After a successful e-book launch, many authors are left wondering what to do next. Where else can they display their masterpiece? What else can they do to generate more income? How can they get more readers to see their work? What are they missing? The answer to all those questions is, an audiobook.

One of the most important aspects of a successful audiobook is the narrator. A bad narration can easily ruin a wonderful thing… fast. It’s crucial to have the right voice conveying the emotions of your story just as you envisioned it. That ‘sample’ button is what sells the listener to purchase your audiobook and that decision lays heavily on the narrator’s performance in those few quick minutes. One factor to picking the right audio publisher for your audiobook is how involved you want to be in the narrator process. Some authors want to have a say in this crucial decision and others would rather leave it up the professionals because they don’t have the slightest clue as to what makes a good narrator.

Choosing the narrator can be just as stressful as writing the actual book. Whether you are the author or the casting director, here are five key points to remember as your choosing the voice:

1. Check the voice pitch and pace – to be sure the person can fit the story and narrator’s role properly.
2. You might need a flexible audiobook narrator for multiple character voices, accents, genders, etc. in a fiction novel.
3. Take a step away from being the writer or producer of the book, become the listener.
4. Trust your intuition.
5. And if all else fails, especially for authors who have never done this before, search some of the best audiobook narrator lists online. They can point you in a direction you never thought of looking.