Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

voiceover

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

TDIMH — Perseverance Pays Off

This Date in My History — Sunday July 21, 2002 1:00pm

(A private journal entry from at least 10 years ago with lessons that apply today)

I occasionally have fleeting thoughts of quitting [voice-over]. However, I quickly remind myself of 2 stories that keep me going.

The first story is about a man who had been digging for gold for however many years. He finally gave up in frustration and sold his claim to the land to someone else.

The next day, the new owner found a gold mine worthy of a king’s fortune 3 feet away from where his predecesor stopped digging. The moral is to never give up because you don’t know how close you are to the gold.

The other story is definitely a true story, while the first one may be just a lesson.

Mel Fisher was convinced that he would find the shipwreck of the Atocha, which was laden with gold, silver, emeralds and other precious items when it sank.

Every day, for 17 years, he looked for it. Every day during those 17 years, he started the day by saying “This could be the day!” Every day, when he didn’t find it, he would tell the crew around the supper table “Tomorrow could be the day!”

His enthusiasm and positive outlook were infectious. Even when he endured personal tragedy like the death of his son during or as a result of a dive, he persevered.

He did find a shipwreck, and I believe it was the find of greatest value ever recorded — something like $400 million bucks!

He has a museum in Key West where many breathtaking relics are on display. I think it’s safe to say that he and his family live on Easy Street.

I do feel more hopeful when I remind myself of these stories of perseverance against the odds. I am so anxious to get where I’m going that I find it difficult to enjoy and learn from the journey. I still feel like my marketing is scattered, and maybe I’m not targeting the right people. [My brother] talked about having an intermediate goal and steps plotted along the way.

As for my next intermediate goal, how can I set them without being in complete control of the outcome? In other words, it’s hard to have goals when I have to depend on fickle, forgetful people to make a conscious choice to hire me.

Maybe the better question is how do I distinguish myself from the 1000s of voice talent who are streaming out of every nook and cranny to set up shop on the web?

To say people are fickle and forgetful is probably not accurate since they actually tend to be loyal to those they’ve used before by throwing more work their way. How do I break in and convince them that they should pick me as a relative newcomer?

What is my competitive advantage? I think it’s my ability to sightread long passages and speak with proper inflection. I want to target narrations and audiobooks….Perhaps my next intermediate goal would be to re-do my audiobook demos.

Today’s Take-Aways:

1) While you need to have the big picture in mind, your progress will be incremental and sometimes may even seem non-existent. Think of the stories in this post and remind yourself that perseverance pays off!

2) Do something every day toward your goals, no matter how small.

3) Spend some time in quiet reflection to assess your skills, interests, and passions and how they might help move you forward toward your dream life.

4) Give up your need for control. Actually, very little in our lives is totally under our control. If you keep the end result in mind while you continue taking steps, the Universe will open pathways and create possibilities that you never even considered.

 

May 2013 Audiobook Releases

Between moving my blog platform from Movable Type to WordPress, a wonderful beach vacation with Drew and Yogi, and my on-going audiobook narration projects, May quickly evaporated and has now turned into June.

While this WordPress blog now has a nifty new Yearly Archives index, many things about the blog still don’t work, especially links within articles. Thanks for your patience as I continue to fix the previous article links. I also hadn’t posted new articles during the conversion, which, of course, took far longer than I expected! I will post a new article after this update on my recent audiobooks.

Divas and Dead Rebels by Virginia Brown

Book 4 in the best-selling Dixie Divas Cozy Mystery series

Trinket and her pals are, once again, caught in the middle of a murder scene. What Trinket thought was an untidy pile of clothing tumbling out of Bitty’s sons’ dorm room closet turned out to be a professor with whom Bitty had just quarreled that very morning. At 13 hours, this book is the perfect, light-hearted, fun companion to take to the pool or beach!

I love narrating this series! The Divas are like old friends, and the banter between Bitty and Trinket makes me laugh out loud! They remind me of Blanche Devereaux and Dorothy Sbornak on the TV show The Golden Girls.

You might think this type of book wouldn’t require preparatory research, but it does. In addition to looking up pronunciations for places mentioned in the book, I had to learn the Ole Miss Hotty Toddy cheer. I didn’t go to a college with a football team, but as an audiobook narrator, I was able to pretend I was a fervent football fan and cheering with the best of them!

Available at Amazon   Amazon   iTunes

Indispensable Party by Melissa F. Miller

Book 4 in the Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller series

In the name of science, an international team of researchers creates a deadly virus capable of killing untold millions. While the U.S. government quietly stockpiles a vaccine, a militaristic group of doomsday preppers begins to mobilize in response to the economic collapse they’re convinced is coming.

Then the Doomsday virus is stolen, and a researcher is murdered. Attorney Sasha McCandless and her boyfriend Leo Connelly, who is now chief of security at the pharmaceutical firm making the vaccine, are in the middle of the action and racing against time to find the missing virus before it is unleashed on the world.

This audiobook can give you nightmares! As usual, Miller wrote a fast-paced book that reads like a movie script, with scenes primarily in Washington, DC and Pennsylvania.

While I was on vacation, I read the text version of Dan Brown’s latest thriller Inferno. Even if I didn’t narrate Melissa Miller’s books, I must tell you that her plot and action seem much more realistic and likely to happen than did Brown’s. I look forward to the day when her name and work is as well-known as his! 🙂

Available at Audible   Amazon   iTunes
 

Nine Tips About Buying Equipment on eBay

I joined eBay in 1997, and I have bought and sold countless things on this great system through hundreds of transactions. When other voice talent tell me that they don’t have money to get their voice-over demo produced, take a class with a premier teacher or invest in their studio equipment, I ask them if they have considered selling things on eBay to raise some fast cash. If you don’t need it, someone on eBay wants to buy it. By the same token, if you’re looking for something, someone on eBay is selling it.

In fact, whenever I am looking for something, especially equipment for my voice-over studio, I see if I can find it on eBay. I bought my Neumann TLM 103 microphone and DAT recorder from eBay sellers. My mic was brand new in the box, yet I purchased it on eBay at a price much lower than the retail rate quoted by several leading supply houses. However, many people are reluctant to shop on eBay, though, because they fear losing their money to unscrupulous dealers.

An article in yesterday’s Atlanta Business Chronicle fuels this kind of fear and was the propelling force behind this post today. With almost 10 years of eBay experience to my credit, I offer these tips for safe shopping on eBay:

1) Always look at the seller’s feedback rating and read the comments. You need to click on the feedback number and see if the seller is maintaining positive comments from buyers. A high number doesn’t necessarily mean that the seller is currently providing good service.

2) Be wary of sellers who do not provide a picture of the actual item. Some people will use pictures from other sellers’ listings or from vendors’ web sites. You want to see a picture of the actual item under consideration. If a seller can’t provide a picture of the actual item, I move on to another listing. With millions of things for sale on eBay at any given moment, I can wait until I can see the thing that I’m buying.

3) A strong, detailed description of the item indicates the seller’s knowledge. Whether I’m buying or selling, I want to see more than a single line of description on the item. As a sidebar to this tip, make note that if you decide to sell some items, you should be aware that a description that tells a story will make your buyers more attracted to your item. People love to be told a story, and you will get more money for your item if you can make that connection. I’m not saying “tell a story” as in “tell some lies”, but rather add adjectives and background material that make your item sound interesting to the reader.

For instance, when I have sold some of my Barry Manilow collection to pay for studio equipment, I wrote about hearing Barry sing a particular song at a concert and how that song is on a rare and valuable CD. When you can make the connection to your audience, you build trust.

4) Ask questions before you bid. Note how rapidly and thoroughly the seller responds to your questions.

5) Research prices in the closed listings before placing your bid. If you’re buying something common like equipment for your voice-over studio, chances are great that somebody has recently sold the same item. You can learn a lot by reviewing the closed listings to determine how many bidders were interested in an item and the prices paid. Obviously, if you are looking at something unusual like a piece of Dresden porcelain of a woman playing harp (yes, I’ve bought some of those on eBay!), you might not find any comparison listings.

Also compare the eBay prices to those at your favorite dealers. Many of them actually sell products on eBay. My Neumann mic was offered in this manner; an audio specialist with a brick and mortar building also posted items on eBay. Depending on the item, you may need to take service into consideration. For instance, I once bought a notebook computer from someone who only ran eBay listings. Given the nature of that item and the abundance of computers available, I think I would try to find one locally or direct from the manufacturer rather than shop for one on eBay.

6) Ask about the warranty. If you need warranty repair, your warranty coverage won’t be worth much to you if the warranty on your new studio equipment covers the European Union, and you live in the United States. When you see a significantly lower price on a piece of electronics, it may be a “gray market” item. You have to decide how much the warranty is worth to you or whether you’re willing to risk buying an item that may not have warranty coverage for your country.

7) Never, ever agree to pay someone by Western Union wire transfer. The buyers in the Atlanta Business Chronicle story were cheated by sellers who were paid by wire transfer. I learned in a transaction that had nothing to do with eBay that someone using wire transfer is preying on your emotions. If they insist on a wire transfer because they are in a hurry to do the deal, you need to run in the other direction!

They may say things like they are under a bankruptcy order and have a strict deadline, so that’s why they need the money so fast. You should know that once you transfer the money out of your account and into theirs, you can’t reverse the transfer unless they have enough money in their account. They will never have enough money in their account for a reversal!

PayPal is a safe form of payment. I will use it for immediate payment, but I still make the payment on my credit card so that money is not immediately transferred out of my checking account. I should have received the item by the time I receive my credit card bill. If I haven’t, I can always put the item in dispute with my credit card issuer.

8) If you have any uneasy feelings about the seller, you can request their contact information through eBay. You have to be involved in a transaction with someone before you can get their contact information. If you have paid for something and a seller becomes unresponsive, you can request their contact information from eBay.

9) If you decide to pay by check and don’t receive your merchandise, your Postmaster General may become your new best friend. Did you know that mail fraud is a federal crime? The definition of mail fraud from the United States Postal Service site is:

U.S. Postal Inspectors investigate any crime in which the U.S. Mail is used to further a scheme–whether it originated in the mail, by telephone, or on the Internet.

The use of the U.S. Mail is what makes it mail fraud.

Before you file the claim form on that site, you can advise the seller of your intention to start a mail fraud investigation. That action just might make them either cough up the goods or refund your money

I definitely don’t purchase everything on eBay. It’s just another source for me. After consulting with an audio engineer 3 weeks ago, I decided to change my studio components from a PC-based system with an Akai DPS DAW to an Apple MacBook Pro and a Digidesign Mbox2 Pro with ProTools LE. While I looked on eBay, I didn’t buy anything from there this time. I bought the computer directly from Apple since Drew gets a great company discount there, and I found a fantastic deal at Musicians Friend that includes a CAD GXL3000 condenser microphone and Fantom 120GB firewire hard drive. I haven’t tested the mic, but it looks well-made and might be a decent mic to take with me when I travel.

I have used eBay extensively in the furtherance of my voice-over career. I have bought equipment for my studio, and I have sold things in order to raise funds for my demos, training and equipment. I hope these nine tips about buying equipment on eBay give you the confidence to try it for yourself. Feel free to post your comments about how you have used eBay to further your voice-over career or other dreams or any other tips you want to share!