Description
Why Do You NEED To Make an Audiobook?
There are a lot of people who hate reading but love listening to audiobooks and podcasts. These “non-readers” either can’t or won’t take the time to sit down and read a book. Perhaps they struggle with slow reading, dyslexia or their sight is impaired. Or they consume content faster than how much it costs to buy new books all the time. If you want to reach more people with your message or recommend your book to others, there had better be an audio version!
Audiobook sales growth has exploded in recent years due to the ability to download audiobooks from sites like Audible.com, Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo, and ChristianAudio.com, among many others, directly to people’s smartphones. Some people will never read your book, but they will listen to content while commuting or doing other tasks like driving, working out, or cooking.
If you have an audiobook, not only will you make money selling the audio versions, giving your book an additional revenue stream, you’ll make additional money through the recommendations of people who listened to that version.
The audiobook market is unique and distinct from the print book market and the digital book world. I’ve been publishing books for over a decade, and have one title released with a traditional publishing house, and I rub shoulders with other authors all the time and constantly hear that audio is its own market with SOME crossover with ebook and print books, too.
Since some people only buy print books, while others only listen to audiobooks, you need your message or your story available in each market!
How The Cost Of Your Book is Determined
If you want to reach out to me about being the voice of your audiobook and you write books in my main niche/preferred genres (usually Christian non-fiction, especially Charismatic/Pentecostal themes), these are my rates:
Factoring in how much time it takes me to prep (including researching proper pronunciation of things such as names of the people you may quote/cite), record (at least 2x the amount of time it takes just to read your book out loud into my mic), edit, and master it (about 4-6 x the time it takes to record it), my prices start at 3.5 cents per word, based on your book’s word count and the complexity of the project. No exceptions.
- 10,000 words: 10,000 x 0.035 = $350
- 20,000 words: 20,000 x 0.035 = $700
- 30,000 words: 30,000 x 0.035 = $1050
- 40,000 words: 40,000 x 0.035 = $1400
- and so on…
The industry standard for payment is “per finished hour” (PFH), in which case my rate works out to around $350/PFH, but this almost always confuses first-time authors who hire me, who ask me to read slower or faster to get to a specific recorded length, so we just go by the cents per word way of calculating it and it comes close to the same outcome.
Please note, my price estimates are rounded UP to the nearest 5000 words. For example, if your book is 26,000 words long you will be billed for 30,000 words.
Examples:
- 17,240 words = Charged for 20,000 words ($700)
- 31,000 words = Charged for 35,000 words ($1225)
- 56,000 words = Charged for 60,000 words ($2100)
- and so on…
See how that works?
Please review the above pricing before contacting me and asking how much I will charge to produce a book of XXXX number of words. My pickiness, and the volume of email requests I get will automatically make me ignore and delete your email if you don’t provide helpful info out the gate.
Terms and Conditions
- I do not take future royalty as payment. This is a paid-for-work service. I am not interested in doing a royalty split/share due to the amount of time required to produce your audiobook. I’m only open to royalty-share at my discretion through ACX if the print and Kindle version of your title is clearly selling in such high volume that this would result in actually getting paid soon.
- That said, I will only consider a royalty share under the following conditions:
- 1) it’s a Royalty-Share Plus arrangement where you pay my editor fees, but otherwise split the royalties, and/or
- 2) you’re willing to pay in one of the major cryptocurrencies and
- 3) you immediately install the Voxer app on your smartphone for communication between us if you don’t already have it.
- If you aren’t doing jack squat to market your book already, and its sales are abysmal, please don’t ask me to consider a royalty-share agreement — in fact, consider that creating an audiobook version will not fix a print and ebook’s low sales.
- It’s not the narrator’s job to market an author’s book for them — we are providing our skills to create for authors another product (a version of their book) to sell, and as such our “skin in the game” is providing you that product, with the expectation of compensation in the form of deferred monthly residual payment for it.
- The audiobook you would like me to narrate must already be on Amazon/Kindle as per ACX rules OR it’s about to be, like in cases where you’re hiring me to produce the audiobook to launch at the same time as the print and digital versions. For any exceptions to this, please give me details about your project when contacting me through the form below.
- I DO accept installments. For example, in the case of large projects, I’m flexible, but please note you will not receive your mp3 files nor will I upload them to your Dropbox account, online storage, or your ACX account and publish your book for you, until AFTER I’ve received all final payments or installments. No exceptions!
- The minimum upfront payment I require is $350. If your project is small or will cost less than that, I will require the entire payment upfront. But I don’t necessarily recommend making audiobooks that are going to be less than 3 or 4 hours long, as ACX will automatically price your book based on length and customers don’t like spending their $15 credits on short books.
- I will not agree to narrate your book nor give you a price quote or provide you an invoice without seeing the FULL manuscript first. No exceptions!
- –> I don’t do fiction. <– Don’t message me and ask if I’ve changed my mind. I haven’t, and don’t want to. I will not even bother answering you to tell you no if you ask this because you clearly don’t read anyway.
- NOTE: I have rarely heard a voice-over artist narrate a book that was the opposite gender of the author, except for fiction works, but I’m open to it if female authors want me to be the voice that reads their book. Especially on a case-by-case basis where the gender of the narrator doesn’t matter.
- Agreeing to narrate a project does NOT mean I necessarily endorse everything the author(s) say(s) in their book. Though I am selective and usually narrate projects I enjoy and believe in, it does not mean I necessarily agree with all of the author’s other views publicly stated elsewhere. I’m merely lending my physical voice to their book.
- Under no circumstance will I narrate erotica, or anything that condones and promotes illegal activity or racism.
- You must either be the copyright holder (author or publisher), or you’re legally able to produce the audiobook on their behalf. This means, for example, that I won’t record a textbook you have to study for an exam, EVEN IF you “swear you are not going to sell it and it’s just for personal use”. If you want that book so bad, why not contact THAT book’s author or publisher and ask them to produce an audiobook?
- For projects requiring a speedy turnaround or must be produced by a fast approaching deadline, I charge an additional rush fee.
- Though I offer a 5% discount for payments made in full, paying in full does not speed up the process and length of time it will take me to produce an audiobook project. I still have to abide by the same laws of space and time.
Short Samples of My Work:
If you made it this far and still want to reach out to see if I’d be a good fit for your project, please include as much detail as possible about your book (word count, a copy of the manuscript if possible, subject matter, other considerations, etc…)
AGAIN, PLEASE REVIEW MY PRICING ABOVE before asking me how much your book of XXXX words will cost to produce.
Again, do not contact me until you can tell me how long your manuscript is and/or show it to me. (Like, for reals, eh.)
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