Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

ACX

10 Things I Learned About Speaking at a Conference

On Friday, 10 October 2014, I presented the topic “Setting Sail In Audiobooks” at the Georgia Romance Writers’ (GRW) annual Moonlight and Magnolias Conference. Although I gave a polished talk with a fabulous multimedia presentation, the overall experience is not one I want to repeat any time soon.

I’ll be honest — before yesterday, I had never given this sort of presentation. I had done presentations in my government career, of course, so I had no fear of speaking to a group.

I raise the point about this kind of presentation because a more experienced public speaker might have been able to avoid the technical and communications problems I encountered. I therefore thought it might be helpful to share some things that could have gone better to save others from a similar plight.

1. Only go when you are INVITED.

In January of 2014, I sent a message to the Georgia Romance Writers to inquire about speaking to their group about audiobooks at a monthly meeting and/or the annual conference. The conference chairperson responded that I could submit a workshop proposal for the conference. If my proposal was selected, I would have to pay the conference registration fee for attendees.

I responded that I was unwilling to pay registration fees since I wouldn’t be an attendee. My thinking was that I was offering to HELP them for free. I certainly was not going to PAY for the privilege of spending my time, energy, and creativity in developing an engaging and informative talk and then more time at the actual presentation.

In March, after the proposal window had closed, the conference chairperson wrote to me:

Are you still interested in presenting at the Moonlight & Magnolias conference in October? We have an opening in the workshop schedule, and since you’re local and provide a service to authors, we’re willing to waive the registration requirement.

My gut whispered to me that they didn’t want ME. They just wanted someone to FILL A SLOT and were SETTLING for me “since I’m local and provide a service to authors”. I chose to dismiss those thoughts, telling myself they were just my own inner resistance to stepping outside my comfort zone instead of a warning signal. I responded that I would be delighted to accept the slot.

2. Ask for equipment to transmit both the computer video and AUDIO.

I had to submit my equipment requests in June, long before I started creating my slide show. Even though my topic was AUDIObooks and AUDIO is my life, I didn’t think to specifically ask for equipment to transmit my computer AUDIO along with the screen display.

My snazzy slide show included 4 terrific videos that demonstrated key points. As I practiced my speech last week, I suddenly realized that the projector might not transmit the computer’s audio. I wrote to the conference coordinator, who said they only had a projector, and she didn’t think she could get speakers for my computer. She referred me to the hotel contact person to solve the audio problem. I’m guessing that no one at previous GRW conferences has ever had a multimedia show, so no one ever thought of or asked for audio equipment.

The hotel was only providing a microphone and podium. However, it could easily include the additional sound mixer configuration for my computer audio for an additional $130. GRW apparently was unwilling or unable to pay the additional fee.

]I had to solve the audio problem. My choices were:

  • Pay the hotel the $130 to set up the additional equipment.
  • Take an external speaker from home, perhaps even a studio monitor.
  • Remove the videos from the slide show.

I decided to take a Bluetooth speaker. I had to hold my microphone in front of the speaker in order to project its sound throughout the large ballroom.  I’ll have more to say about this solution in subsequent points.

3.  Test and re-test every aspect of your slide show.

My laptop worked well with a Bluetooth speaker that we had purchased from Williams and Sonoma. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that it must time-out after a certain amount of inactivity. When I got to the 2 videos at the end of my presentation, the Bluetooth speaker wouldn’t play the sound. I might have discovered that fact if I had played all of my videos with the external speaker during my rehearsals.

4.  Ensure that your name and presentation name are the way you want them to appear on the schedule and program.

When I received the conference schedule in September, I just looked for my name to see the date and time of my session. I didn’t notice that my session title was listed as the very bland and vague “Audiobook Presentation” instead of the name I had given it “Setting Sail In Audiobooks”.

 

Of all the presentations, mine was the only one with such a non-descript name. The other presentations retained the names given them by the speakers. Some of the presentation names contained more characters than mine, so my presentation name would have fit in the space provided.

I only noticed this undesirable and unauthorized change on Thursday night before my Friday session. Sure enough, the printed program listed my presentation name as “Audiobook Presentation”. This name probably translated into a lower attendance level for my session.

At least my name was spelled correctly.

My presentation had an intriguing name.
The slides continued the sailing theme.

5.  Visit the room where you’ll present and know how the equipment will be configured at least 1 day before your session.

I did visit the hotel the day before the conference. I stood on the stage at the podium in a ballroom of 25 tables with 10 chairs at each table. I envisioned the room full to capacity of people who were interested in my topic and excited to get my information about using ACX to create audiobooks.

The hotel A/V director told me that GRW had not ordered a screen for Friday. I had to send yet another message to the conference chairperson about the screen. She assured me that they would have a screen for Friday.

I naively thought that in the ballroom setup, the screen would be ON THE STAGE, behind me at the podium. I didn’t know until I got in the room for my session that the screen was a small thing set off in the far corner with a projector on top of a table! I asked them to move the table and screen closer to me so that I could still use the podium. I didn’t want to hold the mic for the entire session while also bending down to the table to read my presenter notes from my computer.

On Monday, I had asked the conference chairperson what kind of cable connected to the projector. I didn’t get that answer until I walked in the room on Friday.

6.  Plan for all contingencies.

Take all kinds of cables and adapters that you might need. I had both HDMI and VGA cables and adapters so that I was prepared for any projector connection.

Print your presentation notes. Thank heaven I had taken this step because Powerpoint on my Mac never gave me the option for dual monitors. The attendees viewed the slide show, and I referred to my paper notes.

Make sure your printed presentation notes include the latest tweaks. I had changed the order of a couple of notes on Friday morning but didn’t print them. I was a little thrown during the presentation when the sequence was wrong.

7. Learn your moderator’s name and go over logistics and details the day before your session.

If I were a conference chairperson, I’d make sure that:

  • every session speaker knew the name and contact info of the session moderator
  • the moderator would ensure that the speaker had everything she needed and felt welcome
  • the moderator would be on hand to help the speaker get into the room

The GRW conference chairperson sent me no information other than the fact that I would have a moderator. She also said she’d be around to help connect the computer to the projector.

As a person outside of the organization, I expected more consideration and communication than I received. I’m sure it’s a big job to plan a conference, so perhaps the chairperson was overwhelmed by the task. I can see now that I should have been persistent with my questions until I got answers.

I met my moderator about 3:55pm for my 4:00pm session.

8.  Be self-reliant.

I can thank my parents, perhaps especially my mother, for teaching me this lesson early in life.

No one from GRW met me after I arrived at the hotel to help unload my car. I had already planned to get one of the hotel luggage carts to unload my briefcase with computer, a box of postcards for my door prizes, and a gift basket and 4 gift bags for door prizes. Fortunately, the bellman said I could use the cart for the next hour. I actually kept it for 2 hours since I didn’t have time to return it before I started my presentation.

I met my moderator as we were walking in the door. I appreciated her help during the setup, and the conference coordinator did come back and help her move the table and projector. I thought I was going to have to do it.

9.  If you are giving away door prizes, offer raffle tickets as people walk in the door. 

To celebrate my latest audiobook and first romance FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL…, I made 4 gift bags and 1 grand prize gift basket containing some cool swag that ACX and Belle Books generously provided to me along with all of the types of candy mentioned in the book. I had printed postcards and attached stickers to 5 of them. My plan was to pass out the cards at a certain point during the presentation and determine the winners before I ended my talk. I inserted the marked cards throughout my box of postcards.

I was shocked and dismayed when only about 25 people showed up for my presentation.

My moderator passed out my cards at the appointed time. When it came time to determine the winners, no one had a winning card. I was reminded of Michael Scott’s “Golden Ticket” idea in The Office. His hidden golden ticket idea didn’t work out well for him, and my specially-marked postcards didn’t work out well for me. It would have been so much easier and cheaper if I had just handed out raffle tickets to give away my door prizes.

10.  Give your best to the people who came to hear your talk.

The show must go on, so you’ve got to make lemonade….or something like that. Even though the size of my audience was not optimal, I knew that the people who were there came to hear me and wanted to learn about creating audiobooks. I did everything I could to make my presentation outstanding.

Well, I mostly did everything, but I wish I could’ve done something about the Bluetooth speaker so they could hear my last 2 videos. Those videos featured Colin Firth and Steve Martin. Just think — I was sharing a stage with Colin Firth and Steve Martin, but no one in the audience could hear them! 🙂

The people in the ballroom before me didn’t finish on time and wouldn’t leave the room until my moderator ushered them out after 4pm. I was late setting up, which made me even later in starting. I wanted to finish on time so I wouldn’t be rude to the person who was scheduled to speak at 5pm. Perhaps if I hadn’t felt so rushed for time, I might have troubleshot the Bluetooth speaker for a moment.

I really appreciated the attendees’ interest. A few people asked very thoughtful and intelligent questions at the end, and I had a delightful hallway conversation with one author as I was leaving.

I didn’t leave any business cards or my stack of postcards in their goody room. My hand-out in their binder included a copy of my business card and a link to a document I’ve compiled of audiobook resources for authors.

*******************

I spent months researching and collecting ideas for this presentation and weeks in creating the slide show. It would be a shame if all of that time, thought, energy, creativity, and money only benefitted the people who were in the room yesterday. Therefore, I’m going to convert my show to a video and add narration to it.

I may not ever present in person again at GRW, or any other writers’ organization, but I will continue to help authors through my blogs, videos, and forum posts.

How To Become An Audiobook Narrator

Are you thinking about getting into voiceover work? You’ll want to read this article that is devoted to that topic.

If you’re specifically interested in becoming an audiobook narrator, read on!

As you probably know, audiobooks have become mainstream entertainment. Consequently, many voiceover talent, screen and stage actors, and people in other fields are eager to become narrators. As I wrote previously:

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.

Before you do anything toward actually becoming a narrator, my first question to you is:

Do you actually LISTEN to audiobooks? If not, your first step should be to start listening to books. You can borrow audiobooks from the library or buy them on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

My second question to you is:

Have you taken my Audiobook Narrator Self-Assessment Quiz? I list 30 questions and discuss the answers in a series of 4 articles to help you decide whether you would be a good fit for this type of work. Take the quiz and come back to this post if your answers point you toward pursuing this career.

Develop Skills

If you have never recorded an audiobook, I suggest that you first watch prolific and award-winning audiobook narrator and teacher Sean Pratt‘s video “So You Want to Be An Audiobook Narrator”. Warning: You will be tested again!

Audiobook narration requires different skills than commercial voiceover or theatre acting, though either or both disciplines are very helpful toward becoming a successful narrator.

A great way to start developing these skills is to record for the blind, either locally or through Learning Ally. This option is a wonderful way to gain and practice skills in storytellng and production while being of service to the community.

I previously suggested that people volunteer for LibriVox. Be warned that LibriVox releases its recordings into the Public Domain, which means someone else could sell your recording and/or harvest your voice for AI without any compensation to you. For that reason, I no longer recommend newcomers volunteer there.

To do volunteer work through these sites, you would need a computer, a microphone, and some sort of audio editing program. Since Audacity is a free audio editor, many people start recording with it and move up to a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) that offers non-destructive editing. Be aware that proficiency in audio recording and editing comes with a learning curve. I wrote an article that lists 7 ways to get up to speed on your DAW. You also can do a Google search to find innumerable videos and blogs to help you learn audio editing techniques.

You might have to go to a designated studio to record for the blind as many of those organizations do not utilize remote narrators.

Like any performance art, audiobook narration is a highly competitive BUSINESS. It’s not a field in which you should expect on-the-job training. When you are cast to narrate a book, you are expected to know how to complete the project within your deadline.

I recommend that newcomers take classes from established coaches before creating a demo to gain work. Listeners expect a very high level of performance and pristine audio free of background sounds, mouth noises, etc.

Pat Fraley is a fabulous and highly entertaining voiceover and audiobook teacher. He often teaches narration classes with Scott Brick, a superstar narrator in the audiobook industry. If you can’t get to one of their classes, Pat also has home-study courses on his web site, along with The Gypsy’s Guide to Professional Home Recording. This guide is an excellent resource to help you create a better sounding studio on a budget. You’ll find other terrific, vetted audiobook coaches and consultants linked in the Connections section of my NarratorsRoadmap.com home page.

Find Work

With a demo and some storytelling and production skills, it’s time to start marketing yourself for work. Audible’s Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX.com) is a terrific site for beginners and professionals alike. Narrators can establish a profile that includes an unlimited number of samples. Author, agents, and publishers — collectively known as rights holders — post titles for which narrators can audition. Everyone participates for FREE! Audible created the site in 2011 in order to produce more audiobooks for the ever-growing market.

First, I recommend that you read my article and its comments on the ACX blog titled How to Act Like an Audiobook Narrator. Next, read my article 4 Keys to Becoming a Successful ACX Audiobook Producer.

You may also want to get my 3-hour webinar Put Yourself in the ACX Driver’s Seat, in which I go through the ACX system and show you how to evaluate listings and maximize your experience on the site.

The video below will give you some more info about working as a narrator through ACX, as well as some introductory coaching. Listen closely when Pat Fraley, Scott Brick, and Hillary Huber, another award-winning narrator, offer performance direction to some volunteers.

Be sure to watch the videos posted on the ACX site to learn how to create retail-ready audio that will meet ACX’s technical standards.

The majority of books posted on ACX are paid on a royalty share basis. You receive no money up front but receive royalties on each sale for 7 years. The royalty percentage is currently capped at 40%, which means you and the rights holder would each earn 20% of the proceeds. You will NOT earn 20% of the retail sales price due to the variances from Audible member credits, price reductions, Whispersync sales, and foreign currency exchanges. Due to the monetary risk involved with royalty share projects, many narrators refuse to do them.

However, money isn’t the only consideration when deciding whether to accept a royalty share offer. This article outlines other pros and cons of royalty share agreements.

If you decide to audition for royalty share projects, you’ll find some helpful tips about choosing a good project and managing your expectations in this post.  It also links to my post about my audiobook marketing articles on the ACX blog.

You should establish a profile on ACX if only to join the Facebook group named Indie (ACX And Others) Audiobook Narrators and Producers. Members of this very active group range from the newest person to industry veterans with years of experience and 100s of audiobooks to their credit. You could spend weeks reading and learning from the helpful discussions listed in the comprehensive group FAQ, which I created and maintain. The FAQ contains a link to a spreadsheet of proofers and editors.

Auditioning on ACX is just one way to find work as a narrator. I listed 9 other ideas in this essay. One of those suggestions was to start your own audiobook production company. I did (!), and I outlined my steps for you here. One narrator made a spreadsheet of the top 50 books they had heard, researched the producers and publishers associated with them, and contacted all of them. Another option is to license the audio rights to a favorite book, cast yourself to narrate it, and publish it yourself! This article will give you inspiration for that approach.

Manage Your Time

Once you start your first project, you might be surprised how much time is required to narrate, edit and master an audiobook before release. A rule of thumb is that 6 or more hours are needed in real-time for EXPERIENCED people to produce 1 finished hour of audio. While this blog post explains more about it, the time breaks down as:

  • 1 hour to pre-read each hour’s text and research pronunciations
  • 2 hours to record an hour’s worth of text (allows for re-takes due to stomach rumbles, coughs, or any other kind of mistake or noise)
  • 3 hours to edit, proof, and master the hour you just recorded

Not all of these tasks are necessarily performed by the narrator. The narrator working at home either must do them or pay another professional to do them. A book with a 10-hour finished time therefore may require 60 hours in real time to create.

You can use the word count to estimate the the finished time as described in this article about determining your rate.

Study Other Resources

I also recommend that you read these thoughtful articles and guides from other narrators about getting started in audiobook narration:

You may also find these books and audiobooks from industry veterans to be very helpful:

While other people who call themselves narrators have written books and/or created on-line courses, I’d advise that you look at the author’s audiobook credits on Audible before deciding to buy. Some people with little to no actual experience in this profession have written books to cash in on the audiobook boom. If most of the books in a narrator’s portfolio have a finished time of 3-4 hours or less and/or are book summaries, diet plans, or cookbooks, I suggest that you spend your money on a product from a more well-established person who has narrated popular genres.

You’ll find even MORE resources on my site NarratorsRoadmap.com!

Being a professional audiobook narrator is the fulfillment of a dream for me! Is it also your dream? By taking the actions you’ve read here, you’ll be on your way to bringing your own dream to fruition! I’d love to hear from you when you publish your first audiobook!

 

Last updated 10/30/21

How I Started My Audiobook Publishing Company

During the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, I started seeing this wonderful ad from Dell, titled “Beginnings”:

Perhaps it caught my attention because I have my own story about the quiet beginnings for a new business:

Date: 10/6/06
Time: 10:10am
Place: 10634, the cabin number of a cruise ship docked in Mykonos, Greece

Becoming an audiobook publisher has been a rough road, full of potholes, downed trees, and diverging paths that didn’t necessarily lead me in the direction I wanted to go. Only by trudging forward and refusing to give up was I able to eventually reach the destination.

I offer this post as a road map for becoming an audiobook publisher on ACX with a public domain book. If you want to publish a book still under copyright, you may want to skip down to the end for more information.

Initial Obstacles

I recently wrote about how ideas love speed. I did take several immediate actions 7.5 years ago when I had the idea to create an audiobook publishing company. I read several books that hadn’t been made into audiobooks and contacted the authors about obtaining the audio rights.

One author was interested, but the idea seemed to be squelched by her agent’s lawyers, who were reluctant to be involved with a start-up. Another author wanted to narrate her book. It took her several more years, but I see on Audible that she did narrate her audiobook. A third author was someone rather famous. I didn’t receive a response to my inquiries, but I see that her book is now on Audible, too. Perhaps I gave her the idea.

Life intervened. With the loss of my mother and changes on my day job, I put my dream of becoming an audiobook publisher on the shelf. While ideas love speed, some ideas can’t be implemented immediately and often take years to develop.

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

— Victor Hugo

With the advent of ACX, I knew that I could finally see this idea through to fruition!

Rather than start with a book from a contemporary author as I originally envisioned, I decided to start Jewel Audiobooks with what I thought would be a simpler project:  a book from the public domain (PD).

On 1 January 2013, I decided to publish the audiobook of The Heart of the New Thought by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, originally published in 1903. I wanted to produce a shorter work that would be new to audio and had a message I want to share. I often find myself in conversations about the power of our thoughts and words, so this little volume seemed perfect.

[Read more…] about How I Started My Audiobook Publishing Company

Karen’s Primer on Narrating Royalty Share Audiobooks

Last updated 1/11/23

 

One of my mentors, who is a prolific and award-winning audiobook narrator, advised me that it’s better to be working on spec than to be idle. Working on spec enables you to build your portfolio and hone your craft as a narrator.

As a result, I now use royalty share audiobooks from ACX to fill holes in my schedule. You may find that certain audio publishers also want to pay in a royalty share agreement. All of my experience with royalty share work is through ACX, so all of my comments below pertain to that system.

If you have no experience in doing audiobooks, you might want to first volunteer your time. When I restarted my audiobook career, I first recorded a book for LibriVox. I outlined the many reasons and advantages of this project in my post Reasons to Create Your Own Stuff. Note that one big advantage in volunteering is that you will be able to figure out your most efficient workflow — i.e., learning how to punch-in — under no time pressure while simultaneously adding to world literacy.

The one big downside with doing a LibriVox book is that anyone can use your work — including those who harvest your recordings to train AI speech — without compensating you because you donate the completed audiobook to the public domain. Juan Carlos Bagnell wrote an excellent article on his blog about this practice. My LibriVox audiobook A Woman Who Went to Alaska is routinely offered for sale on eBay. I no longer recommend that people volunteer to record for LibriVox.

Instead, I highly encourage you to volunteer to read for your state’s reading service for the blind or Learning Ally to gain and improve skills, as well as provide a needed service to the world.

Also, even if you are a trained actor, you’ll want to watch this video for more info about ACX and a free performance coaching session from Pat Fraley, Scott Brick, and Hillary Huber.

Method

First, you should know that creating an audiobook requires a significant investment of time. As a conservative rule of thumb, an experienced narrator/team will need 6 hours in real time to produce 1 finished hour of audio, from pre-read to file upload. The amount of time needed will vary by a number of factors, including the type of text (some require more pronunciation research than others), the narrator’s experience level, whether the narrator is outsourcing editing and proofing, etc.

Therefore, be sure to pick a book you love as you will be spending a lot of time with it. Audition for any title that interests you and for which your voice and skills are a good fit, but choose carefully!

I used to hold off on doing auditions, thinking that several offers might come at once. More often than not, though, the rights holders can be very slow to make a selection and do not communicate with narrators/producers at all during the process. Now I audition routinely as each audition allows me to continue developing my storytelling skills by reading different authors and genres.

Still, I try to stack the odds of snagging a great book more in my favor by doing additional research before submitting an audition.

You can ask the rights holder how many copies are sold each month in other formats. One of my narrator colleagues won’t consider voicing a royalty share book unless the print sales are equal to at least 1,000 copies a month. However, the print sales aren’t always a good predictor of the sales for an audiobook. Just like the stock market, past performance of a book is no indicator of future sales.

Whether doing a book in a royalty share deal or pay per finished hour, I’ve found it very helpful to read the reviews of the book even before doing the audition. Many times the reviewers will point to a TV show or movie. These hooks into popular culture give you valuable insight as you develop your characterizations and performance. Reviewers also point out things like incorrect word usage or bad grammar.

I also evaluate the book by using the Amazon Look Inside feature. I choose to narrate books that have few if any curse words (and when used, they should be appropriate to the situation or dialogue and not gratuitous), no explicit sex or graphic violence, and no vampires/werewolves/zombies. I can search the book for these things and also get a better sense of the author’s writing style by reading all of the available excerpts. Sometimes the Kindle edition is offered for free, so I go ahead and download it.

I look at the author’s web site and blog.  This step would be even more important if you’re considering a self-published title. I want to know that an author is as serious about writing as I am about narrating. I want to see that they will work to promote their work even more than I do.

I like to pick books in a series, as I outlined on my Facebook fan page.

If you are chosen to narrate multiple books, you don’t have to start all of them immediately! You can communicate with the rights holder and suggest your dates before accepting the contract. You may even build up a queue of work to perform in this manner.

Royalty share work should not come ahead of paying work. I always have 2-4 months on any royalty share contract so that I have the time to take on audiobooks and my regular voice-over work that pays up front. My view is: The rights holder can have it Fast. Good. Cheap. Pick any two.

I use Evernote during the book prep as I described in this Facebook comment.

I outsource my editing and quality review when I have a stipend. If I don’t have a stipend, I often edit the book myself.

Marketing

The publisher or author doesn’t always market the audiobook. Many of the titles on ACX are backlist and don’t have a marketing budget with them. Even if the rights holder did market the book, I still do my own marketing. I use social media extensively to get the word out.  In fact, I love marketing so much that I wrote 2 articles for the ACX blog on topic that are loaded with tips and tactics specific to marketing audiobooks. This article on my blog links to both of them.

I may also use Google+, a press release, and/or a video to promote my work. In fact, I created a book trailer for In The Shadow of Billy the Kid: Susan McSween and The Lincoln County War. I posted the video here on the blog and across social media.

In addition. I’ll create a Google alert for the topic and/or do specialized searches and comment on blogs, in forums, and any other place where people discuss it. For instance, I’ve already mentioned my upcoming audiobook on the Facebook page for the movie Young Guns, which is about Billy The Kid. Someone commented about the birthday of the actress who played Susan McSween, so it was a great lead-in for my comment about the real woman! 🙂

I don’t do all of these things in one day or even in a week. Audiobook marketing is an on-going task.

Money

It bears repeating that royalty share audiobooks are a lot like the stock market: you can have some with amazing returns and some that are under-performers.

Generally, you won’t make a lot of money on just one book. It takes many royalty share books to generate sales for a sizable royalty check each month. Also, realize that your proceeds for each book will build up over time. The royalty agreement with Audible lasts for 7 years.

My sales numbers range from 14 copies (yes, only 14 units sold) on one book to another book with 1000s of copies sold, with an average payment of $2.70-3.00 per unit sold. While you think you will receive 25% of the proceeds, your net percentage is actually less since many of Audible’s members buy the books using their credits. Audible’s very nice Bounty Program pays $25.00 for each applicable sale and has made up for the lower royalty rates in my case.

If I had narrated only that one book with 14 units sold, I probably would still be waiting for a royalty check since you must have $10 in royalties before Audible issues payment. Direct deposit payments usually come around the 17th-20th of the next month, and checks arrive at the end of the next month.

Regardless of the type of payment you choose, you will receive a royalty statement each month for sales the previous month. You can monitor units sold in the ACX Dashboard, but you won’t know how much you earned for each title until you receive the printout. Statements usually arrive the last week of the next month or first week of the 2nd month following the sales period.

If Audible is paying a stipend on your book, note that the rights holder must APPROVE the finished product within 60 days of the date you signed the contract. Once you have the approval, you must send the invoice to Audible in order to be paid. You can find the invoice template in the Stipend Terms and Conditions link on this page. The Time to Decimal Conversion is very handy when determining your finished time for the invoice.

Whispersync, the new technology that lets a reader switch between reading the Kindle e-book and listening to the Audible audiobook, could affect your royalties in two ways. On the one hand, the audiobook price is lower when the purchaser already has the Kindle edition. The royalties earned on the sale therefore would be lower as well. On the other hand, before Whispersync, people either bought the e-book or the audiobook — not both.

In my experience, Whispersync does actually encourage additional sales, which brings royalties that I would not otherwise have. These sales usually earn less than $1 per unit sold. However, it’s one case where you truly can “make up the difference in volume” because you don’t have on-going costs. Whispersync sales may be a case of whether you view the glass as half full or half empty.

My best sales periods have been December/January, where people are buying presents or later using gift cards, and April-June, when people seem to stock up for their poolside and vacation entertainment.

Audible sales are the gift that keeps on giving! Not only do you rack up more units sold in a shorter period, but those sales can get your book on the old royalty escalator for a higher royalty rate if you signed your contract before 12 March 2014.

I also set up an affiliate account with Audible. I use my affiliate link each time I publicize my titles. You can find my explanation of it in this Facebook post. More helpful tips are included in this post. So far, I’ve had a lot of clicks but no affiliate sales. Given time, though, I’m sure that some of those clicks will be converted to sales. I just created an affiliate account with iTunes.

Miscellaneous

Some of the posts above were in the Facebook Audiobook Crowd group, which consists of professional narrators and industry insiders, and the Facebook ACX Narrators and Producers group. Both groups are closed and have active members. I highly encourage you to join both of these groups if you are an audiobook narrator.

My experience with ACX has always been wonderful. I was one of the original beta testers on the site and have been very excited by its growth. The support staff is nothing short of remarkable! They have been incredibly responsive to my emails. I continue to see improvements both in the site operations and the quality of titles posted for audition.

ACX also has an informative, interesting, and helpful blog. Lately, they have been educating the rights holders more about the process, and their efforts are paying off. I’ve had more communication from rights holders in the past week than in the last 6 months!

Thinking again of the advice from my mentor, let me leave you with this quote from author Neil Gaiman (you can substitute the word “narrate” where he says “write”):
I decided that I would do my best in the future not to write books just for the money. If you didn’t get the money, then you didn’t have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn’t get the money, at least I’d have the work.

Original notebook image: iStockPhoto/Aania