Lindsay - June 4, 2020On this week’s show, SAG-AFTRA audiobook narrator Gary Bennett joins us to talk about finding and choosing a narrator, how much you should expect to spend on audiobook production, royalty share options, and equipment in case you want to do it yourself.
Here are some of the specific questions we asked him:
- What got you into audiobook narration, and what is your background in general?
- What should an author look for when searching for a narrator for his or her novel?
- When it comes to production and distribution, can you tell us about ACX, Findaway Voices, and Spoken Realms?
- What are considered solid pro rates PFH (per finished hour) at this time, and will the narrator usually include a sound engineer and all of the production in that?
- If you work through ACX, have you done royalty splits and if so, was that a good experience or not? For authors where this is the only option, is there anything they should be careful about?
- If an author is hoping to do a simultaneous audio/print/ebook release, about how long should an author budget for the audio production process?
- What sort of genres have you narrated? In your experience, do readers have specific expectations and requirements for narrations in different genres that perhaps authors might not be aware of?
- I’ve never done it, beyond checking a box on ACX, but do authors ever make specific requests regarding characters or overall tone? Is it considered poor taste to give too much direction?
- When it comes to marketing, how does a sample affect how well an audiobook does?
- How common is it for the narrator to do marketing for a book he’s produced? Do readers follow narrators they like to projects by other authors?
- Submitted by Fatima: What should authors have ready before they approach a narrator?
- Submitted by Linda: What recording equipment do you recommend to someone who doesn’t have the funds to pay a narrator and might want to try narrating their own book? (Gary mentions https://www.narratorsroadmap.com/ as a resource here.)
- Submitted by Scot: What level of sales do you look for from an author’s book before agreeing to work with that author?
To learn more about Gary, check out his website or listen to some of his work on Audible.
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Fantastic chat! My narrator friend Gary did a wonderful job. He’s a fabulous narrator.
Loved his voice so much! I went and found all his work, great to know as an author myself when the time comes for me to produce my own audiobook!