What I have learned from producing a Chess audio book

Adam Rothstein
3 min readAug 3, 2021

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Cover photo of Chess: The Game for Peace and Prosperity

Hello there. If you are reading this now, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Adam Rothstein. I am an audiobook narrator and author. I have produced several audiobooks and have written several other books. My goal is to teach as many people as possible how to produce and distribute audiobooks across all platforms.
My latest audiobook Chess: the Game for Peace and Prosperity is about the history of chess and how you can use the game to build communities and find peace. Many of us have been divided within the past five years, both religiously and politically. I believe that we need to put aside our differences. It does nobody no good to attack people for simply having opposing views. Whether those are religious beliefs or political beliefs. It should not matter if the person is liberal, conservative, independent, religious, or non-religious.

Games and sports have been used to bring people together for millenniums. I view chess as one of the most important games ever created. You don’t need to be of a certain, race or gender. You just have to be willing to learn every day and work hard to grow your chess skills. Anyone of any age can get started and become a master chess player.

When creating this audiobook I woke up every day, opened my audio recording software, and recorded one paragraph at a time. I couldn’t get it done in one recording. The finished product was 40 minutes of total run time. Between the editing and recording, it took me about a week to complete this project. I didn’t want to rush the project at all and I also needed to make sure that it passed the audio standards.

FindAway Voices is an audiobook distributing platform. On the website, you can upload your audiobook and it will distribute the audiobook to over 40different platforms. Some distributors will have your audiobook on sale before others. For example, Chirp may start selling your audiobook before Audible or audiobooks.com. The reason this happens is that some audiobook retailers need extra time to make sure that it meets their standards.

Receiving the email stating that my audiobook was now available on audiobook platforms was a sign of accomplishment. From all the hours of editing recording and contacting the people at FindAway voices, I can take it all and say I did it. There is an element of perseverance that you must maintain when creating audiobooks. Waiting two to four weeks can be frustrating and can make you feel anxious at times. But you have to keep your chin up and keep going because you can accomplish a lot.

If you are an author, who wants to create another way to earn more income, producing an audiobook is an excellent way to do this. It’s just another form of media that your audience can consume. If you want to get updates from me and learn how to create audiobooks, click the email sign up link below to be added to my email list. Also be sure to check out Chess: The Game for Peace and Prosperity on Chirp now.

Email sign up link: https://gmail.us8.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=be677126ed4f0cf58cf30ce05&id=eee2d204a0

My audiobook: https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/chess-by-adam-rothstein

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Adam Rothstein

Sports and tech writer. Lover of American sports stadiums.