One of the most popular services we offer here is getting your audio book recorded and produced by a professional. Many authors set out to do it themselves to avoid the cost, but then discover that it really is quite a skill – a bit like painting I suppose. It’s not easy to keep your energy up, to read without error and to record all at once.
If you do decide to engage us to help there are some things we would like you to know, just so that the expectations are being set correctly.
First of all, the most common issue around using a professional voice over artist (and studio and editor) is the cost. Nearly every author we work with is very conscious of money (we don’t get many Dan Browns, Stephanie Myers or J K Rowlings – not yet any way). With this in mind, we always try to find the absolute best value readers that we can. To give you an idea, when we tendered out our first books the quotes ranged from $300 to $35,000 for the same 100,000 word book. Like any creative field the cost of talent varies greatly. Brad Pitt gets a lot more than some D-Grade actor for the same lines even though technically speaking there may not be a lot of difference.
So the first point is this. When we quote between $1,000 and $2,500 to read, record, edit and produce an average length audio book we are talking about the low end of the market. Mostly these artists are working from home based studios which is how they can do the work at such affordable rates. Professional studios alone costs hundreds of dollars an hour to hire, not counting the voice over talent, technical staff and post production time.
Working from home though does not mean a massive reduction in quality – not these days. Today, the home based voice over market is extremely competitive, probably more competitive than at any time before, so rates are low and standards are high.
It is important to understand though that your brief to the reader, if it is in this price range, must be as clear as possible and you cannot expect them to slightly change their inflection on this word or that word, or to re-record this two seconds or that five seconds because you could hear them breath. This level of creative direction is possible but that’s what you pay the $10,000 and up readers for. In short, the quality we get at the $1,000 – $2,500 level is adequate for our purposes (and the purposes of the platforms) but if you want to direct your audio book like an Academy Award Winning Director might, then you have to be prepared to pay for it and you should tell us that up front – otherwise there will be some very unhappy production partners on your hands.
I know this might seem like anti-customer-service or a relaxing of quality control, but it isn’t. We absolutely value our clients and we want the highest quality possible (our relationship with the platforms would not last long if we submitted rubbish) but you must remember that reading, recording, editing and delivering an entire audio book using a professional voice is not quick, or easy and $1,000 – $2,500 is very, very good value for the average book.
To be clear, you can expect a high energy, expressive, error free audio book at the $1,000 – $2,500 rates we usually target. What you cannot get is line by line, chapter by chapter involvement. Our process involves these steps:
1) Create a detailed brief of what kind of reader you want. Age, gender, race, accent, special requirements or instruction.
2) We tender the job out to our network of readers who then submit short MP3 samples taken from your actual book, together with a quote. The quotes vary because they are all independent contractors. There is no charge up until this point.
3) You select the reader you like and pay the fee via PayPal which we hold in trust.
4) The talent records the first chapter for your review and feedback before they continue with the rest of the audio book.
5) The reader then finishes the entire audio book based on your feedback after chapter one.
6) Once complete we release the funds to the reader and then submit the work ready for sale to the platforms.
If you have any questions about this process please ask us before you engage us. So far we have enjoyed a 100% satisfaction rate with authors and readers so the process works fine but we really want to make sure that the correct expectations are set and then met or surpassed. We are here to help and we know how important it is to keep costs down until you start making nice royalties from your work.
Tags: audible, audio book, audiobook, itunes, marketing, mp3, publish, publishers, publishing companies, publishing houses, recording, self publish, sell audiobook