As Scott Brick, a narrator of 950 audiobooks, teaches in this video, you need to give yourself permission to infuse your readings with characterization.
What makes an audiobook compelling and engaging is when the audiobook narrator is able to give characterization to the characters in the book, including the narration. Effective characterization: It helps to think of audiobook narration as voice acting.A good voice: A good narrator voice is enthusiastic and energetic, engaging the listeners and increasing their interest.This means that the best audiobook narrators need to have a conducive space for recording their work. Good recording quality: A good recording is one that is clear and does not have any white noise.What Makes a Good Audiobook Narrator?Ī good audiobook narrator has the following characteristics that distinguish them from an amateur narrator: This is usually available for the best quality books, and you will need to win an audition for them. The stipend is a combination of royalty share and per finished hour. Additionally, most budding authors don’t have much budget to pay a high price for their narrators. But, if you don’t have any experience yet, authors may hesitate to pay such a high fee. So no matter how long it took you to produce the final output, you only get paid for the actual finished number of hours.įor this type of pay, you normally set a price per hour that potential clients can choose from.Īn advantage of this model is that you can charge higher, such as $200 per hour. An average-length book usually has 5-6 hours worth of audio, which typically takes up to 40 hours to complete, taking into account the actual reading, editing, and re-recording of sections. Just as it’s called, you get a fixed rate per “finished” hour. The second way of earning through Audible is the Per Finished Hour model. This is why many narrators don’t choose the royalty route when they have an option.īut, if you find a book that sells really well, this can pay dividends years down the road for an audiobook that you recorded over, perhaps, 30 hours for a 6-hour finished product. The problem with this scenario is if the book you narrate doesn’t sell too well, in which case your cut won’t add up to much.
If the book sells 100 copies at $10 each in one month, that means you get $2 per book, or $200 for the month. That means you get 20% of the price of every audiobook sold. With royalty shares, Audible takes 60% of the sale price of the book, and the remaining 40% is split 50-50 between the author and the audiobook narrator. On the other hand, working through a trusted platform like Audible means that you will be exactly where authors are looking for people to narrate their books.Īudible gives you 3 ways to earn money: Royalty Share And, if you don’t have any experience yet, you will likely have a harder time doing this. This path also requires so much more effort, such as building your platform and marketing yourself. Work through a platform like ACX for selling audiobooks on Audibleįinding your own clients may or may not mean that you’ll get a higher pay, since you’ll be able to negotiate yourself.When you first want to break into the audiobook world, you have two options: Why? Because it takes a bit of time to record a good quality audiobook, and it also takes time for you to earn money.
Now, if you’re thinking of becoming an audiobook narrator to pay an upcoming bill, you probably would not make it. How Much Does an Audiobook Narrator Make? And the great thing is that Audible invites audiobook narrators to earn through ACX, or the Audiobook Creation Exchange. Just as Amazon has become a leading player in print and ebook publishing, it also owns Audible, the leading brand in audiobooks today. But as major publishers no longer dominate the publishing world, options for audiobook narrators are now wide open. Major publishers usually prefer to hire celebrities to do the audiobook narrations of the books they publish. And thanks to the rise in sites like Audible, which offer audio versions of thousands of print books, even people who don’t enjoy reading can benefit from some of the best books listening. Audiobooks have become an increasingly popular way for people to “read” books.