Frequently Asked Questions
We have listed some of your repeated or common questions to make it easier for others to find answers.
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
Questions regarding audio production
Do you dramatized other audiobooks but your own?
Yes, we occasionally do dramatize novels from other (indie) authors. Since our time is limited, we don’t take on a lot of projects, though. But why don’t you give it a shot by sending us an email: el***@*********cs.com.
Do you have any references for audiobook narration?
Of course! Our best references are our own dramatized audiobooks, which you can find on our YouTube channel http://youtube.com/AudioEpics.
Especially these most recent ones:
Do you use AI?
No. We use no AI whatsoever. We feel strongly about not using it as we want to create a quality product. We work with real human composers for our projects (Peter Van Riet, Ivan Duch, Dayn Leonardson) or we compose simple soundscapes ourselves, we use sound effects that are paid for (included in production price) or create them with our own voices or tools.
We want an audiobook to lift your novel up to another level, not just ‘have an artificial voice read it’. Otherwise, what is the benefit of a dramatized audiobook? We want to create an experience so immersive that people will want to listen to it in bed with headphones. If you stop your everyday chores just to pay a bit more attention to certain parts, we’ve done our job. And, of course, if you want us to dramatize your novel, we hope you feel the same way about audio. People can still speed up your audiobook x3, but they CAN enjoy it as a movie without the visuals, fully immersed. That’s important to us.
What are your benefits compared to other audiobook production companies?
We believe in 100% ownership. That’s why we self-publish. When we create your audiobook we don’t ask for commissions (unless you insist on such an arrangement to help reduce the price). In a standard collaboration we create your audiobook for a set price and after that, it’s yours forever. You have all the rights to decide where and when to distribute it and how much to charge for it.
How much does it cost to have my novel turned into a dramatized audiobook?
Having your novel turned into a fully handcrafted dramatized audiobook with two narrators, sound effects and music (and all without the use of AI) is not cheap. It costs about $ 600 PFH (per finished hour) for a project comparable to our Witch Hunter Tales.
Of course, we can discuss custom pricing depending on your expectations. A dry audiobook (one voice, no sound effects or music) will be considerably cheaper. And if you want an originally composed theme song or score, a full-cast production or different voice actors, the price will go up.
The minimum payment for a dramatized production is $ 300 for a story of 30 minutes (or less). So, getting your short story dramatized as a newsletter gift is actually quite feasible for an indie author. From +30 minutes on, you’ll pay the PFH-rate.
If you’d love a dramatized audiobook of your novel but the price is the only problem, make sure to get in touch. We can always figure something out, like arranging payment after each delivered chapter or some other form of spread payment.
How long does it take to have my novel turned into a dramatized audiobook?
To have your novel turned into a fully handcrafted dramatized audiobook with two narrators, sound effects and music (all without the use of AI) takes some time. The exact amount of time depends on your story, the length and the format of your choice.
We don’t take on too many projects to keep the delivery of a project reasonable. We always discuss deadlines in advance. We will always try to find a deadline that’s comfortable for all of us. Also, some people prefer arrangements like a chapter per month because they don’t feel like their audiobook is urgent and/or because they want to spread the costs per month. Others have a specific deadline in mind. Just let us know and we’ll work something out.
Do you dramatize novels with smut or erotica?
No, we don’t. We understand that this is very popular at the moment and some publishers even require such scenes, but we want to draw some lines when collaborating. That doesn’t mean we will shy away from a romantic or kissing scene or a tasteful nude scene when it’s important for the plot or appropriate.
If you want a specific idea of where we draw the line, listen to part 7 of The Beast of the Western Wilds and know that this is as far as we’re willing to go. 
Some fans found it erotically charged.
Do you take on every novel for dramatization?
No, we like to feel a connection to a story. We want it to match our dramatization approach, so we read at least a big portion of it in advance.
Do you only dramatize fantasy and scifi?
We have a very strong preference for those genres, but if you surprise us with something else entirely that we’re truly excited about, we are certainly willing to get out of our comfort zone.
Do you also promote the audiobooks you create?
We don’t do marketing like a publishing company would, since it’s just the two of us. But, sure, when we’re proud of what we’ve made, we’ll certainly share it with our community of 6k+ subscribers on YouTube and post it on our other social media, adding all data for those interested in your audiobook to find you, but only with your permisson, of course. 
Do you take commissions?
No, usually we don’t, unless you insist, e.g. to decrease the costs. But we are big fans of keeping all the rights to a creative work with the creator, i.e. the author. We want to elevate your novel but we don’t want to take advantage of your hard work during the creative process. So, if it’s all the same to you, we agree on a price, and after payment, the dramatized audiobook is 100% yours. You can distribute it wherever you want, with whomever you want, when you want to launch it and you decide what price you ask for it.
Is your approach like that of Graphic Audio?
Graphic Audio also creates dramatized audiobooks, using the tagline “a movie in your mind”. Though we love Graphic Audio, as neurodivergents, we think some of their projects can be a bit overstimulating. Their approach in terms of audio design seems to be a rather ‘realistic’ one. We don’t have a by-the-numbers approach. In fact, our creative process is mostly intuitive. For example, when you have a party of five, you should, ‘realistically’ have 5 sets of footsteps, ‘realistically’ there should be birds chirping, leaves rustling, dogs barking, etc. But that is not how people’s minds work. We filter certain sounds out. Just like in a movie the camera directs your attention in creative ways, we try to do the same thing with sound. This makes our audio projects in our opinion and that of many of our fans less overstimulating.
Our tagline is: “Your imagination has the best graphics”.
Do you dramatize AI-written novels?
No. We really value human creativity and we do not want to waste our creative energy on an AI-written script.
What are your criteria to select a novel for dramatization?
There are some criteria that certainly matter, like genre and writing style. If we decide not to adapt your novel, that doesn’t mean we think your novel is not good. It means we don’t feel like it’s the right match for our approach. We don’t take on too many projects because we want to guarantee a reasonable delivery date to our clients and have the time to work on our own projects.
Click on the questions to open the answer
Questions regarding our dramatized audiobooks
Do you only create audiobooks in the (epic) fantasy genre?
Yes, for now. But we do have some ideas for comedy, space opera and scifi as well. So, who knows what the future might bring?
Will you create dramatized audiobooks of classic novels?
No, for now that is not our intention and we don’t really have time for that. We really want to tell our own stories. We feel like there are enough adaptations, remakes, prequels, sequels and reimaginings already. It’s time for something new (or rather ‘traditional’) in the fantasy landscape.
Will you create dramatized audiobooks of other franchises?
No, for now it is not our intention to create dramatized audiobooks of franchises like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Mass Effect, Warhammer, D&D, etc. We don’t have the rights and we don’t really have time for that. We really want to tell our own stories. We feel like there are enough adaptations, remakes, prequels, sequels and reimaginings already. It’s time for something new (or rather ‘traditional’) in the fantasy landscape.
Are your dramatized audiobooks full cast?
Some are. Like The Beast of the Western Wilds dramatized audiobook and The Will of the Woods audio drama. But even then, most actors or actresses took on multiple roles. Witch Hunter, which was the result of crowdfunding, had 3 voices because of the amount of money we collected ($ 1666: 1 voice per $ 500). But our most recent projects, like The Treasure of Boneyard Bay and The Hounds of Hübschdorf, are done with dual narration. By switching to ‘dual narration dramatized audiobooks’ we can produce them faster because involving other voice actors takes extra time to organize.
Judging from the comments on YouTube a lot of listeners are convinced the dual narrated audiobooks are full cast, which is not true, but very much taken as a compliment. 🙂
Why do we have to wait so long for your next dramatized audiobook?
To have your novel turned into a fully handcrafted dramatized audiobook with dual narration, sound effects and music and without the use of AI takes some time. It takes us 1 to 3 years to create a new audiobook. This includes the writing process, which, frankly, is the most time-consuming. The dramatization process in itself is usually a lot quicker.
Another reason for the delay is that we still need to be able to feed our kids and our audiobooks are online for free, so they don’t really help us with that. Since we don’t use any AI whatsoever, we reinvest our Patreon money in sound effects, music, cover art, illustrations, software, web hosting, marketing, etc. We always invest more than we earn, but this is a passion project after all. We still very much need our daytime jobs!
So, we often have to prioritize our daytime work or paid projects, like e.g. transforming other novels or short stories into audio stories, teaching Dutch, other educational or commercial writing or voice over projects, proofreading, translating, etc. Our creative work energizes us, but the boring stuff we often have to take on drains us, so we need to unwind too once in a while.
Eventually, we’d love to do this fulltime but there’s still a long road ahead. Feel free to look at several ways to support us that don’t all involve investing money.
Are your audiobooks Warhammer fantasy audiobooks about witch hunters?
No! All of our Witch Hunter Tales are set in the original epic fantasy world of Hruda. We would never violate the Warhammer Fantasy copyright. But a huge portion of our audience does love Warhammer Fantasy. Both the Old World and Hruda rely on the typical classic traditional Witch Hunter aesthetic and have a European feel to it. This is not strange because we are both from Flanders, Belgium in Europe. But you’ll also find that the lore of Warhammer is very different from Hruda. Fans usually say our stories can be very dark but are not so much grimdark. They have a more hopeful Middle-earth tone to it.
Warhammer Fantasy, however, is one of our favourite tabletop roleplaying games so we are bound to be influenced by it in some way. Still, Tolkien is a huge source of inspiration as well, maybe even bigger. Other influences come from eighties fantasy movies, fantasy RPGs like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, trips and memories, classic Hollywood blockbusters, nature documantaries, etc.
So, if you’re a Warhammer Fantasy fan and you’re looking for Warhammer audiobooks, you’re most welcome, and you might love what we’ve created, but these are not exactly what you are looking for. You can find some great ones, like the Gotrek and Felix stories in The Black Library. We totally recommend them!
How are you able to pull off so many accents?
Practice makes perfect, even though we don’t think our accents are perfect. Not by far. But since we focus on fantasy, a (historically) correct or realistic accent is less important. If you think our accents do sound credible that’s probably because we pay attention to performances in movies, games, audiobooks and audio dramas. If you listen to our making-of material, you’ll see that we often have a character in mind as inspiration and then match it with our own voice.
We are both from Flanders, Belgium, which has some of the most neutral-sounding dialects in the world. This makes it easier for us to hide our Flemish (Leontish ) accent.
Since we also both have a master’s degree in linguistics, we’re able to better understand the differences (in pronunciation) between languages. We guess that made suffering through a lot of mandatory English conversation classes worth it.
Why haven't your stories been hyped yet?
We have a small niche community of fans and, for now, we like it that way. We don’t really have much time or budget for marketing and it’s only the two of us, so we’ve seen slow but steady growth and we love our audience’s enthusiasm!
We think the fact that our subscriber count on YouTube (now 6k+) remains relatively low after 10 years is due to a number of factors:
- The algorithm prefers channels that post regularly and it takes us too long to produce quality content to please the algorithm.
- We self-publish so we rely 100% on ourselves for marketing. Our budget is limited and social media tends to take precious time away from writing.
- 99% of our audience lives across the ocean. We keep getting recommended to fellow Belgians, but there is only a very small fantasy community in Belgium and a lot of fantasy fans prefer reading Dutch or French translations. So, the algorithm keeps pushing our videos to people who are not interested in them because of geographical boundaries.
- The fantasy reading community usually doesn’t talk about indie fantasy but rather about the already popular and marketed books from big novelists like Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, George R.R. Martin, Robin Hobb, etc.
- The internet is very hype-sensitive. We don’t write for the market so we don’t jump on popular subgenres like cozy fantasy or litRPG. We just keep writing what we love, which tends to be more traditional epic fantasy that doesn’t fully match one particular subgenre or niche.
Bottomline: it’s just the typical challenges of self-publishing in the era of content overload. Fortunately, we get a lot of support from our fans on YouTube and Patreon. There are numerous ways to support us to create more content, even without spending a dime.
Did you make the Witch Hunter Chronicles audio drama too?
Yes, that was us!
The first version of Witch Hunter was a 3.5-hour audio drama, known as The Witch Hunter Chronicles, which won an Ogle Award (honorable mention) at the Mark Time Awards in Minneapolis, Minnesota and can’t be found anywhere online.
We consider it to be the lesser version of Witch Hunter – The Dramatized Audiobook.
We do not distribute this version any longer, except as Patreon exclusive content for the fans interested in our journey. We prefer people discover the dramatized audiobook, as that’s the style we’ll keep publishing future Witch Hunter stories in.
The only place you can currently still find the original audio drama is on Patreon.
Can I purchase the CDs of your dramatized audiobooks anywhere?
We used to have CD versions of our dramatized audiobooks on Trepstar but the costs to keep the projects online were much higher than the sales so we had to take them all down. Recently, we started looking into that option again, since the policy of Trepstar seems to have changed. For those who already own Witch Hunter and The Will of the Woods, we are definitely planning to get physical copies of The Beast of the Western Wilds, The Treasure of Boneyard Bay and The Hounds of Hübschdorf.
What's with the alliterations?
Yeah, we get that question… Witch Hunter, The Will of the Woods, The Beast of the Western Wilds, The Treasure of Boneyard Bay and The Hounds of Hübschdorf, etc. These alliterations just seam to happen. 
Prepare for more!
Why are there so many woods and forests in your stories?
I don’t know… I guess we love the atmosphere of the woods. And, yeah, it probably won’t be the last time we go there in our stories.
Is Witch Hunter going to get a sequel?
Yes! It’s going to be a trilogy eventually. It is going to get new cover art and will get the subtitle ‘The Stones of Sevenpeaks’. We have been planning these stories for more than a decade. We are currently writing The Voice of the Vampire and after that audiobook the prequels are next!
Do you use AI to create your dramatized audiobooks?
No, none whatsoever. This is our passion and we love all the steps of the creation process. Also, we value quality and don’t like AI. It’s a talentless and distant sycophant taking credit for other people’s hard work. Therefore, we pay for sound effects and music, or even have custom music composed by Peter Van Riet, Ivan Duch or Dayn Leonardson. We have our cover art designed by another talented man: Dragan Ciric. He’s also a fan of our stories, which helps. He always gets the atmosphere just right! And we do the voice acting ourselves. Sometimes we hire extra voices or ask volunteers (or bribe our kids to do a small part ). We even do our own creature voices. Sometimes we enhance them with some effects but no AI.
Are your audiobooks suitable for visually impaired people?
Our dramatized audiobooks are perfect for everyone who loves fantasy, even when you’re visually impaired. They are like movies but instead of a camera that directs your point of view, we use sound. We also want to make our audiobooks as immersive as possible. They are accessible for all visually impaired people.
You can find them on YouTube and all big podcast platforms, you can download the .mp3s, so there is no need for braille or screen readers. There are chapter transitions, clear chapter titles and musical cues to help you visualize the whole story. We promise you an immersive ‘movie-like’ experience that will stay with you for a long time, because ‘your imagination has the best graphics’. The stories convey emotion through voice performances, original music and intuitively planted sound effects that don’t overstimulate.
Are your audiobooks suitable for neurodivergent people?
Our dramatized audiobooks are perfect for everyone who loves fantasy, even when you’re neurodivergent. In fact, we (and our kids) are neurodivergent too (in at least one way).
If you have ADHD and you have trouble focusing, we have good news. We try to keep our audiobooks as engaging as possible, with a vivid and varied soundscape to grasp your attention. There are regular changes in tone, music, and pace to aid your narrative retention. Still, our stories have an evident structure. There are chapter transitions, clear chapter titles and musical cues to help you visualize the whole story. The sound effects and pacing help you process the information.
We promise you an immersive ‘movie-like’ experience that will stay with you for a long time, because ‘your imagination has the best graphics’. The stories convey emotion through voice performances, original music and intuitively planted sound effects that don’t overstimulate.
Audiobooks are also very flexible to use. You can move or even run while listening and you can listen anywhere.
Bonus benefit for people with ADHD: thanks to our neurodivergence, we can lose a lot of money in so many different ways (buying things twice, fines for late payment, leaving things, forgetting coupons, …). The list is endless. Well, then it’s a good thing that you can listen to all of our stories for free on YouTube.
Are your audiobooks suitable for people with autism?
Our dramatized audiobooks are perfect for everyone who loves fantasy, even when you’re on the autistic spectrum / have ASD. In fact, we are all too familiar with it.
Our epic fantasy dramatized audiobooks have an evident structure. There are chapter transitions, clear chapter titles and musical cues to help you visualize the whole story. The sound effects and pacing help you process the information.
They are routine-friendly in the sense that you can easily integrate them into your daily routines, like bedtime, going for a walk, driving, etc.
We don’t use AI but real voice acting. The expressive voice performances provide social cues. They help you recognize emotions, sarcasm, etc. The sound design takes care of the literal to contextual transition while getting immersed in the story.
We are all highly-sensitive people and we think it’s important to keep our audiobooks sensory-friendly. So we insert music and sound effects in an intuitive rather than a naturalistic way, in order not to overstimulate our audience. And of course, audiobooks help you to avoid visual overload. After all, “your imagination has the best graphics.”
Are your audiobooks suitable for people with dyslexia?
Our dramatized audiobooks are perfect for everyone who loves fantasy, even when you are dyslectic.
Our epic fantasy dramatized audiobooks have an evident structure. There are chapter transitions, clear chapter titles and musical cues to help you visualize the whole story. The sound effects and pacing help you process the information and immerse you into the story without the frustration of stumbling over words.
Our audiobooks will help you develop a genuine love for reading without stigma. Since you bypass the reading struggles, you get equal access to complex vocabulary and ideas. And the fact that you’re hearing the words pronounced (exactly as they were meant by the author, since the narrators and authors are the same people), it supports your language development.
Are your audiobooks suitable for people who are cognitively challenged?
Our dramatized audiobooks are perfect for everyone who loves fantasy, even when you are cognitively challenged.
Our epic fantasy dramatized audiobooks have an evident structure. There are chapter transitions, clear chapter titles and musical cues to help you visualize the whole story. The sound effects and pacing help you process the information and immerse you into the story without the frustration of stumbling over words.
The music and sound effects are helpful mnemonic devices, aiding you with memory retention. It can bring you closer to experiences like participating in cultural and literary conversations.
Our audiobooks will help you develop a clearer comprehension of the stories. The expressive and dramatic elements clarify intent and action, making the whole easier to understand.
And the fantasy genre makes it unnecessary to have any background knowledge or specific comprehension of science.
Are your audiobooks suitable for people who are depressed or anxious?
Our dramatized audiobooks are perfect for everyone who loves fantasy, even when you’re suffering from anxiety or depression.
Our epic fantasy dramatized audiobooks are made to be fun and to provide safe escapism. They give you a positive distraction from intrusive thoughts. Though we often write dark fantasy, it’s not grimdark. Our stories are never nihilistic, cynical or depressing. They always end on a hopeful note, because we’re suckers for happy endings (or at least bittersweet ones).
The calming narration helps with emotional regulation. There is humour and there are satisfying arcs that will help soothe your anxiety and elevate your mood. A lot of our fans have testified that our stories have helped them cope with a problem or guided them through some rough patches in their lives, just like our favourite stories have done for us.
Audiobooks reduce screen time. They are a mentally engaging alternative to passive screen consumption that often leaves us empty afterwards.
We don’t use AI but real voice acting. The expressive voice performances help you recognize emotions, sarcasm, humour, etc. The sound design and music elevate the story and help you get immersed.
Here’s a bonus to instantly brighten your mood: our stories are free to listen to on YouTube.
Are your audiobooks woke?
We get this question quite frequently nowadays. No, we don’t consider ourselves woke. We are convinced that writing is a very intuitive process so we consider any form of restricting that creativity unwelcome. We don’t think about how many people of which gender are represented or how many people of X opinion or Y religion or Z race. We don’t want our stories to suffer from any checklists.
Sure, our lore has a Goddess and a Maiden but this is merely part of our attempt to create a fantasy religion, not a feminist statement. Like Tolkien we don’t want to allegorize or tell you what to think or believe. We want you to be immersed in a fantasy world and that means: no identity politics or contemporary hot-button issues whatsoever. We think this is obvious as we want you to feel transported to another world where you can enjoy a fair dosis of safe escapism, some precious time away from the daily grind.
Are your audiobooks religious?
Our fantasy world has a religion, but, no, our audiobooks are not religious. Our stories are meant to entertain, to relax and to bring joy, not to tell people what to believe.
Unavoidably, our own worldview will sneak into our stories, of course. Like professor Tolkien, we are Catholics, but just like he said: it is not our intention to allegorize. We want to tell stories that everyone can enjoy and that are timeless.
Want to collaborate or hire us?
Are you working on a project that requires a script, sound editing or voice-over and that might be a match for us? Feel free to contact us for a possible collaboration.
Email Address Domien
d.********@*********cs.com
Email Address Eline
el***@*********cs.com
