Audiobooks: An Explosion of Sound Part 2

In Part 1 of this series of articles, we established that audiobooks are a viable source of income for authors. In this second part, we’re going to take an indepth look at hybrid audiobook production companies.

These companies help authors Iind narrators. They provide a platform for communication between authors and narrators and will sell the Iinished product to various audiobook distributors. ACX, Findaway Voices, Scribe, and Lantern Audiobooks (formerly ListenUp) are some of the companies offering this service. This article will provide information on using both ACX and Findaway Voices to produce your audiobook.

ACX is Audible/Amazon’s audiobook production company. According to their website, “ACX is a marketplace where authors, literary agents, publishers, and other Rights Holders can connect with narrators, engineers, recording studios, and other producers capable of producing a Iinished audiobook.” Findaway Voices has a similar goal. From their website, “We help new and established authors reach a global audiobook market fast, and our distribution network opens up a healthy, WIDE sales ecosystem with great alternatives to exclusivity.” Going wide is the term for having your audiobooks available for sale on over 40 retail markets. Findaway Voices also has partnerships with Draft2Digital, Spotify, and Chirp Books.

Both companies need you to set up an author account, which is free. Once Iinished, you add your title. In order to work with ACX, your title must be listed for

By: Maria V. Snyder

sale or available for pre-orders on Amazon as an eBook or print. This is not necessary for Findaway Voices. However, Findaway Voices won’t be able to distribute your title on Amazon/Audible until there is a matching eBook or print edition.

ACX

ACX is very diligent in ensuring authors have the right to produce an audiobook and are the Rights Holders. For example, for my Archives of the Invisible Sword series, I sold my Australian audio rights to Harlequin Australia, but retained them for the rest of the world. When I began the process of getting the Iirst book, "The Eyes of Tamburah" listed, they sent me an email requesting proof that I held the rights. I had to scan the appropriate pages of my contract and send them to ACX before I could move forward. And yes, I had to do it for the next two books in the series as well. Annoying, but also gratifying that they are committed to protecting my rights.

When you enter your title, ACX will display a number of books and you click on yours. Hopefully it’ll be available. When I entered my book, "The City of Zirdai", it came up with my cover, but was unavailable.

Seems another person/company AKA pirate had claimed the title. In that case, you need to contact ACX support and be prepared to be patient. It took them three weeks to Iinally take down the illegal listing.

The next step is to create a title proIile. With ACX in involves entering a synopsis of the book, copyright info, genre, and whether or not you want auditions. If you already have a narrator/producer lined up, then you can go directly to offering that narrator/producer the job. If there is a certain narrator you’d love to do your book, you can send them an offer.

Side note from ACX: “On ACX, you (the author) will contract with one producer. The producer may also be the narrator. However, on occasions, a producer will hire a narrator or multiple narrators on their own to submit auditions. Either way, you work with one entity on ACX to create a retail-ready audiobook.”

On ACX, if you are looking for narrators, you can input details on the narrator’s voice, for example, gender, age, accents, and vocal style, like snarky, raspy, or warm. There’s also a spot for additional information. According to ACX, in order to attract attention for your title, “Creating a robust, speciIic, and accurate Title

ProIile is important. A book description that’s highly descriptive and compelling helps producers get excited about working on your project. Overall, we have two pieces of advice: the more vivid details, the better. Get potential producers engrossed in the subject matter, the plot, and the characters. Include an idea of your marketing plan and sales history in the Title ProIile. A studio professional wants to be part of winning project, so show them strong sales potential.”

Also include any other selling points (like Iirst in a series), any awards you’ve won, Best Seller status (ranked #10 in YA Romantic Fantasy), reviews, and social media reach in that additional information area. At this stage, you’ll also need to upload a 1-3 page audition script, where you can add more information and details about the characters.

You might ask why sales and Best Seller information are important. There are two reasons—one is because many narrators are hoping for projects that will get them good publicity and will build a following for them. The other is that both ACX and Findaway Voices offer a royalty share option with the narrator. With royalty share, the narrator agrees to cover a portion or all of the cost of the production in exchange for a share of the royalties. In that case, narrators are betting on sales of the audiobook exceeding their expenses.

On ACX, once you've completed the title proIile, you wait for auditions, or for the narrator you requested to agree to work with you. Listening to the auditions is lots of fun. When you’re deciding on a narrator, you might want to listen to other books they’ve done to get an idea of their vocal range. Then you send an offer to the narrator you’ve chosen.

ACX has a number of options for royalty payments. If you decide to go exclusively with ACX, meaning you don’t sell your audiobook on any other platform, then you will receive 40% of the money earned from the sale of your audiobook. If you don’t want to be exclusive to ACX, then you will receive 25%.

Considering Amazon/Audible has a 63.4% market share of audiobooks sold, going exclusive might be viable for you. Also, you can switch after 90 days to nonexclusive. If you have negotiated a “royalty share” with your narrator, then each of you will receive 20%.

Findaway Voices

Findaway Voices offers three choices when you add a title. With the Iirst, you have the option of creating an audiobook independently using their Marketplace. The second one is selecting a managed production, and the third is to upload an existing audiobook. Since this article is about hybrid productions, the focus will be on the second option—managed productions.

After you choose the managed production option on Findaway Voices, a casting director will provide you with a list of narrators they think will be ideal for your audiobook. You can listen to the audio samples from each of these narrators and decide on a few to request an audition.

Once you’ve selected a narrator, Findaway Voices encourages you to Iill out their Production Notes. It’s a Word document that is, “an important step to getting the performance you’re expecting. We’ve created a template to help guide the process, including places to note speciIic character traits, accents, and a pronunciation guide.” This document is sent to your narrator before they start recording. Authors can also opt out of various retailers. For example, if you want to list your audiobook for sale on Amazon/Audible using the non-exclusive option, you can still distribute it to the other retailers through Findaway Voices. Listing your audiobook on both sites might be more time consuming with setting up the accounts, however, you will earn more money. Consider that Findaway Voices is giving you 80% of the royalties earned, while if you list directly with ACX, you will be getting 100% of the royalties earned from them. Also, if you produce your audiobook on ACX and then upload it to Findaway Voices, they will pay you 75% of the royalties, instead of 80%.

With the royalty share negotiation, the author agrees to pay 50% of the production costs, and the narrator will receive 20% of the royalties earned. Since Findaway Voices pays authors 80% of the royalties from all the retail sources, sharing royalties means the author will receive 60%. However, authors can stop the royalty share at any time by

“buying out” the narrator. The buy-out costs double the original payment to the narrator. For example, if you paid $1,000 in production costs, then the buy-out price would be $2,000.

Both

Both ACX and Findaway Voices require narrators to upload the Iirst 15 minutes of the audiobook for the author to review before they continue. This is an important step as it gives you the chance to request changes. Once you approve the sample, the entire book is recorded. When the narrator is Iinished recording and the sound engineer has cleaned up the burps, stomach gurgles, and other unwanted noises, the book is uploaded chapter by chapter. The author must listen to the entire audiobook and approve it. If there are mispronunciations or small mistakes, they can be corrected at this stage, but you can’t decide to change anything major, like a main character’s accent. After you’ve approved the audiobook, it’s time to pay. Findaway Voices only takes online credit card payments. ACX doesn’t take payment. Instead, the contract you signed with your narrator will detail how payment should be received. For example, my narrator for my Archives of the Invisible Sword series, Gabra Zackman, is a member of SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) and her payment must go to SAGAFTRA. I send them the check, and they deduct their fees before forwarding the rest to her.

Once the payment is complete, the audiobook is now yours. The next step is to list it for sale. The audiobook will go through a review process on both sites before being available for purchase. Both ACX and Findaway Voices distribute and sell audiobooks. ACX only distributes to Amazon, Audible, and Apple (formerly iTunes), while Findaway Voices distributes to more than 40 retail and library partners. Also, ACX won’t allow authors to set the prices of their audiobooks. They have a calculation for the price based on the length of the audiobook. Findaway Voices allows you to not only set the price, but to put your title on sale to promote it through Chirp Books, which is a part of BookBub, and they send out daily email newsletters with a list of discounted audiobooks.

As you can see, there are many steps to producing an audiobook, and it all takes time. Findaway Voices estimates the entire process from start to sale can be “as fast as” 6-8 weeks. ACX says 3-8 weeks, depending on the length of the book and the narrator’s schedule. If you requested a certain narrator, you may have to wait for an opening in their schedule. Popular narrators can be booked for months. If you have a release date for your book, I suggest you start the audiobook process at least three months prior. For those new to audiobooks, using a hybrid production company is a great way to get your feet wet. They have the expertise and resources to help guide you in this strange new land of sound.