@Ringmaster if you're going to buy a mic for this, I recommend a Blue Snowball, they're absolutely brilliant, plus if you like being super dramatic, they're the right shape and size to hold in your hand and "recite Shakespearean quotation...." hopefully when reading that you imagined Jack Skellington but if not oh well. Either way, they're professional quality and they don't break the bank too much.
@The Protato it's cool and I totally get that, but don't expect people to make this much of a commitment and do it for free. On average I'll spend about 90 minutes at a time doing recordings, before having to then take the time to listen back to everything I said, making notes, then re-recording any lines I've messed up, sometimes having to completely re-record huge sections of audio, do you have any idea just how much effort actually goes in to recording audiobooks and doing it well? I've been recording about 4 hours of audio a week, for the last 9 months, and I'm still not finished reading the whole gone series for my friend, who will more than likely finish the entire series in less than a week.
What I'm getting at here, is if you plan on getting audio off several different people to make this, you're in for a mild logistical nightmare, and I hope you have the effective means to render the audio to be audible, as otherwise it will end up sounding like a mess. You're also going to have to either find people that are happy being incredibly meticulous with their own work for you (which is a hard sell, when you're not paying them) or deal with either 2 scenarios, the first being you end up sending long lists of notes requesting reshoots of certain lines to your actors, the second being you end up having to recast a character and get further delayed due to someone sending you completely unusable audio, and honestly, no one would be happy if they had to reshoot all of their audio because it's not satisfactory (for paying gigs, sometimes, having reshoots and pickups is another pay cheque, as its normally their oversight that's calling you in, so it can be a really good thing).
I've done the "yeah I'll do voice work for anyone/thing" bit in the past, and quite literally I've been guilty of every single aspect I've mentioned before, in fact I've still got about 2 dozen pickups to do for a project, but I'm waiting for the director to get back to me (largely due to me voicing 2 characters, I'm no mel blanc, whenever my characters imitate eachother it's just not quite rabbit/duck season). Maybe I'm just cynical, but I've been around in the VA scene for a few years now, honestly, your best bet, is either find a single actor that is willing to take on the whole project, or do your best to get your book published so the publishing company can pay for the audiobook
Honestly, most audiobooks are just read by a single person, and a lot of the time, they don't even throw a whole lot into the voices for characters, one reason I've taken so long with Gone, is that I am literally recording each individual characters lines separately from the narration, so I can give each character their own voice, that's a labour of love, and unless you find someone that really, really loves your work, you don't just get that.
Right, I'm done being the cynical bastard now, good luck with it all ^_^
