So... I'm making an audiobook

Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Snorting his way across the USA
Not of my most recent book, but the one before that. This is the 'cover' artwork. I'm glad I chose to do this cover myself, since I had to reformat it in to a square.

conrad_cover_audio.jpg

I'm not really an audiobook person myself, but I've been approached by a professional narrator who specializes in action adventure. It's an expensive thing to produce. You can't just read your book in to a voice recorder, or use a computer generated voice. These things have to be professionally narrated, and recorded in a sound studio to some stringent audio specifications before the audiobook distributors will take them. The more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became with the idea. The thing about ebooks, and POD print books, is that any idiot and their inbred stepcousin can produce them. So there is a lot of junk out there. Well, a lot of good stuff, but 'your' stuff gets lost in the crowd. I wish I would have started at least five years before I did. Audiobooks are a different story. Inbred stepcousins typically aren't willing to spend anywhere from $1,500 to $4,000 to make an audiobook, and even if they were, narrators won't touch them if the writing is junk.

So we're about, I don't know, maybe 20 percent in to the process. I listened to the initial 15 minute sample, and was pretty happy with the results. I'm looking at mid November to have it completed. It's a very different process than an ebook production, and I'm learning as I go. It's an experiment. I'm not throwing out AMU's lately, so it's worth a gamble.

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Oh FYI this is my most recent work. If the whole audiobook thing turns out to be a success, then I will probably attack this next, and then start working backwards.
 
So how do you go about finding some one willing to read it and then read it aloud for money? Is there like a service that hooks you up with people?
 
flhrci said:
So how do you go about finding some one willing to read it and then read it aloud for money? Is there like a service that hooks you up with people?
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According to one voice-over artist on YT, Amazon keeps a website of books they want narrated — and they pay poorly. He recommends newbies do it anyway for practice and getting their chops going as well as their equipment and production quality up, but then look for more lucrative advertising and other work.

Audiobooks are the low level slog at the beginning of a successful voice-over career apparently. Lots of back and forth with the author asking how they want things pronounced, etc. Hours and hours in a home audio booth, and the voice-over editors are extremely picky. Lots of retakes and editing to jam fixed sections into the original recording. (As in hourly pay is abysmal...)

If you’re accurate AND fast at editing you can squeak out a living — barely — he says.

Mike Delgadio if anyone is searching. I watch him for his mic reviews. His demo tracks are fun too. Great voice.
 
flhrci said:
So how do you go about finding some one willing to read it and then read it aloud for money? Is there like a service that hooks you up with people?
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Yes, there are a few, including audiobook distributors themselves, including Amazon, and Draft 2 Digital. The latter is an ebook aggregator (like Smashwords) that distributes ebooks to retail sites like Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a few others. There are also writing forums that will link authors with narrators.

denverpilot said:
According to one voice-over artist on YT, Amazon keeps a website of books they want narrated — and they pay poorly. He recommends newbies do it anyway for practice and getting their chops going as well as their equipment and production quality up, but then look for more lucrative advertising and other work.

Audiobooks are the low level slog at the beginning of a successful voice-over career apparently. Lots of back and forth with the author asking how they want things pronounced, etc. Hours and hours in a home audio booth, and the voice-over editors are extremely picky. Lots of retakes and editing to jam fixed sections into the original recording. (As in hourly pay is abysmal...)

If you’re accurate AND fast at editing you can squeak out a living — barely — he says.

Mike Delgadio if anyone is searching. I watch him for his mic reviews. His demo tracks are fun too. Great voice.
Click to expand...

It probably depends on the individual. The narrator I'm working with charges an hourly rate of $225, and has no overheads other than taxes, so the fee will be based on a presumed time estimate based on word count. If it takes him twice as long to produce it as he expects, he's still pulling in some good money. And by the way, based on other inquiries I've made, that is one of the cheaper rates.
 
My BIL does quite a few audiobooks and other VO work. He's also been involved with at least one very high profile video game. He works constantly and just dropped about $10k on an iso booth so he can work from home without having to wait until midnight when the rest of the house is asleep.
 
Sac Arrow said:
It probably depends on the individual. The narrator I'm working with charges an hourly rate of $225, and has no overheads other than taxes, so the fee will be based on a presumed time estimate based on word count. If it takes him twice as long to produce it as he expects, he's still pulling in some good money. And by the way, based on other inquiries I've made, that is one of the cheaper rates.
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Makes sense.

Probably bypassing whatever system Amazon has to suck away their “cut” for the site that puts artists in touch with authors, also helps.

Or ... so I would guess... based upon Amazon’s other business dealings overall... :)

I suspect Mike doesn’t exactly share his best ways of making money in his “you too can get started in voiceover” videos either, like a lot of YT channels doing that sort of thing. ;-)
 
denverpilot said:
Makes sense.

Probably bypassing whatever system Amazon has to suck away their “cut” for the site that puts artists in touch with authors, also helps.

Or ... so I would guess... based upon Amazon’s other business dealings overall... :)

I suspect Mike doesn’t exactly share his best ways of making money in his “you too can get started in voiceover” videos either, like a lot of YT channels doing that sort of thing. ;-)
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Right. Now, I don't know how Audibles works in terms of their cut for work produced through them, but I have decided to not use Amazon Audibles as a publishing venue. I'm actually using Audiobooks Unlimited. For a reader, they offer free audiobooks. For an author, they are an aggregator for audiobooks and have wide distribution options, including to Amazon Audibles itself. I think this makes more sense, since from what I am reading, wide distribution is more lucrative in the audiobook venue.

This is very different from the ebook venue, where there is Amazon, and then there is everyone else. Amazon has the most professional ebook platform out there. And you don't have to be exclusive to Amazon unless you are in their 'Select' program, where Select customers pay a flat monthly fee and they can download and read a certain number of Select titles, for free. Authors are paid on the number of pages read (yes they do track that) at roughly half a cent a page. Oh, and it is a TOXIC program, for authors. I can explain later for anyone that is interested.

Now... I can also, for ebooks, skip Amazon, and use D2D, which for about the past year, also ports back to Amazon. It makes tax accounting marginally simpler, but since I sell about 20 books on Amazon than every 1 I do for titles ported through D2D, that makes no sense as in the Amazon KDP versions are more professionally formatted and presented. The penalty for using D2D to distribute titles on Amazon, is that you can't also have it simultaneously published as a KDP title.

Unlike independent ebooks, there are contracts involved. Through Audiobooks Unlimited, they call out the contract language but the actual signed and executed contract is between narrator and author. Obviously AU has it's contract terms but it is a TOS issue, not a physical sign and return contract issue. Think POA vs. @SixPapaCharlie parody videos. The last one he had a professional voice over. POA (Youtube actually, but let's give POA some credit as we are his main audience, I think) is the facilitator, and 6PC, his narrator, and our beloved Bonanza owner and stage prop Adam Zucker are the producers.

Trust me, I'm no expert on the audiobook venue yet. I'm new to the game, and I'm learning as I go.
 
Interesting tidbits of the business end of being an author.

my brother’s ex has a couple of siblings who are in theater, but supplement with a home studio for recording audio books...or maybe it’s the other way around. ;)

Good luck on the venture!
 
Taking notes for when I finish writing my book...
 
I constantly listen to audio books - in the car, while flying or at home. I've gotten to the point where I pick the books read by specific narrators - my absolute favorite being George Guidell. Fortunately he narrates a lot of action/ adventure books.

I hate to say it but I can't stand listening to woman narrators. They all seem to try to inject too much emotion into the reading. Like they want to make you feel something by the tone and emphasis in their voice. This makes it near impossible for me to listen too.

In my opinion, the words of the story should carry the feeling and emotion of it. I think Mr. Guidell did this the best.

Anyway, since this sounds like a new area for you, I thought I would add a perspective as to the importance of the narrator.
 
I am a huge consumer of audiobooks. I probably listen to one or two per week. Before, I would read actual books. I somehow just can’t do ebooks. For me, I can tolerate a less interesting story as long as there is quality narration. I can’t listen to even the most fascinating story if the narration is bad. The truth is, there is so much good content out there, I don’t have to. Good luck to you Sac, I look forward to giving your book a listen.
 
Lndwarrior said:
I hate to say it but I can't stand listening to woman narrators. They all seem to try to inject too much emotion into the reading. Like they want to make you feel something by the tone and emphasis in their voice. This makes it near impossible for me to listen too.
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My wife read to the kids a lot when they were younger. I think there are book types that work with female voices and some that don’t. When my youngest daughter was learning to read, she had picked up so much inflection that I told my wife we needed to get her a job reading audio books for toddlers.
 
Lndwarrior said:
I hate to say it but I can't stand listening to woman narrators. They all seem to try to inject too much emotion into the reading. Like they want to make you feel something by the tone and emphasis in their voice. This makes it near impossible for me to listen too.
Click to expand...
I would suspect that has much more to do with the producers of audiobooks and what they believe the market wants from female voice talent than with the voice talent itself.

Put another way, send an email to three to your audiobook source telling them why you avoid buying content with female narrators and that may change.
 
Well that is a good question. A romance novel probably could be narrated either way. An action adventure novel I think has to be narrated by a male voice even during the romantic times. I dunno, this is new territory for me. My narrator recommends minimal to no accent.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Well that is a good question. A romance novel probably could be narrated either way. An action adventure novel I think has to be narrated by a male voice even during the romantic times. I dunno, this is new territory for me. My narrator recommends minimal to no accent.
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Actually, I keep hoping that I will come across a female narrator who i can listen to. I am the one who is always rooting for women to beat men at everything. I worked in a field where women were pretty much excluded for many years and I always did everything to encourage them and promote them in the industry.
This is the only area I can think of where I haven't yet found a female narrator who i like.
 
All in all I’m glad you write these things, Sac. Looks like work! :)

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flhrci said:
Did I miss the "Thinking about writing a book" thread?
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It was thrown in the ending Cloud Nine thread. I’ve been planning on writing a book about flying dogs once I was done doing it for years.
 
GRG55 said:
...which I expect will be followed with the "Writing a book about thinking" thread.
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That would almost certainly be a worst seller. Thinking is unfashionable these days.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
That would almost certainly be a worst seller. Thinking is unfashionable these days.
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Alas, I think you may be correct in that observation.

It's an emotive, low attention span Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok world now
 
Lndwarrior said:
Actually, I keep hoping that I will come across a female narrator who i can listen to. I am the one who is always rooting for women to beat men at everything. I worked in a field where women were pretty much excluded for many years and I always did everything to encourage them and promote them in the industry.
This is the only area I can think of where I haven't yet found a female narrator who i like.
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I thought the narrator for this one was fine... https://librivox.org/the-curse-of-capistrano-dramatic-reading-by-johnston-mcculley/ Can't beat the price, either.
 
Lndwarrior said:
I constantly listen to audio books - in the car, while flying or at home. I've gotten to the point where I pick the books read by specific narrators - my absolute favorite being George Guidell. Fortunately he narrates a lot of action/ adventure books.

I hate to say it but I can't stand listening to woman narrators.
Click to expand...

I'll have to look for his stuff. I'm partial to Scott Brick as a narrator; he also does a lot of action/adventure book narration.
I've heard some female narrators that are fine, but I'm trying to get through a Grisham novel now, and the narrator (don't recall the name, and the disks are in the car) is a distraction. She really can't do male voices at all...
 
GaryM said:
I'll have to look for his stuff. I'm partial to Scott Brick as a narrator; he also does a lot of action/adventure book narration.
I've heard some female narrators that are fine, but I'm trying to get through a Grisham novel now, and the narrator (don't recall the name, and the disks are in the car) is a distraction. She really can't do male voices at all...
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Scott Brick is my second choice!
 
It is now complete. Has been for a while, and now it's in the distribution phase. So far it is in:

Google Play
Apple Books
Nook Audibles
Scribd

And a few others. Still awaiting Amazon and Kobo. The Zon is backlogged by about a month. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Google Play has a decent preview: Apple Books does too but there is no way to link it.

https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Alex_Ryan_Conrad_s_Honor?id=AQAAAECcL3Nv_M
 
So...

Audiobooks Unleashed has given me some promo codes that people can use to redeem a free copy (i.e. no payment details required) through Kobo.

But, there is a catch. If you want one, I ask that you leave a review of it on Amazon Audibles (and any other Audiobook sites that you are willing to expend the time for.) To play by the rules, you have to disclose that you have received a free copy for promotion. Think, FAA pro rata share but slightly, only slightly, more logical.

If you are interested, PM me.
 
Ted said:
It was thrown in the ending Cloud Nine thread. I’ve been planning on writing a book about flying dogs once I was done doing it for years.
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Of course you can only use one of these 2 possible titles....

Dog Is My Copilot,

or

There But For The Grace Of Dog Go I.
 
Well I can say at this point that people are really loving the audible, even if they don't care for the ebook or hard copy. I guess there is something in my narrators presentation that makes it special.
 
cd1.jpg cd2.jpg cd3.jpg

Now this is a retro way to listen to an audible! A 6 CD set! It's basically the audible equivalent of a print book - audibles for the luddite.
 
I've been told all my life I have a radio voice. Then my wife let loose that she thought I would make my millions as a writer.

But here you are, Sac, successful in navigating both those perils, and I just drink my coffee in the morning and go to the airport to tinker on / and or fly my plane, etc.

Yay for you. But, yay for me too!
 
catmandu said:
I've been told all my life I have a radio voice. Then my wife let loose that she thought I would make my millions as a writer.

But here you are, Sac, successful in navigating both those perils, and I just drink my coffee in the morning and go to the airport to tinker on / and or fly my plane, etc.

Yay for you. But, yay for me too!
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I’m in the negative for return on investment but I do have a following and feel responsible to them. I am no hotshot. Just a guy relaying experience, much like you will find in a hangar party.
 
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