How Does My Book Sound?

This week we hand over our blog to one of our authors, Robert Cubitt, who has been dabbling in the world of audiobooks. All views expressed by the blog's author are his own and are not necessarily shared by Selfishgenie Publishing

As an Indie author, have you ever wondered if you should turn your masterpiece into an audiobook? I did wonder, so I did some research to see if it was the right thing for me (spoiler alert – it was).
 
First of all, the market for audiobooks in the UK in 2021 was £151 million, up from £133 million in 2020. In the USA the market was worth $4.2 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to $33 billion by 2030.
 
Just a microscopic slice of either of those pies is a significant amount of money.
 
So, why are more Indie authors not pursuing this avenue for selling their books?

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Aside from snobbery (some authors don’t believe that audiobooks are really books) the answer is cost.
 
First of all, audiobooks cost far more to buy than either an ebook or a paperback. In the US an audiobook will cost between $20 and $30 and prices are comparable in the UK. For this reason, many audiobook retailers work on a subscription basis, allowing listeners to download multiple titles each month for around $15 (and the equivalent in pounds).

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If you subscribe to Spotify or iTunes, you will already be familiar with this and Audible provides a typical subscription model for audiobooks. In essence it is no different from what KindleUnlimited does for ebooks.
 
The reason behind this cost is that an audiobook requires a narrator, and they don’t come cheap.

​If you want a well-known actor to narrate your book you can think of a starting price in excess of £3,000 ($3,500) and some audio books use more than one actor: an overall narrator, a male character lead and a female character lead, which further increases the cost.
 
The cost of those voices has to be recovered before either the author or the publisher makes a penny in profit.

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But I wasn’t going to be deterred by this, so I went looking for cheaper options – and found them.
 
I’ll be talking about acx.com a lot, as they are the largest distributor for audiobooks. They sell audiobooks through Audible, Amazon and iTunes, which between them control around 80% of the audiobook market. If your audiobook isn’t on acx.com, it isn’t anywhere.
 
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first thing you need if you want to publish an audiobook is a narrator. So how do you find one of those? And, more importantly, how do you find one that won’t charge an arm and a leg to work with you?

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My starting point is the same as for any job I want doing in relation to publishing: fiverr.com. A search for “audiobook narrators” provided me with an extensive list of potential candidates. Each one has posted an audio clip of their voice, so you know what you are getting before you even approach them.
 
If your book is British based you will want a British accent (unless you are Lee Childs, who sets his books in the USA), likewise if you are an American author you will probably want an American accent. You may want to choose between a  male and a female narrator. Whatever you want, you will probably find someone to offer it. There’s even one that offers to read a French translation of your book for the French market.

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Rates for narrators vary and they quote their prices by 100, 200, 250 words etc so do check carefully what they are quoting so that you can compare prices properly. The narrator I picked out suggested a starting price of £4.54 (around $5.25 at current exchange rates) for 250 words, which is very much at the economy end of the scale. (I will provide his details at the end of the blog.)
 
But his voice sounded good, so I asked for a “custom quote” based on the length of my book.
 
My narrator came back with a quote of $1,800 (about £1,560).

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If that makes your eyes water, then I empathise because it made my eyes water too. However, you must remember that, unlike many services, you aren’t just paying for time, you are also paying for talent.

​But my books have been doing well recently and paying that amount from my recent royalties wasn’t out of the question.
 
However, I wasn’t going to commit to that amount of money on the spot. I messaged back to the narrator to say I would think about it and get back to him.
 
At which point the negotiations really started.
 
My narrator told me he could do it for about half that amount, but with a royalty share option – 50:50. This is a facility that acx.com operates, so the author doesn’t even have to pay the royalties to the narrator; acx.com does that.

If you think that is giving away a lot, please remember that 50% of something is always better than 100% of nothing.

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So, we agreed $900, which would be paid through Fiverr.com and the rest would be paid in royalties through acx.com.

So, just a quick conversion for my British readers, I paid about £780 upfront to my narrator, plus Fiverr.com’s charges.
 
Please note that the royalties scheme has no limit to it. The author doesn’t stop sharing when a certain level of royalties have been reached. It goes on for as long as the audiobook remains on sale.

That can mean my narrator receives a lot more than $1,800 if the book is a good seller, which is why some narrators like this way of doing business. But, if the book isn’t a good seller, my narrator (and me) may not make very much from it.
 
That’s the gamble we are both taking.

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Don’t be surprised if your narrator asks about your ebook and paperback sales figures before he or she agrees to a royalty share deal. And they may check out the book’s sales ranking on Amazon, so don’t try to fool them.
 
Having never done this before, I decided to find some resources to tell me how it all works. In terms of the technical requirements for the book, I found this helpful check sheet. It gets a bit technical in parts, but it does provide the basics. Most of that is your narrator’s responsibility, but it does no harm for you to know about it too.
 
I then found this video on YouTube which provides a practical demonstration. That is stuff that you as the author will need to know in order to upload your audiobook for distribution.

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In terms of uploading your book, it is no more difficult than using any of the self-publishing websites with which self-published authors, like you, will already be familiar. However, there are two things which are very different:
 

• The audition process,
• The narrator selection process, including payment options.

 
Because I had already decided on my narrator, I didn’t need to get into the audition process. But basically, if you want to look for narrators who are already registered with acx.com (and the vast majority are) you can upload an extract of your book for prospective narrators to audition and bid for the work.
 
You can apply filters for your narrators, such as nationality, language, gender, accent, and general tone of voice you want for your book (serious, dramatic, humorous etc).
 
If you have already decided on your narrator, as I had, you can search for them by name in the appropriate section, and they will be linked to the project.

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When you tell acx.com the wordcount for your book, they do a calculation on how long it should take for a narrator to read (a 90k book is about 9.5 hours). In the appropriate section of the site, you can then enter an hourly rate you are willing to pay. Multiply one by the other and you get an indicative cost for your audiobook. I would suggest a starting price of about $50 (£45) per hour.
 
If you don’t get any bids to narrate your book by the cut-off date that you specify (typically 2 - 5 days) you can increase the hourly rate until you get a bid with which you are satisfied.
 
The site pays royalties of 40% for exclusive distribution rights for your book or 25% for non-exclusive rights. I went for exclusive, which gives me 20% and my narrator 20%
 
Having already chosen my narrator, and found him in acx.com’s directory, I filled in the details for the royalties share scheme. This section also asks if you agree to fund some or all of the narration costs. Don’t tick that box if you have agreed a “royalties only” scheme with your narrator, as I had; acx.com doesn’t need to know about the lump sum payment made using Fiverr.com
 
Caution: once you have posted these details you can’t change them. You have to cancel the whole project and start again (as I discovered).

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And that’s about it. Your chosen narrator will get to work and provide you with a 15 minute segment, so that you can verify they are narrating your book the way you expected. Once you have signed off on that they will carry on with the rest of the recording and they upload the files when they have finished. You listen to the files to make sure you are satisfied and after that it is no different from publishing an ebook or paperback.

Publishing an audio book isn't a speedy business. Firstly you have to wait while your narrator actually narrates your book and it probably isn't their full time job, so they will be doing it in their spare time. Secondly, once it is uploaded there is a lengthy quality review process which acx.com says takes 10 business days to complete but which took longer in the case of my book, for some unexplained reason.

Then comes the hard part, of course – marketing the audiobook. Because, just like any other publishing medium, no-one is going to stumble on your book by accident. You have to tell readers/listeners about it, and where to find it.
 
But this is where you get a little bit of a bonus by being on a royalties share basis. Because your narrator has a vested interest in the book being successful and they will probably do some marketing on their own behalf.
 
Can you narrate your own book?

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If you think you have the voice for it, then of course you can. But beware, acx.com has very tight quality standards and you may not be able to reproduce these at home.

Readers also want a “clean” listening experience, so they don’t want to hear the sound of your children squabbling in the background, or your dog barking at the neighbour’s cat (or both). See the technical checklist I linked to above.
 
So, how successful has my audiobook been?

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I have no idea because it has only just been launched. But I’ll be back after Christmas with an update, so be sure to check back.
 
And if you want to find out more about my audiobook version of Operation Absolom, you can download a free extract here.
 
Or you can check it out on Amazon by clicking here.

If you are an author who would like to use a male British narrator for your book, then I am pleased to recommend Michael Hajiantonis. You can find him on acx.com under that name or you can do what I did and find him on Fiverr.com using this link. 

If you would like to get a promo code for a free download of the Operation Absolom audiobook, just email us through our contact address. All we ask in return is for a review and a share on your social media.

Good luck!
 
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