I am about to being month three in my new venture as an audiobook narrator. I’ve submitted 50 auditions and received nine book contracts. All of this work is being done through Amazon’s Audible System called ACX. They really make the process simple as most of the authors and narrators are new to the process—or at least that it how it feels. You’ll see why I feel that way in a minute.
The first book contract was canceled by ACX because they found a violation on the part of the author. They noted my account was still in good standing and that I should continue auditioning for more books. I receive my second book contract the same day. Two book contracts from my first three auditions. I was blown away.
When I started down this road of audiobook narration, I planned on it taking about two months to get my first book offer. I was psyching myself up for lots of rejection upfront. To receive two offers my first day in the business was shocking!
It took a few days to receive the manuscript for me to read, but once I did, I got right to work. Got myself organized, noted the length of each chapter. My process involves tracking how long it takes me to record and edit each chapter. My first book had 47 chapters…the entire book was only 5,000 words, less than a half hour of reading. It took four hours and forty-five minutes to record and edit. Having no experience in the business, I had no idea if that was slow or normal?
While recording that first book, I was thrown a slight curve. There were several passages written that I felt were not written correctly. I took a little time to peruse the internet for guidance. The general rule of thumb is, unless the error is so bad, read what is on the page as written. That is was I did.
I received my second book offer after submitting my second round of auditions. This second book was managed by a publishing house. The writing was significantly better. The book was over 21,000 words and took me several hours to record and edit. When doing the math, I discovered the 4 to 1 ratio of record/editing to final book length was pretty typical. Reading on the internet, I’ve since learned 5 hours of recording/edit to one hour of book length is very normal.
To date, just a few days short of my two month anniversary, I am hard at work recording four books simultaneously. This morning I woke to my normal routine of read before email, start at 4am. I got my road map opened and times noted, open the digital studio and started recording. I got four sentences into the recording and realized I had read this phrase already. I was shocked and checked my road map…how could I have made such a mistake?
The road map file was correct, so I checked my files. I had not already recorded this chapter…so the overwhelming feeling of dejavu must be wrong. I kept reading. Each phrase I read I got a stronger feeling that I had already read this and must have just not saved the file correctly. I finished the chapter’s first pass and went back to do my edit/check. That is when I discovered a major error in the manuscript. The author had duplicated chapters. Chapters 5 through 9 had significant duplication. Going back on what I learned in my research…that being read what is on the page…I felt conflicted. Do I contact the author or just record and proceed. I opted to contact the author and request clarification.
The moral of this story…for those who are considering getting into audiobook production…when the error is obvious, contact the author. Your name is going to be forever tied to the book. While narrators are not judged by writing quality, some can get the impression we made performance errors. It is one thing to read something that is grammatically incorrect, it is another to read something that is obviously duplicated.
