Recently in Audiobooks Category

I've been asked to record a 200 page audiobook. I'm not in a union or guild. I do have some voiceover experience. What do you recommend I charge?

While the question you asked seems simple, the answer requires more explanation, as found in this blog post and the one from Paul Strikwerda linked within it.

As basic info, you need to know the WORD count, not the page count, of the book you would narrate. You can figure out the finished run-time based on the word count. For instance, Audible uses an average rate of speed of 155 words a minute, or 9300 words per finished hour. 

Paul's article shows you a formula to calculate finished time. My article shows you how to calculate the real time required for editing to produce the book. As Paul points out in his comment to my article, you also need to add time for preliminary research. 

You'll have to consider all of these factors about the time commitment along with your experience, relationship with the client, training, and studio equipment to determine a rate that is fair compensation. Small publishers only pay $50-100 per finished hour. I would only perform an audiobook at that very low rate if I wanted to build commercial credits. 

I hope these thoughts are helpful. Best wishes for your continued success! 

PS. I have just started a discussion board on my Facebook page. Would you be comfortable if I re-posted this Q&A in that venue? Other people could benefit from the discussion and chime in with their own good suggestions. 

Greetings, Linda! Thanks so much for the nice note; you made my day! I love the line in your last paragraph about preparing to enter the workforce. So many people dash off the question to me "I have been told I have a nice voice. How do I get started in voiceover?" without any thought or perusal of the wealth of info on my web site. It's so refreshing to hear from someone who is working at building her skills and taking a methodical -- and wise -- approach to starting a new career. Bravo! 

I'm delighted that you liked my book trailer and want to create one of your own. Not only do I not mind that you are using this idea, I expected and encouraged people to do so in this blog post.  

As you'll read in the comments, one voice talent used the idea to create a trailer for a local art exhibit and landed inquiries about creating a similar one for pay. Video is a very effective marketing technique! 

Also, take some cues from that article about ways to spread the video, as well as publicize your book. My book has been in the catalog for 1 week and has already been downloaded more than 500 times because I have been promoting it. 

Think of the target audience for the book or how it might relate to a group of people, and you can figure out some places where those people hang out on-line. For instance, I posted the info and link to my book in the Alaska forum on CruiseCritic.com because it's Alaska cruise season, and many people like to take audiobooks on a trip, particularly if it relates to their destination. 

I really don't have a lot of specific info I can share about picture copyrights. Generally, pictures on the Internet or in magazines, books, and papers are protected by copyright. You wouldn't be able to use them or a derivative of them legally without permission of the owner. In gaining permission, you might have to pay a usage fee or royalties. 

The same is true of music. You couldn't use something from your own CD collection or off the web. I'll come back to the music in a minute. 

Most of the pictures in my video were from the public domain book I narrated, along with 1-2 that my husband took on our Alaskan cruise. As the photographer, he owns the copyright to those pictures and kindly granted me usage of them. 

However, I also used some images from iStockPhoto.com, which is one of many on-line sites of stock images that you CAN use in your own work. Photographers and videographers upload their work to these sites. You purchase a picture or video clip, and a usage license comes with it. I've also bought and used these pictures in my blog. 

The music in my video was from a royalty-free collection of CDs that I have purchased. You can buy royalty-free music on-line by song, CD, or collection. As with the images, it may take some time to hunt down just the right thing. 

Since you've found images that you like, you can always write to those people and request their permission to use it. They may say yes or no, or they may ignore you completely. 

Sometimes the copyright owner will surprise and thrill you with their response. In chapter 12 of my book, the author included the chorus lyrics from a Stephen Foster song "Old Black Joe", and she described the setting for it. I first planned to sing the song in the narration (I did that with another Victorian song in the book), but I didn't know the melody. 

In researching it, I found a rendition on iTunes that captured the scene to perfection. While the song is in the public domain, and therefore free of copyright restrictions, the performance of it is NOT public domain. The artist has the copyright on the performance. It was so perfect, and I really wanted to use it in my book. 

I found the artist on Facebook and sent a message to him. Not only did he immediately grant me permission to use the snippet, but he offered to help me promote it with Facebook ads! He quite clearly told me that he didn't care of someone lifted the song out of the book and used it for something else. His purpose in recording it was to reawaken interest in these old songs. 

[Important note: Since LibriVox dedicates all recordings to the public domain, anyone could lift your free book and sell it without sharing the revenue with you. See the excellent discussion on Some Audio Guy's blog about this potential downside to volunteering on this or any other site that leaves your recordings in the public domain.]

[I uploaded the pertinent 1:08 section of the chapter with music if you'd like to hear it.] I am proud of the way it turned out! 

I hope these thoughts are helpful. Send me the link to your video when you finish it; I'd love to see it! Best wishes for your health, success, and prosperity!

Bonus reason #1 to create your own stuff:

Copywriters have known for years that the word FREE is one of the most powerful and compelling words in the English language. If you can give away something valuable for free, you can get the widest range of potential buyers to sample your products, which in this case, includes my voice and interpretation, my audiobook production skills, my ability to write an effective script for a video, and my creativity in video production.

When I hear the same thing in quick succession from 2 or more people who aren't related to each other and have no vested interest in the comments, I feel the Universe is giving me a sign to pay attention! 

Such was the case this week with the classic motivational book As A Man Thinketh by James Allen, originally published in 1902. I don't remember, but I think this work was referenced in The Secret. Since I am vitally interested in the power of our thoughts and words to create our reality, I recently downloaded the free audiobook of this work available from LearnOutLoud.com. 

I began listening to it on 13 July. Ten minutes after I started listening, I decided I had heard enough. The audiobook narrator included at least 3 stumbled words, several lipsmacks and an uninteresting method of delivery. With the availability of low-cost and free audio editing software, I am incredulous that someone would choose to leave the stumbles and extraneous noises in an audiobook, even one offered for free. An audiobook is a thing of permanence. I would like to think that people would seek out my audiobooks 100 years from now, just as I was seeking out Allen's book. 

I was showing my new business cards to a friend of mine this afternoon. She said she had a book that she wanted me to see. She and I have had many great discussions about the extreme power of our thoughts, and the book was on that subject. Which book do you think she recommended? Yep, that's right -- As A Man Thinketh by James Allen. Although I had abandoned the free audiobook, the Universe was telling me to give the book another try! I told my friend that I would get the book tonight. 

However, I wasn't the only person who made a special trip to the book store. The store was crowded with people waiting for midnight, when the last Harry Potter book goes on sale. Someone who has been living under a rock or totally new to the country might think that tonight was Halloween, given the number of young people dressed in costume at the mall. Of course, they were flocking to the book store. They were not looking for a title associated with the Law of Attraction to help them live their lives to the best potential. No, all of those young people and their parents were at the book store to buy the final installment about the boy who lived! 

I am not still at the store, waiting to get my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I will, however, buy the audiobook version consisting of 17 CDs sometime over the weekend. (I doubt that I will be wearing a costume when I buy it, though!) I encourage anyone interested in performing audiobooks to listen to Jim Dale's masterful narration of any book in this series. You can download the previous 6 books and thousands of other audiobooks on iTunes. I would imagine that this final book will be loaded on ITunes in the near future. 

Also note the high level of production quality in one of these books. The series is so popular that the audiobook is published simultaneously with the hardback edition. Jim Dale didn't even have the opportunity to read the entire book before entering the recording studio. He read the book in segments of 100 pages. For a fascinating article about Jim Dale and his role as narrator of the Harry Potter series, you will want to read this feature story published 17 July in the New York Times.

Success leaves tracks,

I saw a post on another blog a few minutes ago that compelled me to respond. Someone else had commented that they were wary of authors reading their own books for the audio version because reading aloud is hard to do properly. The podiobooks blog author asserted that reading aloud for audiobooks could not be difficult since that person's mother read to him/her when s/he was a child. Before I answered, I guess I should have noticed that the post was filed under Rants. Anyway, I'm including my comments about the difficulty imposed by audiobook narration here on my blog for your comments and discussion.

As an audiobook narrator, I agree with the original post and Tim's reply to this message. Reading aloud is not hard in the sense that lives aren't hanging in the outcome or the balance of world power won't shift with every utterance. However, lifting sentences off the printed page and breathing life into them so that they flow effortlessly while maintaining the author's perspective is an acquired skill.

I know how to write words. I can use a pen and paper to form words, or I can type very fast on my computer in a word processing program. I constantly use this ability to write in order to produce a variety of things: proposals for voice-over projects, blog posts, letters to friends and family, etc.

Yet I would say that writing a novel is hard. (There's that word again.) Writing a novel that becomes a published work of material seems even more difficult. How many people say they would like to write a novel, and how many people actually DO it? To become a published novelist such as Mr. Gaiman, one must have tremendous energy and focus. One must be able to take an ordinary skill that most people possess, like the ability to write words, and be able to string those words together in a fashion that would interest other people enough to want to pay to read them. I haven't been able to do it. Writing a novel therefore seems like hard work to me.

I can understand the original poster's view about being wary of audiobooks performed by the author. Audiobook narration is a performance, that, like the printed book, will last forever. It's not like a child's mother reading a bedtime story where the main goal is to lull the listener to sleep. Neither the child nor the mother care about the quality of the reading.

Audiobook listeners, on the other hand, DO care about the quality of the narration. Audiobooks are an intimate medium. The reason people enjoy reading so much is because their imagination is running the movie of the words in their head. A good audiobook narrator can make the audio version of a book seem like a movie, where someone who is not as adept at this type of performance can ruin the experience for the listener.

A good narrator will make the performance transparent and SEEM like the easiest thing on earth....just like talking. However, good narrators usually have completed professional training in voice-over and also have thoroughly prepared the material they are reading by researching pronunciations and determining characterizations before they ever walked into the recording studio.

I am a member of Susan's inner circle coaching program and have taken several classes that she sponsored. One reason I like the Inner Circle so much is because we have a monthly teleclass. We usually speak with someone in the voice-over industry, but we also have branched out and talked with experts in business areas like marketing. I was excited last night because we spoke with my friend and teacher Hillary Huber about audiobooks.

Hillary was just nominated for an Audie Award by the Audio Publishers Association (I linked to the complete list of finalists). The Grammys only have 2 categories for spoken word, so the Audie awards were established to recognize excellence within the audiobook industry. Hillary's nomination for this prestigious award was in the mystery category for the book A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Reed.

Hillary talked with us about her process of researching the book prior to recording it. It's not enough for her to simply look up pronunciations of words. Whenever possible, she contacts the author to glean insights about the characters.

She also talked about how she obtained the work. The audiobook industry is burgeoning, and voice talent can independently obtain work without an agent.

Next month, Susan is sponsoring a very specialized workshop in NY on obtaining work in audiobooks. The class will be taught by Pat Fraley and Hillary Huber, and it will be limited to 12 attendees. Special guests in this upcoming class will be multiple Audie-award winner Barbara Rosenblat (who is once again nominated this year) and Grammy-winning producer Paul Ruben, who will direct you in the studio. You will produce your audiobook demo while you're in the workshop.

I took this class with Pat and Hillary in LA. They are lovely people and fantastic teachers. You can read about my experiences in that class on my blog. As marvelous as the LA class was, I think this upcoming New York class will be even better due to the presence of these particular guests. I almost wish I could go again!

On-going training is a necessity in this business. If you call Susan's offices, please tell them that I referred you. You will always receive excellent value for the money with her programs.

I was shocked and saddened to open my e-mail this evening and find this message from Michele Cobb, president of the Audio Publishers Association:

I was privileged to meet Kate at an APA conference a few years ago. I remember her as a smart, kind and funny person who generously shared her knowledge with others. She impressed me that day with her precision in pronunciation, and I frantically took note of the various dictionaries that she mentioned using in her work. She was a shining role model to me as she excelled as both a narrator and a producer. Words are inadequate to describe her loss not only to the audiobook industry but to the world.

I found an article in the Seattle Times that provides more details about Kate Fleming's illustrious background and this tragedy, which actually occurred on Thursday, 14 December.

I have experienced loss in my life, and I send my deepest empathy to Kate's partner, family and friends during this dark time.