP's process is virtually instantaneous, but maybe Spotify has a big backlog of books or something. I'm not sure if they'll shoot me an email when it's ready or if I have to keep checking back.

Stay tuned for updates. I'm waiting to find out if my live reaction will be "ahhh" or "awww".