Did you know that storytelling predates writing?
Humans didn’t start formal writing until around 3500 BCE (the Kish tablet being one of the earliest examples in cuneiform). Now in the modern era, humans can’t seem to write enough!
Fact: In 2024 approximately 1.7 million titles were self-published (Source: Ghostwriting Founder Blog).
Fact: Between 500,000 and 1 million titles were traditionally published (Source: Ghostwriting Founder Blog).
That’s a heckuva lotta stories to be told! Now, here’s one more fact you might find interesting: In 2022 approximately 74,000 audiobooks were published in the United States (Source: Publisher’s Weekly).
There is no doubt that humans are hungry for stories and that is where your adventures in audiobook narration can begin!
Before we set sail on the USS Audiobook cruise ship, let’s go over a few industry-standard items:
- Narration is not just having a good voice, nor is it just reading a book.
- Narrating a book (fiction or non-fiction) does take a lot of work. Think Boston Marathon vs. 100-yard dash.
- Some basic audio editing skills are required but you don’t have to be a tech-wizard and you can always outsource your editing.
- While there’s a lot of work out there (see the above facts), it’s not exactly raining narration gigs when you first start out. Patience and perseverance are critical skills to practice as you begin this journey.
- Speaking of getting work, you need to understand the various ways you’ll find audiobook narration gigs:
- Publishing House rosters like Tantor Media, Podium Entertainment, or Simon & Schuster
- Open marketplace sites like ACX or Ahab Talent
- Connecting directly with authors
- P2Ps
- Next thing to understand is how you can get paid. There are three ways that happens:
- Royalty Share: This is an agreement between you and the author or publisher in which you share 50% of the royalties generated from the sale of the book. You will be contracted to narrate the book by a deadline and will not be paid until the book starts to sell.
- Royalty Share-Plus (exclusive to ACX, possibly with some direct clients): Similar to an RS agreement, you negotiate a lower PFH rate (see below) and share 50% of the royalties with the author.
- Per Finished Hour (PFH) Rate: This is a set amount of money you charge the author/publishing house per hour of finished audio. That finished hour of audio can sometimes take new narrators up to 5 hours to complete. Veteran narrators typically see a 3-to-1, even as low as 2-to-1 ratio. So, if you’re charging $50 per finished hour and it’s a 6 hour book, it could take you as long as 30 hours to finish that production. That means that even though you’ll be paid $300, you’re actually only making about $10 per actual hour of work. That doesn’t even account for you outsourcing your editing which can run between $50 to $75 per finished hour. That’s why veteran narrators will often tell you not to charge less than the rates listed on the GVAA rate guide.
- Editing is part of your workflow (unless you outsource it, then it’s part of your budgeting). You’ll have to know your DAW and understand audio requirements for a finished & mastered set of chapters.
- Accents and character voices are fun, but sometimes authors don’t want all that razzle dazzle. In fact, even when performing an accent or character voice, subtle wins out over audacious.
- Endurance, endurance, endurance! Before you even think about auditioning for a book, do yourself a favor and take this endurance test: Stand in your booth and read from your favorite book for 60 minutes straight. That’s right, non-stop reading. Many voice actors new to audiobook narrating don’t realize the level of endurance required, so that simple exercise can help you determine your endurance.
- There are four types of audiobooks you might work on.
- Solo: it’s all you hombre! You’re the sole voice on the production from narrator to the 7-year-old daughter.
- Dual: you and one other narrator (usually a male-female pairing) narrate alternating chapters from your character’s POV.
- Duet: you will be voicing your character’s POV chapters as well as ALL the dialogue for whichever character’s gender you’ve been cast for. So, if you’re a male narrator, you would voice the male POV chapters but none of the female dialogue in those chapters and all of the male dialogue in the female narrator’s POV chapters.
- Multi-cast: like one giant Broadway production! You’ll be voicing one or more characters in a cast of other voice actors. These are not to be confused with audio dramas, which are another VO genre entirely. Multi-cast audiobooks are often built through directed sessions which adds another layer of technical know-how on your plate.
- Bonus Basic tip: Listen to audiobooks! In much the same way commercial voice actors will listen to current commercials to hear what’s booking, so too should you as a narrator be a consumer of audiobooks.
Okay, that’s a lot of jargon and technical stuff to process! So what about the adventure part of narrating audiobooks?
Audiobook narration allows you to play the role of every cast & crew member in the production. You are your own director, you get to play the good guy and the bad guy. You could be voicing the damsel in distress on one page and then laying down lines for the dragon in the next. Your voice will draw listeners into fantasy realms for one title, war zones, love stories, and even gardening tips for another.
Audiobook narration is rich with opportunities to play every character imaginable across all genres of fiction! Or, if non-fiction is more your flavor, then you’ll get to dive into everything from self-help to memoirs to biographies and more! Audiobooks are the modern equivalent of the ancient storyteller dancing around the communal fire, regaling the tribe with legends of old.
I hope this very tip-of-the-audiobook-narration-iceberg process has been helpful. If you’d like to learn more, please feel free to reach out to me at aw@suchavoice.com.
