An Audio Credit Sheet Is a Listening Contract

Name each contribution

Audio has layers that a print copyright line can conceal: underlying text, adapter if any, narrator, director, producer, engineer, rights holder, and distributor account. Make a sheet with approved display credit, contact, agreement reference, pronunciation source, and delivery version.

For a hypothetical memoir, do not call the narrator “author” unless that is factually true. If the author reads a new introduction, record it as a separate performance and identify the file that contains it.

Mark edition differences

Note abridgements, updated chapters, music, sound effects, and content that differs from print or ebook. A listener should not discover late that the audiobook omits an appendix essential to the argument.

Listen to the record

Check opening credits, title pronunciation, chapter navigation, end credits, and acknowledgments against the credit sheet. Capture corrections as timecodes and retain the approved master version.

Specific production checks

Create a pronunciation sample for names, places, foreign words, and technical terms. Attach its source: author recording, consulted expert, dictionary, or verified reference. If pronunciation remains contested, record the chosen approach and why rather than leaving a narrator to guess in the booth.

Listen for credits at the start and end in the actual master, not only in a script. For a multi-voice production, check that each narrator’s sections and role labels match the approved credit sheet and that chapter markers do not cut across a speaker change.

Retain the final credit script with the master so later editions do not omit a performer whose contribution is only remembered informally.