Up to this point, everything has been inyou have been preparing your voice and your material, practicing in front of a mic, but not recording anything that will be part of your finished audiobook.

Now you are going to shift gears and focus all your attention on actually making the recording. There are three main groupings of problem-solving information here.

• Avoid certain problems by preparation
• Avoid other problems by doing recording right
• When all else fails, doing a retake

Don't wait until the last minute to read this section. A lot of the things you should do are going to require some advanced preparation.

• Final preparations
  • Have a quiet night before
  • What to wear
  • Postpone if you have to
  • Handy essentials
  • Make session notes
  • Make test recordings
• Minus 10 and counting
  • Get your internal focus
  • Get your external focus
  • Positioning yourself in relation to the mic
• While you are recording
  • Avoid the sound of paper
  • Don't move around
  • Stay in the moment
  • Take breaks
• Retakes
  • Notepad for retakes