About

 
 

I get c.3 messages a month…

…from people like you who are keen to get into audiobook production. I am enthusiastic about encouraging people to follow their creative passions. I came into this industry with no real qualifications, and climbed the ladder from recording amateur radio plays with other hobbyists for fun, to working with the ‘Big 5’, and earning multiple awards and nominations. So to answer the first question most people ask: Is this something I can do? Yes!

 

“But how?” I hear you cry?

 

The audiobook industry can seem like an impenetrable monolith from the outside, but I promise that it is a huge, varied scene, and there are a million different ways of accessing it.

That said, the audiobook industry is very much the domain of gig-workers. The majority of people working on audiobooks are working project-by-project on a freelance basis. If you’re not used to working freelance in this way, it can be tricky to wrap your head around how to best set yourself up for success.

Often, people approach me looking for a single point-of-entry like a regular job - a single interview or application process that’ll set them up on the inside track. This just isn’t how it works with audiobook work.

Success in the audiobook world is much less about working hard to nail a single interview, then growing inside a company, and much more about developing and adopting broad practices to create a stable core business, then using the battery of skills you develop to constantly market yourself, audition, and build a following.

I’m currently working to create a short introduction video that I’ll make available on this page. It’ll either be free, or cost less than $10. If you’d like to be the first to know when this goes live, use the contact for at the bottom of this page.

In the meantime, here are some vital first considerations:

1.Have you ever listened to an audiobook?

It amazes me how many people want to get into this line of work whilst knowing absolutely zero about it. It is vital, before you narrate anything, to have a good knowledge of different themes and styles. At an absolute minimum, take a listen to at least an hour of three different books, in three different genres, read by three different narrators. I encourage you to do your own research, but three favourite (and very different) reads for me would be:

  • Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, read by Juliet Stevenson

  • Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett, read by Tony Robinson

  • How to Change Your Mind by Ayelet Waldman, read by the author

Notice how these three books have very different energies and styles. Notice the difference between how Robinson and Stevenson present their characters. Notice how Ayelet’s conversational style contrasts Stevenson’s soft, lyrical tone, and Robinson’s animated, larger than life energy.

This is the tip of the iceberg. It is incredibly important to listen to as many samples as you can. Styles and fashions in narration are constantly changing, and you have to be able to draw from as many sources as possible.

2. How familiar are you with the publishing industry?

Many of you who come to me for advice are veterans of the stage, screen, or radio. Maybe you’re a member of a union, and you’ve witnessed all the new audiobook rules and regulations that have been rolled out over the past few years.

There’s a LOT of crossover between the worlds of theatre/film/TV/radio and audiobooks. That said, audiobooks are still very much in the domain of the publishing industry. A lot of the production processes you may be used to may be entirely different in the audiobook world.

In addition, the publishing industry (and audiobook industry by proxy) has been HEAVILY influenced by the recent boom in self-published or independently-published books. It is hard to describe just how MASSIVE a shift has happened within the industry over the past twenty years, but it has been monumental.

It is important to understand the difference between traditional publishers, boutique publishers, and the self-published cottage industry. It is even MORE important to understand that no single one of these arms of the industry is in any way ‘better’ or ‘more valuable’ than any other. If you want to work consistently, you’ll likely be working in all corners of the industry, and need to start learning the lay of the land.

3. Do you have a computer or laptop running Windows or Mac OS?

Audiobooks are mostly recorded from home. Audio studios do exist, and certain publishers and producers will have their own in-house facilities with a full battery of staff. It is super rare that you’ll ever record at one of these studios. You need to have recording equipment at home, and the central part of that is a computer capable of running audio recording software.

You cannot record audiobooks on a Chromebook. You cannot record audiobooks on an iPad. You need a fairly robust PC or Mac with a decent amount of internal storage, and you need to start getting yourself comfortable with the basics of how to use recording software.

4. Do you have a space in your home that you can repurpose as a recording area or booth?

One of the first questions I’m usually asked is “which microphone do I need to buy?” The truth is that the microphone you use is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE LESS IMPORTANT than the environment in which you’re recording. I cannot stress this enough - YOUR RECORDING ENVIRONMENT IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR MICROPHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You do not need to create a perfectly hermetically sealed space with absolutely ZERO noise bleed. You just need to create a space that is big enough for you to comfortably sit or stand for several hours at a time, and deck it out with as much sound absorbing material as you can lay your hands on. There are many resources online that can give you some basic best practice advice.

Unless you’re buying a prefab vocal booth, you’re going to wind up creating a hot, stuffy space. Even with a booth, your recording environment is going to get warm. Go take a look at your favourite narrator’s social media accounts during the summer months. We’re all sweating. Many of us go partially nocturnal so we can record at night. You cannot run a fan or an AC unit in your recording environment.

5. But seriously, though? What mic should I buy?

My pal Jeff records using a $10K mic. My other pal Jess records using a $200 mic. They both work consistently, and are both well-known and respected artists in their field. People tend to tie themselves in knots agonizing over which microphone is the ‘right fit’ for them. It’s important that your mic is operational, and that it sounds clean, but there is no de facto ‘best mic’ for anyone.

That’s not to say there are no rules. It is generally the case that audiobooks are recording using condenser mics with XLR connectors.

There are a few different types of mic out there, the two most commonly used are dynamic mics (like this one) and condenser mics (like the one in this vid). Dynamic mics are generally not suitable for audiobooks.

Mics generally have one of two different connector types: USB, or XLR. XLR mics require an additional piece of equipment - called an interface - to get the sound into your computer. USB mics don’t need this interface, so often seem like a better option for beginners. USB mics are generally quite limited in their settings, and may have a lower fidelity sound than their XLR counterpart. It may be tempting to go for a USB mic at first, but I’d strongly advise against it.

Three good starter mics that I’d recommend would be:

  • Audio Technica AT-2020 XLR (Do NOT waste time with the USB version

  • Audio Technica AT-4040

  • Neuman TLM-102

I record using a Neumann U87. It sounds lovely, and I’m glad to have it in my studio. But if I could go back in time 15 years, I’d have bought a cheaper mic (probably the Neumann TLM-103) instead.

In the world of mics - newer does NOT mean better. Particularly for analogue gear. I once recorded an audiobook in a studio using a U87 (same model as my mic at home) that they’d bought second-hand in the early 1970s. You can get some REALLY good deals on older audio equipment that’ll still sound fab!

And for those of you paying attention, you’ll no doubt be wondering which kind of interface to buy? I always suggest the Focusrite Scarlett Solo. You can pick one up for around $100. They’re work consistently, don’t try to do anything you don’t want/need, and are common enough that most pros will be easily able to help you with troubleshooting or setup.

6. Are you familiar with ACX?

ACX is an audiobook publishing service owned and managed by Amazon and Audible. It is where a large number of narrators get their start in the industry. It is also commonly misunderstood.

ACX is often viewed as an audiobook casting site, and whilst that’s not entirely inaccurate, it’s also far from being fully accurate.

ACX is a marketplace that exists to help Rights Holders and Audiobook Producers connect. It then provides a portal to upload and publish audiobooks onto Audible, or a number of other audiobook resellers.

Notice the difference there. It’s important to understand what these terms mean:

  • Rights Holder - the person or company that owns the legal rights to produce an audiobook. This may be a publisher, an audiobook studio, or an author. In rare cases, it may be some other third party.

  • Audiobook Producer - the person or company that full produces audiobooks in line with ACX’s technical specifications. This may be an audiobook studio, a publisher, or a narrator working independently.

This means that if you want to audition and book work on ACX, you need to be confident in what you’re doing from a technical point of view. ACX will not swing in and help you master or edit your files. If you book a job through ACX, you’re agreeing to do ALL of the work.

There are exceptions to this - sometimes a rights holder may already have a producer lined up, and they’re just looking to cast the narrator. This is not the case most of the time.

ACX provides a basic framework for a bunch of the contractual stuff, and also offers a certain level of payment protections; audiobooks uploaded to ACX will not be released until you have confirmed that you’ve received payment from the rights holder. It is a trusted resource, and one that you need to know about.

That said, there are a lot of pitfalls. It is deceptively easy to book a job on ACX - at the time of writing, there are 1,859 projects accepting auditions. Of those, however, only 358 are advertised as paid productions, only 28 pay my personal minimum rate, only 6 were relevant to my vocal characteristics, and only 1 is a book I’d consider auditioning for.

So what are all these thousands of unpaid projects? ACX allows rights holders to offer a ‘royalty share’ agreement. ACX will then provide a monthly royalty statement, and pay both parties each month. Sounds great, right?

I’ve completed a total of ten royalty share projects via ACX. One of them is an outlier - I’ll get to that in a moment. The other nine? I’ve earned a combined total of $1200 for the other nine books in the 10 years since I recorded them. This may sound like a nice amount of money, but it is pitiful when you look at the time I put into recording AND producing these books. I’d estimate that I spent around 90 hours total on these books, which works out to $13 per hour, but paid in dribs and drabs over a ten year period.

Because ACX is open to ANYONE, it means that anyone can create a project on ACX. A lot of ACX projects crash and burn because both parties have no idea what they’re doing. You need to be INCREDIBLY discerning with what projects you apply for on ACX. You need to realise that you are on your own, and culpable for any technical issues that may come up. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use ACX - if you really wanna get a lot of experience FAST in the audiobook world, ACX is the way to go. But go find a coach to take you through the basics of audiobook production first. I highly recommend Gravy for the Brain. ACX also has a section of their site called ‘ACX University’ which has a ton of VERY useful info.

But what about the outlier I spoke about? There is one book that I did on a royalty share basis that has earned me around $20K to date and counting. The majority of that came in the first few months after publishing, but I still get around $150 a month almost six years later. This book was released by a VERY popular indie author at the height of his writing career, AND the book went viral on BookTok during the pandemic. The publisher also had a very comprehensive marketing campaign that ran for 18 months on social media. I made a VERY informed decision to agree to royalty share on this book after EXTENSIVE back and forth with the publisher, PR company, and author. This is a REALLY RARE set of circumstances. The majority of royalty share projects on ACX are gonna earn you absolutely nothing.

You’ll also run into a lot of rights holders (particularly indie authors) who are looking to ACX and Audiobooks in general as a cure-all for their low sales. There’s an attitude with a lot of newer indie authors that "my book isn’t selling as well as I’d like, because there’s no audio version”. This is a dangerously misinformed approach, and the source of a lot of unpaid invoices and general strife. So please, internalize the following: tattoo it on your forearm for easy reference if necessary:

PRODUCING AN AUDIOBOOK WILL NOT INCREASE SALES OF AN AUTHOR’S PRINT/EBOOKS.

Go back and read that again a few times until it really sinks in.

IF A BOOK IS NOT SELLING WELL, RELEASING AN AUDIOBOOK WILL NOT INCREASE ITS SALES!

This is SUCH an important thing to learn. When you first start out in your audiobook career, you’ll likely be doing a lot of projects from indie authors or smaller boutique publishers. You will often hear words to the effect of “I need this audiobook out ASAP so people will start buying my book” or “I have so many people tell me they’d read my book if it was on audio”. This is just NOT how it works.

Every narrator you’ll ever meet will have at least one horror story - either from their own experience, or from a friend/colleague - of a narrator not getting paid because a rights holder hugely overestimates how much money they’d get from releasing an audiobook. A general rule of thumb: print/ebook sales of a title should be bringing in enough money in a single month to pay for the audiobook production before it makes financial sense to create the audiobook.

7. On agents

During the pandemic when all the theatres closed, I got a sudden influx of messages from friends or friends of friends who worked in theatre, and who were suddenly out of work. They’d all boldly declare “I’m going to start doing voice work” then less boldly add “uh…how does one…do that…?”. I’d give them all the starter advice from above, and I heard several variations on the following:

“Oh wow, that’s so cool that you’ve managed to make it work that way, but I’m looking more into getting an audiobook agent to get me in-studio jobs. I don’t want to learn all the technical stuff”

My response? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLROFLMAO!!!!!!!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂, yeah bitch me too!

Listen, I get it, nobody wants to learn a bunch of boring, complicated technical skills. We all just wanna be storytellers. Unbridled by anything other than our dedication to the craft or whatever. But unless you’re Patti Lupone herself, you’re not gonna get consistent audiobook jobs through an agent. Most publishers have their own internal casting teams that prefer to work one-on-one with narrators (and occasionally managers) to cast books, and who are expecting to be able to contract that person to do the job independently and to deadline. Most producers will avoid agents unless they are specifically looking for a celebrity casting.

It can be a treat to go and work in a big studio, but this is increasingly rare. For home studio projects, the producer has to pay you and an engineer per finished hour (more on this later). For in-studio projects, the producer has to pay you and an engineer per finished hour, but ALSO has to pay:

  • An engineer per WORKED hour

  • A director per WORKED hour

  • Studio rental fees

Unless you are highly sought after pop culture or showbiz royalty, you are probably not important enough to be that expensive.