The most obvious use of a home recording studio is to create music, and a digital album is an attractive product. Digital music sales have risen in 2011 after six years of decline due in large part to digital album sales, which rose 16.8 percent according to the Nielsen Soundscan's blog the Nielsen Wire. The same blog reports that single digital sales also rose 9.6 percent. Producing a digital album is less expensive than traditional CDs. Independent artists have more outlets available to them than in the past, which comes with more control over their music.
Scoring a film or television program with music is a different kind of animal that requires not only equipment for making music, but also importing video. Many DAWs (digital audio workstations) have this feature available, and it would be wise to ensure that this is available in the DAW of choice. Different specialty programs include Sony Vegas Pro, Steinberg Nuendo and Avid's Media Composer.
Producing music or voice for radio and television commercials also makes smart use of a home studio. You should decide ahead of time whether you are going to be producing music only or both voice and music, the latter adding substantially more to the budget. It's a competitive market, and it may be to your advantage to use a paid service like TAXI to gain inroads into hot leads in the music, film and television industry. However, plan on spending a bit of cash for the privilege with memberships starting at $299 and song submissions priced at $5.00 per song.
In the past, books were made one way; with paper. Now, there are digital ebooks for eReaders like the Kindle and Nook as well as audiobooks, which can come digitally or on CD.
Since the narrator's voice is going to be what stands out, it's beneficial to purchase a quality condenser microphone and microphone preamp. Preferably, you want to have more than one microphone, especially if your voice is not the only one that will be recorded.
It's imperative to sample different microphones before you buy if at all possible. In addition, read many reviews of microphones and preamps before making a purchase decision. They don't come cheap, so make sure you're making the right investment in the right equipment.