Behind the scenes of audiobook narration

Our decision to live on the road presented an opportunity to reinvent myself, in a way. I loved my job as the School Administrative Assistant at a middle school, but sadly, I could not bring that job with me to work remotely.

Another passion of mine had been reignited in the last few years...acting on stage with community theaters. That also is a bit of a bugger to do remotely!

An actor friend of mine posted that she had completed an audiobook and I thought, "Maybe I could do that?"

I felt like it would meld my passion for acting with something I could do from anywhere.

After a lot of questions back and forth (and dragging my feet for a while), I set up my profile on ACX.com in late August 2023. ACX is Amazon's platform where authors and narrators can connect to get their book produced into an audiobook for Audible.

My daily routine consists of searching for new projects on ACX. You can filter by genre, gender, type of payment, voice accents, etc. Each author submits an audition script that you download, rehearse, record/edit/master, and then upload your best performance.

And then you wait! Some things you hear back on within a few days and other auditions sit out there for over a month before you get contacted. ACX will send an email titled "Regarding your ACX Audition" that is the thanks, but no thanks, message. You can message the rights holder, aka author, with questions before you audition and while you are waiting for a response. Again, reply times vary or I have gotten no response to messages, as well.

The joys of being in the arts. You put yourself out there and hope for the best. Everyone has a different voice in mind for their project, just like you might hear a certain voice as you read a physical book to yourself. It is very subjective, and you go into it knowing that you may not be "it" for this project.

A few people have asked how much money you make doing audiobooks. There are three different ways of getting paid for a project:

- Royalty Share: no money is received for your time working on the project; your earnings are completely based on how many audiobooks are sold. You get 20% of the sales of the book (ACX gets 60% of the royalties and then you split the remaining 40% with the author)

- Per Finished Hour: an hourly rate you receive based on the length of the book. For example, a 12 hour book would pay you 12 hours times the agreed upon hourly rate. $50-$100, $100-$200, $200-$400, $400-$1000

- Royalty Share Plus: you get both a Per Finished Hour rate that would fall in the lower ranges AND get 20% of sales

Generically speaking, you put in about 6 hours of work to get to 1 finished hour of a book. (Reading, researching, creating character voices, actually recording, listening/editing that recording, mastering the recording to get a quality finished product.) I would expect I put in 10x per finished hour on my first project, when you factor in the steep learning curve of using a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for the first time. (I started in GarageBand, but switched to Logic Pro X which allows for seamless crossfades when stopping/starting or cutting audio regions.)

My first audiobook narration went live 12/15/23: Carry Me Away written by Ashley Weston. My name is searchable on the internet now! That's kinda cool.

I learned a ton in getting that baby produced. There may not have been blood shed in the process, but there were definitely sweat and tears! (Thank you to Chad for building me back up on those frustrating days when I was very overwhelmed.)

If you care to have a listen, here is a link!  https://www.audible.com/pd/B0CQDS2ZNB/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWU-BK-ACX0-379818&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_379818_pd_us

I recently finished my second audiobook, and that is in the review process with ACX as I write this! Stay tuned for release information coming soon.