Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

Amazon's ACX exchange (https://www.acx.com/) is worth checking out, as it links up voice professionals with authors looking to make audio books.

Also, I offer a shout out to Rob Matheny who is trying to get in the game. Below link to YouTube features a trailer he did for Ragnarok Publications:
http://youtu.be/nNgAV1dhLfc

Audible has been good for me. Customers are also very good about rating books, so it didn't take too long for my number of Audible ratings to quickly catch up and overtake my amazon ratings.

Seth wrote: "Audible has been good for me. Customers are also very good about rating books, so it didn't take too long for my number of Audible ratings to quickly catch up and overtake my amazon ratings."

Seth to Seth, That's nice to hear. Author Tom Barczak directed me to ACX last November. I have two projects ongoing now, due out in March. So far, it has been a great experience. Quality voice professionals are accessible. It is quite wild to listen to various auditions of other people reading your own work. Pronunciations, accents, etc... books become slightly theatrical. From a world-building perspective, it is valuable.

I was not an Audible/Audio Book customer before, but am getting hooked on listening to samples. If I had a longer commute, I would jump into Audio Books for sure.

Seth, how long is the process with ACX from start to the final project? Did you negotiate a flat rate or a percentage for the audio books? I've been curious about it as another medium to add into the mix. Thanks!

Peter wrote: "Seth, how long is the process with ACX from start to the final project? Did you negotiate a flat rate or a percentage for the audio books? I've been curious about it as another medium to add into t..."

I am new at this, but will pass some tidbits. There are a few phases, each may have its own timing. The total process seems to span from a few days to a few months.

Phase (0): Set up an account. ACX is very USA focused, so you'll need to set up some tax information and have it confirmed to ensure you can get paid later. They have a tool that confirms with the IRS some information; this process should only take a few minutes. In some cases, it takes days.

Phase (1) Auditions: the author uploads a sample and tags it with some desired voice traits (i.e. English accent, gender = male, age = mature, tone =creepy). Once posted, any voice professional could, in theory, audition by posting a sample mp3 for the author to give feedback to. If you like the voice, then you can proceed immediately with a proposal.

Reality check: Voice professions do not seem to be browsing for auditions continuously--you'll have to hunt one down probably. Instead of waiting for one to stumble across your audition, you can speed the process by seeking out a professional and asking them to audition. It is relatively easy to search candidates by cost/tags...so then you just have to listen until you find a good match. I targeted a select few with personal messages explaining why I thought their specific samples were a good match, and received auditions within a week.

Cost: Royalty share (no cost up front...author and narrator split profits 50%/50% forever), or Price per Finished Hour (can range from $50 to $1000 PFH). How long in duration would your book be (to help you estimate cost)? The ACX site offers a conversion of Words-to-Min. I think every 9,000 words is 1hr on average. Keep in mind, it will take several hours of real time for each hour produced, so a voice professional could easily spend 40+hrs producing a novel.

Phase (2) Negotiations: If the author likes an audition, s/he offers a proposal which includes payment terms and timing. The timing is set up in two parts: the first 15min of sound, and the entire book. These are negotiable depending on the voice professional and author's schedule, but eventually must be set in stone. For me, negotiations consumed only a few days as well.

Phase (3) Production: The fun begins. Be ready to read your book line-by-line as you listen to the mp3's.

Well, that's where I am now. I'll reconnect when I actually finish one of these. Both of my projects are due by early March. If you have tons of money, you can spring for whatever you want. If your budget is limited, you'll have to spend more time looking for a quality voice in your range...and also propose very flexible timing. There are many good narrators willing to do a royalty share.

Thanks for all this great info, Seth! I'm a big audiobook fan and would love to hear my book read by a pro some day.