In Part I of this series, I shared the “how-to” produce an audiobook using ACX from a Rights Holder’s perspective. In Part II, I’ve interviewed the Producers:
Narrated by Suzanne T. Fortin
Judy: What do you look for when selecting a project based on royalty share?
Suzanne T, Fortin: I always try to answer three questions for myself before auditioning for a project (advice from Award-winning Audiobook Narrator and Coach Sean Allen Pratt): 1. Will it be fun? 2. Will it make money? 3. Will it move my career forward. I don’t audition if I can’t say yes to two out of the three. As I build my brand, I am looking for titles that can expand portfolio in meaningful ways, and also play to my vocal strengths. I am looking to build lasting relationships with authors and the publishers that I work with. I’m also looking for authors and publishers that are committed to promoting the work, as RS is a gamble where I take all of the financial risk on the project.
The business end of things: An eight hour audiobook takes approximately 48 hours of studio time to complete if the narrator is doing their own post-production. Hiring out post-production costs the narrator 50-100 Per Finished Hour (PFH), but ultimately saves a huge amount of time and improves the quality of the product. Alternately, the base pay rate for Union narrators is $250PFH. In order to break even at that rate on a RS project, it needs to sell 1000 copies, assuming that we are averaging $2 royalty per book. (An author who paid PFH rather than royalty share would need to sell 500 copies before they were making a full profit on the book royalty) I have one project that has sold 8 copies in the year that the audio has been released. My current PFH rate for that title is .64. My current actual hourly rate is…0.
Claira Jordyn: I look for projects that I believe in when doing royalty shares. Do I like the authors previous work? And frankly, do they have followers/ people that also love their work?
Kate Tyler: I look for projects that are personally appealing to me. If I’m going to spend a significant amount of time over several weeks or months with a project, I want to enjoy the subject matter. Â
Judy: What raises a “red flag” to you?
Suzanne T. Fortin: Excessively long or very short books. For RS, 8 hour is kind of the sweet spot. Under 5, customers are less likely to use their Audible credits, over 10, and the amount of work required makes it harder to turn a profit.
Books that have been published for a long length of time with almost no reviews, or only 5 star friends/family reviews.
Authors that refuse to share sales numbers if requested, have no promotion plan, or are requesting complex work (duet or duel narration, lots of complicated accents) on a short time frame with no knowledge of how much work is required.
Narrated by Claira Jordyn
Claira Jordyn: Red flags come when an author boasts incessantly about how successful they are, but upon looking into them nothing can be found. I tend to mistrust the situation then.
Kate Tyler: I don’t bother to engage in anything that conflicts with my personal beliefs. Other than that, occasionally I’ll see something that is non-fiction but is not well researched. And rarely I’ll see projects that are not edited properly – grammar errors and incomplete sentences or punctuation errors. Those I’ll pass on.
Judy: Do you research the author, and if so, how?
Suzanne T. Fortin: I generally look at their available work on Amazon, read samples and reviews. I google them and look at their websites.
Claira Jordyn: I do search the author! I use all forms of social media and try to find out if they have followers, if people think they’re great story tellers and if it looks like a relationship I’d like to be in!
Narrated by Kate Tyler
Kate Tyler: If it is a series or a longer book (more than 2 hours), I’ll check to see how the books are doing on Amazon. ACX provides some sales data, but the data just reflects how the book has done “lately” which is not necessarily useful. I’ll check out the book on Amazon and check out the reviews. If the reviews are positive, it may have a following. Also, I will check out the Facebook page or website for the Author.
Thank you, Suzanne, Claira and Kate for your narration and for your feedback!
Stay tuned for Part III: Marketing Audiobooks
FIND THESE AUDIOBOOKS ON AUDIBLEÂ AMAZON and iTUNES