November 13, 2024 • 39 mins
In this episode, I'm joined by voice over artist and audiobook producer, Ethan Fifield, for an explainer on how to make an audiobook.
Ethan offers a fantastic insight into the process of making audiobooks, explaining what it's like to be a producer and what it's like to work with publishers and authors.
Ethan also offers practical advice on how to make an audiobook, using platforms like ACX to create projects that narrators can pitch for. He also explains how different contracts can be arranged, like royalty splits, meaning you can make an audiobook with the help of a narrator today without paying a penny!
If you're keen to learn more about audiobooks, this episode is guaranteed to help.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
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(00:23):
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Thank you very much for listening.
Enjoy the show. Thank you for listening to the
Fantasy Writers Tool Shed. I'm your host, Richie Billing.
(00:46):
And today I'm delighted to be joined by the brilliant voice
over artist Ethan Fifield. Ethan, welcome to the show.
Oh, thanks, Richie. Glad to be here.
Oh, thank you very much for joining me.
I've been very much looking forward to having you on the
show to talk all about audio books.
Because if you're listening to Home, you may know that Ethan
(01:07):
here did an absolutely amazing job on the audio book of my
novel, Prize Lovins. Well, thank you very much.
I. Really had a lot of fun with it.
It's so much to play with in thestory.
It was a lot of fun to narrate all the different characters,
the adventure they've had. It's well written stuff.
Thank you. I've got a question for you
(01:28):
later on about what you think audio adds to a story.
But I could quickly say now thatyou really did bring that story
to life in a way that I could never have really dreamed of, to
be honest. And you nailed absolutely
everything about it, and you took it to a whole new level.
And I think that's what audio books can do, is that they can
(01:48):
elevate stories. And you definitely nailed it
with Ferrari's Lawrence. Thank you very much.
Glad you liked it. Definitely, Yeah, We're going to
be talking a bit about talk about that a bit more and
shortly. But before we dive in, I just
wanted to talk more about facts and figures about audio books
because obviously they had a bigboom during the pandemic and it
(02:12):
would have been, well, it was quite interesting to see whether
that would have carried on because plenty fads sprung up
and died when we were all in lockdown.
So I've done a bit of research, got some facts and figures and
pretty interesting as well. These, these are all from
Deloitte and they're all pretty recent as well, looking at 2024.
(02:35):
And I just want to share some ofthese facts and figures with
you, get your thoughts and opinions on them.
But I also want to put into perspective how big audio books
are now because it is pretty amazing how much they've sprung
up in popularity. So here's some facts.
I'll put the link in the description for anyone who wants
(02:55):
to have a little look. So audio book listenership is
growing 15% year on year, even after the pandemic.
So that's pretty impressive. 15%is huge when you when you look
at the numbers. And globally, it's estimated
that about 270 million people a month are going to listen to
(03:19):
audiobooks. It's well over a billion a year.
And the Lloyds predicts that audiobooks are going to account
for approximately 6% of total book sales worldwide.
And that is representing a 26% year on year increase in sales.
And that equates to about $7 billion in global revenue, which
(03:43):
is that's a lot of money. That extra reach is amazing.
I'm not surprised that people didn't, you know, put audiobooks
down after they picked them up in the pandemic.
But just hearing how many peoplethey're getting to, that's
exciting. Yeah, it's huge.
It's and just in the US alone this year 2024, audiobooks
(04:05):
expected to outsell ebooks for the first time.
So that's pretty big. Ebooks, everyone was going crazy
for them a few years ago and audiobooks I've tipped into the
post. I mean, just to give you an idea
of more of a sort of a real example.
I was reading this the other day.
Spotify literally plunged themselves into death because
(04:28):
they spent so much money buying the audio book rights for
200,000 audio books. And so if Spotify, you like the
market leader, if they're investing so much money in audio
books, it's just a clearly addictive of the way the
industry and the markets going. So Ethan, as an audio worker,
(04:49):
this what do you think about this?
Just the number of people is what it keeps coming back to for
me. It's exciting to think that
we've got that many people out there picking them up.
I suppose I'm not sure what it is about the pandemic in
particular that made that the kickoff point to really pick up
stories in that fashion. But I do get why they've kept
(05:10):
going strong and just, I know you've got a question later on
about it, so you can get into what I think the audio or what I
think the audio element brings to a story later.
But it's just exciting to see that growing and what it means
for just the amount of the audience you can reach with the
story. Yeah, puts a smile on my face.
(05:33):
Yeah, it is. It's amazing.
It wasn't long ago we were thinking that books were on the
way out and now the variation inform and having, having people
like yourself bringing new angles, the stories, I think is
that that's a really special thing because people connect
with the things in different ways, don't they?
(05:54):
I mean, we, we said we'd save that question for later, but
let's dive into it now. I mean, what do you, what do you
think audio brings to the story?Then why do you think they're so
popular? Oh, there's a couple of, there's
a couple of big thoughts for me.I know when one of them is, I
don't think you can really overstate the importance of just
increased accessibility to the story.
(06:16):
If you've got an audio book, youdon't necessarily have to be sat
down reading it, or whether thatbe with a paper copy or looking
at your Kindle for an ebook, youcan be, you can be driving
somewhere, you can be at work, you can have your hands busy and
some earbuds in. Just listen to the book on your
(06:37):
own time. So all of a sudden there's a
great deal a great many more spaces where you can enjoy the
OR where you can enjoy the storyon your time.
The other thing I know that at least when I think about reading
on paper myself, because I do have a lot of fun with that one
(06:59):
thing the audio element adds, This kind of turns into a
question, but like, have you ever sat down with the story and
just found yourself kind of reflexively reading it out loud,
doing the character voices and whatnot?
Yeah, sometimes, you know. Yeah.
And just having that voice, it helps add some impetus, I
(07:22):
suppose, behind the words. It can give it pacing and
momentum. And that is harder to get if
you're just if you're just reading the words off the page
yourself. Yeah, I can relate to this
actually, because I've been read.
I'll read a lot of Ian Rankin and I don't know if you've ever
read any of his books, but all about a police officer, the
(07:44):
Inspector Rebus. He's called Inspector Rebus and
but he's based in Edinburgh and it's all Scottish.
So I read and like just in my normal head accents or whatever.
But sometimes, like you say, yourealise especially when they
start put on accents or certain words and it's meant to be read
in this particular way, so you start to play around with it and
(08:07):
it's a different experience. Like you say, it's amazing.
Absolutely. And sometimes it helps make more
sense of things than they did before.
I'm looking past your shoulder. I'm seeing the Rohan picture on
the wall and thinking myself to The Silmarillion because it's
one of my favorite things that I've read of talking.
And admittedly, it tries to takethis mythological tone and it
(08:30):
doesn't sound maybe as much, especially like The Hobbit is
something you might hear people saying on the street.
But if you put the character's words out there in a voice, they
suddenly feel a lot easier to understand.
And that is done some work with Shakespeare as well.
That is just something I feel almost any text can gain a
(08:53):
little bit of clarity when you put a voice behind it.
Oh yeah, it's with Shakespeare. I completely agree with you
there, because whenever I've, I've never studied Shakespeare
at school and I've, I know this about the stories, but I've
never read them. So I was in a charity shop,
bought all the volumes because Ifound a really nice coffee and I
was reading them when I was like, this is a bit of this is a
(09:16):
bit hard work. But then I went to see Macbeth
and it was the first time I've ever been to a Shakespeare play
and it was it was amazing. And like you say, it's
completely different because you've got that person reading
it out or acting it and performing it for you and
showing you the emotions. Oh yeah, and I mean, especially
with Shakespeare, that's made tobe put on its feet.
(09:39):
If you still got that book a recommendation, just get
together with your friends, assigned parts, even just
sitting around, everybody reading the character gains so
much kind of what some early table work stuff and rehearsals
looks like. But I'm sorry, that's.
Do you think it could be like a more of a natural way of
(10:03):
enjoying a story? If you think about like the way
when we're younger, we grow up, we can't read and we're getting
told stories, read stories by people on a sort of like a sort
of natural level. We are sort of fed a lot of
stories orally. Do you think there's like an
elements of was prefer and that means of receiving a story?
(10:28):
I've definitely always wondered about the the delineation
between artificial and natural. But I think you're right, orally
is the first way that we're tolda lot of stories.
It's the older storytelling medium going back down through
human history. I think it's just the way that
(10:48):
we're used more used to conveying information, even if
these days the gap between hearing things and being taught
to read them is not quite as long as once it might have been.
Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing, all this audio
stuff. So how did you get into it all?
Where did it all begin for you reason?
(11:11):
Wow. As far as actual audio work
goes, it came out of Long story short, I was, I had finally, you
know, gotten into a theater program, admitted that was what
I wanted to do with my life. And, you know, you take some
(11:31):
vocal training as part of that. I had, it had finally started to
click for me. I was really having a lot of fun
with it, got a lot more talkative as a result because my
voice was, you know, getting better, getting better at
projecting, generally more sonorous, for lack of a better
word. As I figured out what to do with
(11:52):
it. And somebody told me about that
time, you know, you've got a great voice you could do like
dispatch or voice over work, which I'm sure you know, they
must occasionally say to anybody.
But I decided to look on into it.
I started doing some research, figured out what equipment I was
going to need, a few good placesto look for work.
(12:15):
ACX is one that I got recommended by a classmate
pretty early on. I started auditioning around,
started learning the insurance and outs of my equipment and
editing software, which I kind of wish I had sought more
guidance on than I did early on.Because you know, you do
anything, you slowly get better at it and you look back on your,
(12:39):
you look back on your earlier efforts and wish you knew some
of the stuff you learned later. But I digress.
I think I'm about 9, 9 audio books down the line from there.
I feel like I've feel like I've learned a bit and I know I have
much more to go. So that's the short version of
the story. Nice, you have got a brilliant
(13:02):
voice. Is that something that people
have always said? Definitely not.
I mean, I you get me in person, I'm generally a very a much
quieter shyer sorts not not really comfortable with large
crowds of people. I will happy to be there, but
(13:24):
I'll probably be hanging out on the fringe of it.
And it wasn't until I engaged with theater that I started to
get. I digress.
The two don't really seem terribly connected, but suffice
to say I used to hold my voice alot more in the throat, kind of
in vocal fry territory. And as parts of my theatrical
(13:47):
education, I learned to, you know, breathe from the
diaphragm, as it were, really use all the space in my mouth
and, yeah, generally bring my voice out a lot more than I
used. To That's a great thing.
I don't know, it sort of warms my hearts and all that.
Yeah. It's something that you can
learn because I'm someone who's always struggled a little bit
(14:07):
with oral communication. I actually was terrified of
reading anything aloud, especially my own writing.
But I was. Luckily I've got a friend who
met on a writing course. He was an actor and he taught me
and some different exercises that I can follow just to like,
say, project your voice and justto train yourself to slow down,
(14:33):
breathe when like how to read stuff out in a way that isn't
going to ruin the story and put everyone off.
Oh, definitely. And just you don't link later at
all that I'd imagine some of theexercises might have come from
there. Yeah.
Suffice to say, there's a lot ofyou've been taught at all at
this point, I suppose. Plenty of plenty of physical
(14:56):
exercises, mental exercises justto warm up the whole instrument,
as it were. Because, you know, voice at some
level is a full body instrument.Yeah.
It is, yeah. And yeah, sometimes they should
definitely teach in schools because it's such a powerful
thing. Like, I feel like we were
talking about this recently in work, and we're saying that
(15:18):
American people seem to be whether you just are a lot
better at communicating. They're a lot more open and
direct, and they're not afraid to sort of say something in
front of a crowd. Whereas British people will
just, like, mutter and mumble and just, like, bitch and moan
behind people's backs about things.
(15:39):
They would be like, wouldn't sayit and like I do, I think I
don't know if you're exposed to it more in schools or whether
it's encourage more, but you're just better at it and so.
But I think as someone who relates a lot to that get up and
mutter thing, I can't really comment.
(16:00):
I credit the various theatre programs that I've been
fortunate to be part of for a lot of such skill as I do have
at communicating. And unfortunately over here,
those programs do sometimes get the short end of the stick where
funding is concerned. So I think it's something that
we too need to work on teaching maybe a little more even than we
(16:22):
do. Yeah, it's because it's it's
important thing to be able to communicate and as writers, we
can do it without words. But obviously when we we want to
start getting our stuff out there, we've got to go to
conventions or go to bookstores and do signings and stuff and we
need to be able to cut communicate confidently.
(16:43):
So yeah, I think it's great. But it's it's something that you
can learn. So if you've done that in audio
books and Prize Lament was one of them.
Luckily, I was very, very happy when you agreed that you'd you
do the audio book for Prize Lament.
Well, I was excited to get the opportunity.
It looked like good stuff. Very kind.
(17:06):
Just that sample with Edvar at this, with Edvar running for the
keep at the top of the book. I didn't understand how urgent
the situation was until I saw the whole thing, but it does.
Oh yeah. Oh, nice.
That's good to know. So what, what's it like the
experience then of of working with publishers and authors?
And you've got a couple of experience in this now and is it
(17:30):
all quite similar? Is everything easygoing?
Is it nice and smooth or is it full of challenges?
What's it like Vienna? Have we sold for artists?
But I feel I honestly don't feelcomfortable making any blanket
statements about this. I've only got a handful of.
I don't imagine 9 to be a whole lot of books honestly.
(17:51):
But in my experience, I've been very fortunate to work with
publishers who were, you know, very broadly chill about the
whole process. Everybody seemed happy and
excited to be working together and they were, they were very
clear with feedback. It's, it's honestly been, it's
been very relaxed, very chill. And I count myself very
(18:16):
fortunate in that regard. Yeah, I suppose it depends on
the nature of the project, doesn't it?
And like when you were doing prize, that meant like, we
didn't really speak at all, did we?
No. And I do apologize for that.
There it's. Not your fault.
It's just like it wasn't, it wasn't really necessary because
we had the publisher and we weregoing through them.
(18:37):
So it was and that worked fine. There's some truth to that, but
at the same time, you know why Icould understand if somebody had
been looking for, say, weekly updates, that would have been
not as much a thing. I was sure to time in when I got
a piece of the process done. Hey, here's the 1st 15 minutes.
Hey, everything has been narrated.
(18:59):
Hey, it's all edited. Here's the full, Here's the
full. I don't want to say manuscript,
but here's all of the files. And.
There wasn't a lot in between that and SO Justin was very easy
going about that. But I also would understand, you
know, if a publisher was lookingfor a weekly update or whatnot,
(19:21):
because there was a long period of silence and that doesn't work
as well for everyone, I suppose.And.
I imagine some people, especially it was quite those
who are quite married to the project, they'll be, they choose
it like a baby, don't they? So they'll be wanting to make
sure it's in good hands. Things are progressing, but
that's why you trust the so important, isn't it?
(19:43):
Yeah. And honestly, that's, I'm, I'd
be happy to work with that, you know, because as the as the
narrator, I want the same sort of thing.
I want to be sure the project looks good.
If I've got questions, like if I've got a question about
whether or not I'm portraying something as you would like it
to be seen, I'd love to be able to ask and pick your brain about
(20:07):
it and just see what you think. Yeah, no, that's, that's the way
it should be as well, because you want to get things right.
I mean, what was it like for youwhen it it came to pitching?
So if anyone out there is wanting to work with an audio
book, what what kind of a process is involved in terms of
(20:28):
like getting the pictures in advertising the project, What's,
what's the whole shebang like? As far as advertising the
projects. Yeah.
So getting started, really, likehow did you sort of pitch for
the book? What made you pitch for it?
Was there something about the project that you sort of like
the sound of? Well, I'm a big fan of science
(20:52):
fiction, fantasy literature in general.
I I really loved having the sample there on ACX just to give
it a chance or give a chance to read through it because.
Yeah, I'm starting to get a sense of the sort of stories
where my voice usually does particularly well.
And a lot of the stuff that I'vedone, not all of it has been
(21:13):
sci-fi, fantasy or thriller work.
The sort of thing where you can put in a little bit of a wrath
to the voice, speak slower, and provide a solid baseline
narration for any characters youmay branch off and do.
And so Pariah's Lament just seemed like a fun story to
(21:34):
narrate and it seemed like something that something that
might work out well with that sort of voice.
I recorded it, sent it on in andI'm happy to say it seems to
have seems to have piqued your interest.
Yeah, well, from my perspective of the process, that's what I
was looking for. It was the someone whose voice
(21:57):
matched the vibe of the story and you got it.
It's like quite a, like I say, gritty, quite a, it's quite a
gritty story. A lot of action in it, a lot of
fighting. And you want someone who's who's
going to like, say, elevate it. That's it lends the voice, the
(22:20):
voice lends itself to the story.It takes it to the new level and
that's really important. I think when you're looking for
an audio book, a voice over artist for your audio book, I
think that has got to be one of the biggest considerations.
Yeah. And as far as on on my side of
(22:40):
the process, I suppose one of the best pieces of advice I ever
got about narration is imagine your you do want to work to
elevate the story just because imagine that you've got someone
else in the booth there with youand you're reading it to them.
Yeah. So you want to make it exciting
for this hypothetical audience and for the real audience that
(23:03):
comes after that. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I mean, what's it like done the process you mentioned before
about getting the equipment and stuff and getting to grips with
the editing. I mean, how long does that take
to to master? I mean, I know you said you
should always learn something aswell, like I'm always learning
something new writing. And I don't think you can never
(23:25):
really be satisfied that you know it all.
But tell us a bit about that process.
Well, like you said, I would make no claim to mastery or you
know, to be because everybody has their own idea or everyone
has their own way of working. But what I have been able to do
with the books I've narrated so far is once I've got the project
(23:49):
and I've got a manuscript, I'll try to take about a week, less
if I can, depends on the size ofthe book, and just read through
everything once by myself. I'll get a feel for the story,
just see what arcs the characters are on, who they are,
who they become, and just sit and read parts of it out loud.
(24:09):
Try on different possible voices.
Like what? What do could they possibly
sound like when the time comes to record?
Once we've got that set, once all of those questions have been
answered, we sit down and properly record the book.
And that can take, depending on the size of the project, can
(24:32):
take a week or three to get through.
So that's just sitting down reading everything out.
No worries about editing at thisphase outside of usually the
first 15 minutes, which I tried to turn back as a sample.
So I can say like, here's what, here's what I'm doing with the
work. Are you sure this is a good fit?
I always hope so. But you know, you got to give
(24:53):
that opportunity. And outside of that, just read
everything through. If if I drop a line, don't stop
anything, we just go back, say the line again, take a deep
breath in there somewhere so that there's space and you can
clip that line out when you get to the editing after the whole
(25:14):
book is done. And that is the part of the
process that takes depending on how busy life away from the
microphone gets. I have, I have how to take
months to get through editing and editing a book based on the
size of it. So I'll go through reduce any,
(25:36):
reduce any audio artifacts in the background of the narration,
just clip out anything that doesn't that doesn't read,
write, make notes of what needs to be rerecorded, and then add
those back in where necessary. Once all that's done, we export
the files, get them out of Audacity, which is the program I
(26:00):
use for recording and into MP3 format, and I usually work with
ACX. Once everything's edited, I'll
upload those to the site, hit their button that says I've done
and send a message the the rights holder's way to let him
know, hey, I've gone through thebook.
I've made all of the edits I could find.
(26:23):
This is the finished product after one round of edits.
Do you have, do you have anything that needs to be
changed? And if they send anything back,
I go ahead, copy those notes down, go in and make those
changes, pop it on back to them,see if they have anything more
that goes back and forth as manyrounds as it needs kind of
(26:45):
unchanged. Well, the process is unchanged.
There will be changes to the work as many times as needs to
happen. Once that's all done, it's good
to submit to ACX for quality control, and of course we fix
anything that they kick back ourway.
But if all is good to go, next step after that is the book
(27:09):
coming up for sale, usually on Audible, iTunes and Amazon.
So just I wanted to ask you and for anyone who's not familiar,
because we've mentioned that a few times times, ACX, could you
tell us a bit about this platform?
Sure. So ACX is an Amazon affiliated
platform. It's the audio book Creative
Exchange, and it's a place whereauthors who are looking for
(27:35):
voice over artists to narrate their books can meet and network
with voice over artists who are looking for work to to lend
their voice to. So what's what I, what it
usually looks like from my side is there is a, there's a space
on the site where projects that need a voice over artist will be
(27:58):
posted. They've usually got a picture of
the book, its title, quick summary of what's going on in it
and any specifications that any particular qualifications that
the rights holders looking for in a narrator.
And so you can browse through that, find something that you'd
(28:18):
be interested in narrating, something that looks like it
might be looking for you, and you can record an audio sample,
submit that as an audition, senda quick message to the rights
holder if you've got any questions or if you just want to
say hello. And then once that's sent in,
(28:39):
you wait to hear back from them.Usually they can message you
through the platform. And if you if you found a
project to audition for and the rights holder likes what you
bring to it, they'll send an offer.
ACX acts as a platform that you can upload your finished
narration files to and just package the book more or less.
(29:02):
So it's ready to be put up as anaudio book available through a
variety of different sites. And iTunes, Audible and Amazon
are the ones that are the ones that I've been able to get mine
out through. Nice.
I had Spotify had introduced their own sort of audio book
creation platform. I don't know if you've ever
(29:24):
you've come across that. I haven't yet, but sounds like
something I need to go find. Yeah.
I don't know whether it's like an, I think the other name
actually. I don't know whether it's like
an exclusive thing that you haveto do, like you can't use like
Amazon. But then that wouldn't make
sense because you sort of cutting out your biggest
markets, aren't you? Well, yeah, it's it's called
(29:48):
Audio Book Creation Service for authors.
Nice and original. Spotify is Audio Book Creation
Service for authors, but apparently it's better.
I think they only take 20%. Well, no, I think you get 20% is
the, I don't know, but it's justbetter.
There's a better rate. That's what I heard, so I should
(30:10):
have a look into that. Yeah, we'll have a little look
into that one. So what advice would you have
for anyone who's thinking about maybe working with a voice over
artist for their audio book? What?
What do you think you should keep in mind in terms of
expectations and what the process involves?
(30:31):
In terms of expectations, it's like I say, can only speak about
my own experience. I suppose just that certain
parts of the process do take a great deal of time, editing
especially. And depending on what's going on
in your voice over artist's lifethat can sometime or that can
(30:55):
sometimes change how quickly thework is done.
So I know there are some folks who have got this working out to
be doing it for a living. And then there's other folks
like me who have not quite got to that point yet who may still
have a job they're working on during the day or seasonal
commitments like I work with theShakespeare Company.
(31:16):
Advice to the players, Those sort of things can slow down the
process a bit for, for said author or for said, you know,
rights holders and the narratorstoo.
I'd say communicating, especially in advance as you
can, about what delays might be expected is a good step to take
(31:37):
just as early in the process as possible.
Yeah, keeping the open communication.
Absolutely. Usually get through a lot so
long as you have that. Definitely, yeah, yeah, I know
it's it does take time as well. I think that's one of the the
benefits of having you on here is to get across the perspective
(32:00):
of what it's actually like to edit these things.
I mean, like I moan about editing this podcast that takes
me like a couple of hours that you're editing an audio book,
which could be hours and hours and hours, so.
Yes, it depends on the length ofthe copy you're working with,
right? Yeah, exactly.
(32:20):
So it is important for writers to be aware of like the time
frames and stuff like that. You're not going to get in all
your work in a week. And usually not.
I think it was very short maybe.Yeah.
And in terms of like the contracts and stuff that you can
do, because I know there's audiobooks are expensive if you're
(32:42):
paying straight up for them, Andy, but I know there's
different deals you can work outand to make it more accessible,
I suppose, but also more of a doable and realistic project for
everybody. So what kind of arrangements can
you sort of strike with please over artists?
Are the various arrangements I've seen and I've done a lot of
(33:03):
my work through ACX. I know there's some folks who
pay a fixed rate per finished hour, which is not necessarily
the same as worked hours. But like you get, I've seen
projects listed going anywhere from $50.00 to 400 per finished
hour of audio that you put out. And so that would be one of the
(33:24):
more immediately expensive formsI suppose of getting the work
done. There's also, there's also
arrangements based on a share ofthe royalties from audiobook
sales. And I know that's the sort of
thing we did with Pariahs Lament.
It's it's what I've done with a lot of my work thus far.
Nice. Those are the main 2 that I'm
(33:47):
really aware of, but I'm sure there's more to it.
Yeah, no, it's I think the the royalty shares good because it I
could say if you you could be paying thousands of pounds and a
lot of like indie authors, not comers just don't have the
budget duty. So it's and, or like say audio
is becoming so popular. So agree.
(34:09):
And a fair royalty share, I think is, is good for everyone.
But what's your perspective of aroyalty share?
I mean, I mean, I know being someone who gets paid royalties,
that if the publisher doesn't doa lot of promotion, then the
books don't really sell and thenyou don't really get any
royalties. So it does depend a lot on who
(34:30):
you work with. There certainly is that if the
if the book doesn't really sell,you usually won't end up pulling
much away in royalties. And sometimes, well, it does
mean you have to pick up other work sometimes.
But just having that as a passive income can be nice too,
especially the more books you get behind you.
(34:50):
I feel like it's probably the sort of thing that gets, I just
said what I was going to, but the sort of thing that gets
better the more you've done. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, I agree. One last question I had for you
is, as someone who started out yourself and I've trained
yourself to do this, and what advice have you got for anyone
(35:11):
who's always wanted to do audio books or is thinking about doing
an audio book of their own story?
Of their own. Well, as trite and general as
this kind of feels to say, I think the first thing I would
say, the thing I wish someone had said to me is just go for
it. From my experience, I spent so
(35:34):
long Hemming and hawing over pursuing any sort of performance
arts as career like, would I really want to do this?
Is it practical? And a lot of questions that a
lot of questions, a lot of assumptions.
Is this practical? What do I have as a fall back
(35:55):
that kept me out of it, kept me from admitting what I wanted to
do for so long. And I do regret that now, you
know, like I wish I'd started earlier.
So I would just say, don't talk yourself out of it.
If you think this is something you want to try, go for it.
And whether or not it leads to abunch of money or not, you will
(36:19):
have told a story and I think you'll be happier for it.
On the more technical side, couple of the best pieces of
advice I ever got from one of myvoice over or one of the folks I
was fortunate enough to learn from, Bruce Cronenberg, one of
them talked about earlier here, when you're narrating an audio
(36:39):
book, imagine it as you're telling a story to someone, a
family member, a younger cousin if you want, and just like tell
that story to excite them and draw them in, whoever they are.
The other thing, and I suppose this is more for people who
might be coming to it from a theater background, is you will
be sitting quite close to your mic.
(37:01):
You might have 7 to 10 inches between you and the pop filter.
You don't need to project as much as you might on stage.
Yeah, it's silly, but it's one of the things that has taken me
more time to adapt. Well, that's some brilliant
advice there in an especially inspiring voice.
So I thought I wasn't muse yet to get going.
(37:23):
I don't know what can. Ethan, it's been an absolute
pleasure to chatting with you. Thank you so much for giving up
your time. Well, thank you for having me,
Richie. It's it's been good to, it's
been good to finally see you and.
Definitely for listeners, this is actually the first time we've
spoken, which goes to show givesyou an idea of the process that
(37:46):
you don't always meet. Yeah, your voice over artists.
It just depends how the publisher decides to work at.
The publisher might turn around and say, all right, you too,
just do it. Believe we're not going to get
involved, you 2 just do it. But it just goes to show you
could still achieve a brilliant result even if you don't get to
communicate as much as as as youmight think you would need to
(38:10):
for an audio book. Do you work with the right
person? A lot of trust as well.
We should think Justin as well. Yeah, definitely.
Just a big show to Justin. Definitely yeah.
Where's the best place for us tolook if anyone wants to learn a
bit more about you? That is an excellent question.
I'm terrible. I'm terrible with the
advertising part of this, so it's probably the best place to
(38:34):
look and find out more about me would be my ACX profile.
You can learn a little more about the books I've narrated in
the past and honestly, if you listen to the samples, get a
good sense of my progression through this arc form.
Yeah, and if you need to go voice over Asus, there's one
right here. And a writer on the other end of
(38:57):
the line. Ethan, thank you very much
again. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Well, thank you, Richie. I'm glad to be here.
And thank you everyone for listening.
Thank you for listening to the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed.
If you'd like to join our writing community on Discord and
get access to fantasy writing classes and books on Patreon,
(39:18):
check the links in the description.
And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, be sure to
follow or subscribe. And to support the show, leave a
quick rating on Spotify or iTunes and share this episode on
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for listening.
Thank you for listening to the Fantasy Risers Tool Shed.
If you'd like to join our writing community on Discord and
get access to fantasy writing classes and books on Patreon,
check the links in the description.
And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, be sure to
follow or subscribe. And to support the show, leave a
quick rating on Spotify or iTunes and share this episode on
(00:23):
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for listening.
Enjoy the show. Thank you for listening to the
Fantasy Writers Tool Shed. I'm your host, Richie Billing.
(00:46):
And today I'm delighted to be joined by the brilliant voice
over artist Ethan Fifield. Ethan, welcome to the show.
Oh, thanks, Richie. Glad to be here.
Oh, thank you very much for joining me.
I've been very much looking forward to having you on the
show to talk all about audio books.
Because if you're listening to Home, you may know that Ethan
(01:07):
here did an absolutely amazing job on the audio book of my
novel, Prize Lovins. Well, thank you very much.
I. Really had a lot of fun with it.
It's so much to play with in thestory.
It was a lot of fun to narrate all the different characters,
the adventure they've had. It's well written stuff.
Thank you. I've got a question for you
(01:28):
later on about what you think audio adds to a story.
But I could quickly say now thatyou really did bring that story
to life in a way that I could never have really dreamed of, to
be honest. And you nailed absolutely
everything about it, and you took it to a whole new level.
And I think that's what audio books can do, is that they can
(01:48):
elevate stories. And you definitely nailed it
with Ferrari's Lawrence. Thank you very much.
Glad you liked it. Definitely, Yeah, We're going to
be talking a bit about talk about that a bit more and
shortly. But before we dive in, I just
wanted to talk more about facts and figures about audio books
because obviously they had a bigboom during the pandemic and it
(02:12):
would have been, well, it was quite interesting to see whether
that would have carried on because plenty fads sprung up
and died when we were all in lockdown.
So I've done a bit of research, got some facts and figures and
pretty interesting as well. These, these are all from
Deloitte and they're all pretty recent as well, looking at 2024.
(02:35):
And I just want to share some ofthese facts and figures with
you, get your thoughts and opinions on them.
But I also want to put into perspective how big audio books
are now because it is pretty amazing how much they've sprung
up in popularity. So here's some facts.
I'll put the link in the description for anyone who wants
(02:55):
to have a little look. So audio book listenership is
growing 15% year on year, even after the pandemic.
So that's pretty impressive. 15%is huge when you when you look
at the numbers. And globally, it's estimated
that about 270 million people a month are going to listen to
(03:19):
audiobooks. It's well over a billion a year.
And the Lloyds predicts that audiobooks are going to account
for approximately 6% of total book sales worldwide.
And that is representing a 26% year on year increase in sales.
And that equates to about $7 billion in global revenue, which
(03:43):
is that's a lot of money. That extra reach is amazing.
I'm not surprised that people didn't, you know, put audiobooks
down after they picked them up in the pandemic.
But just hearing how many peoplethey're getting to, that's
exciting. Yeah, it's huge.
It's and just in the US alone this year 2024, audiobooks
(04:05):
expected to outsell ebooks for the first time.
So that's pretty big. Ebooks, everyone was going crazy
for them a few years ago and audiobooks I've tipped into the
post. I mean, just to give you an idea
of more of a sort of a real example.
I was reading this the other day.
Spotify literally plunged themselves into death because
(04:28):
they spent so much money buying the audio book rights for
200,000 audio books. And so if Spotify, you like the
market leader, if they're investing so much money in audio
books, it's just a clearly addictive of the way the
industry and the markets going. So Ethan, as an audio worker,
(04:49):
this what do you think about this?
Just the number of people is what it keeps coming back to for
me. It's exciting to think that
we've got that many people out there picking them up.
I suppose I'm not sure what it is about the pandemic in
particular that made that the kickoff point to really pick up
stories in that fashion. But I do get why they've kept
(05:10):
going strong and just, I know you've got a question later on
about it, so you can get into what I think the audio or what I
think the audio element brings to a story later.
But it's just exciting to see that growing and what it means
for just the amount of the audience you can reach with the
story. Yeah, puts a smile on my face.
(05:33):
Yeah, it is. It's amazing.
It wasn't long ago we were thinking that books were on the
way out and now the variation inform and having, having people
like yourself bringing new angles, the stories, I think is
that that's a really special thing because people connect
with the things in different ways, don't they?
(05:54):
I mean, we, we said we'd save that question for later, but
let's dive into it now. I mean, what do you, what do you
think audio brings to the story?Then why do you think they're so
popular? Oh, there's a couple of, there's
a couple of big thoughts for me.I know when one of them is, I
don't think you can really overstate the importance of just
increased accessibility to the story.
(06:16):
If you've got an audio book, youdon't necessarily have to be sat
down reading it, or whether thatbe with a paper copy or looking
at your Kindle for an ebook, youcan be, you can be driving
somewhere, you can be at work, you can have your hands busy and
some earbuds in. Just listen to the book on your
(06:37):
own time. So all of a sudden there's a
great deal a great many more spaces where you can enjoy the
OR where you can enjoy the storyon your time.
The other thing I know that at least when I think about reading
on paper myself, because I do have a lot of fun with that one
(06:59):
thing the audio element adds, This kind of turns into a
question, but like, have you ever sat down with the story and
just found yourself kind of reflexively reading it out loud,
doing the character voices and whatnot?
Yeah, sometimes, you know. Yeah.
And just having that voice, it helps add some impetus, I
(07:22):
suppose, behind the words. It can give it pacing and
momentum. And that is harder to get if
you're just if you're just reading the words off the page
yourself. Yeah, I can relate to this
actually, because I've been read.
I'll read a lot of Ian Rankin and I don't know if you've ever
read any of his books, but all about a police officer, the
(07:44):
Inspector Rebus. He's called Inspector Rebus and
but he's based in Edinburgh and it's all Scottish.
So I read and like just in my normal head accents or whatever.
But sometimes, like you say, yourealise especially when they
start put on accents or certain words and it's meant to be read
in this particular way, so you start to play around with it and
(08:07):
it's a different experience. Like you say, it's amazing.
Absolutely. And sometimes it helps make more
sense of things than they did before.
I'm looking past your shoulder. I'm seeing the Rohan picture on
the wall and thinking myself to The Silmarillion because it's
one of my favorite things that I've read of talking.
And admittedly, it tries to takethis mythological tone and it
(08:30):
doesn't sound maybe as much, especially like The Hobbit is
something you might hear people saying on the street.
But if you put the character's words out there in a voice, they
suddenly feel a lot easier to understand.
And that is done some work with Shakespeare as well.
That is just something I feel almost any text can gain a
(08:53):
little bit of clarity when you put a voice behind it.
Oh yeah, it's with Shakespeare. I completely agree with you
there, because whenever I've, I've never studied Shakespeare
at school and I've, I know this about the stories, but I've
never read them. So I was in a charity shop,
bought all the volumes because Ifound a really nice coffee and I
was reading them when I was like, this is a bit of this is a
(09:16):
bit hard work. But then I went to see Macbeth
and it was the first time I've ever been to a Shakespeare play
and it was it was amazing. And like you say, it's
completely different because you've got that person reading
it out or acting it and performing it for you and
showing you the emotions. Oh yeah, and I mean, especially
with Shakespeare, that's made tobe put on its feet.
(09:39):
If you still got that book a recommendation, just get
together with your friends, assigned parts, even just
sitting around, everybody reading the character gains so
much kind of what some early table work stuff and rehearsals
looks like. But I'm sorry, that's.
Do you think it could be like a more of a natural way of
(10:03):
enjoying a story? If you think about like the way
when we're younger, we grow up, we can't read and we're getting
told stories, read stories by people on a sort of like a sort
of natural level. We are sort of fed a lot of
stories orally. Do you think there's like an
elements of was prefer and that means of receiving a story?
(10:28):
I've definitely always wondered about the the delineation
between artificial and natural. But I think you're right, orally
is the first way that we're tolda lot of stories.
It's the older storytelling medium going back down through
human history. I think it's just the way that
(10:48):
we're used more used to conveying information, even if
these days the gap between hearing things and being taught
to read them is not quite as long as once it might have been.
Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing, all this audio
stuff. So how did you get into it all?
Where did it all begin for you reason?
(11:11):
Wow. As far as actual audio work
goes, it came out of Long story short, I was, I had finally, you
know, gotten into a theater program, admitted that was what
I wanted to do with my life. And, you know, you take some
(11:31):
vocal training as part of that. I had, it had finally started to
click for me. I was really having a lot of fun
with it, got a lot more talkative as a result because my
voice was, you know, getting better, getting better at
projecting, generally more sonorous, for lack of a better
word. As I figured out what to do with
(11:52):
it. And somebody told me about that
time, you know, you've got a great voice you could do like
dispatch or voice over work, which I'm sure you know, they
must occasionally say to anybody.
But I decided to look on into it.
I started doing some research, figured out what equipment I was
going to need, a few good placesto look for work.
(12:15):
ACX is one that I got recommended by a classmate
pretty early on. I started auditioning around,
started learning the insurance and outs of my equipment and
editing software, which I kind of wish I had sought more
guidance on than I did early on.Because you know, you do
anything, you slowly get better at it and you look back on your,
(12:39):
you look back on your earlier efforts and wish you knew some
of the stuff you learned later. But I digress.
I think I'm about 9, 9 audio books down the line from there.
I feel like I've feel like I've learned a bit and I know I have
much more to go. So that's the short version of
the story. Nice, you have got a brilliant
(13:02):
voice. Is that something that people
have always said? Definitely not.
I mean, I you get me in person, I'm generally a very a much
quieter shyer sorts not not really comfortable with large
crowds of people. I will happy to be there, but
(13:24):
I'll probably be hanging out on the fringe of it.
And it wasn't until I engaged with theater that I started to
get. I digress.
The two don't really seem terribly connected, but suffice
to say I used to hold my voice alot more in the throat, kind of
in vocal fry territory. And as parts of my theatrical
(13:47):
education, I learned to, you know, breathe from the
diaphragm, as it were, really use all the space in my mouth
and, yeah, generally bring my voice out a lot more than I
used. To That's a great thing.
I don't know, it sort of warms my hearts and all that.
Yeah. It's something that you can
learn because I'm someone who's always struggled a little bit
(14:07):
with oral communication. I actually was terrified of
reading anything aloud, especially my own writing.
But I was. Luckily I've got a friend who
met on a writing course. He was an actor and he taught me
and some different exercises that I can follow just to like,
say, project your voice and justto train yourself to slow down,
(14:33):
breathe when like how to read stuff out in a way that isn't
going to ruin the story and put everyone off.
Oh, definitely. And just you don't link later at
all that I'd imagine some of theexercises might have come from
there. Yeah.
Suffice to say, there's a lot ofyou've been taught at all at
this point, I suppose. Plenty of plenty of physical
(14:56):
exercises, mental exercises justto warm up the whole instrument,
as it were. Because, you know, voice at some
level is a full body instrument.Yeah.
It is, yeah. And yeah, sometimes they should
definitely teach in schools because it's such a powerful
thing. Like, I feel like we were
talking about this recently in work, and we're saying that
(15:18):
American people seem to be whether you just are a lot
better at communicating. They're a lot more open and
direct, and they're not afraid to sort of say something in
front of a crowd. Whereas British people will
just, like, mutter and mumble and just, like, bitch and moan
behind people's backs about things.
(15:39):
They would be like, wouldn't sayit and like I do, I think I
don't know if you're exposed to it more in schools or whether
it's encourage more, but you're just better at it and so.
But I think as someone who relates a lot to that get up and
mutter thing, I can't really comment.
(16:00):
I credit the various theatre programs that I've been
fortunate to be part of for a lot of such skill as I do have
at communicating. And unfortunately over here,
those programs do sometimes get the short end of the stick where
funding is concerned. So I think it's something that
we too need to work on teaching maybe a little more even than we
(16:22):
do. Yeah, it's because it's it's
important thing to be able to communicate and as writers, we
can do it without words. But obviously when we we want to
start getting our stuff out there, we've got to go to
conventions or go to bookstores and do signings and stuff and we
need to be able to cut communicate confidently.
(16:43):
So yeah, I think it's great. But it's it's something that you
can learn. So if you've done that in audio
books and Prize Lament was one of them.
Luckily, I was very, very happy when you agreed that you'd you
do the audio book for Prize Lament.
Well, I was excited to get the opportunity.
It looked like good stuff. Very kind.
(17:06):
Just that sample with Edvar at this, with Edvar running for the
keep at the top of the book. I didn't understand how urgent
the situation was until I saw the whole thing, but it does.
Oh yeah. Oh, nice.
That's good to know. So what, what's it like the
experience then of of working with publishers and authors?
And you've got a couple of experience in this now and is it
(17:30):
all quite similar? Is everything easygoing?
Is it nice and smooth or is it full of challenges?
What's it like Vienna? Have we sold for artists?
But I feel I honestly don't feelcomfortable making any blanket
statements about this. I've only got a handful of.
I don't imagine 9 to be a whole lot of books honestly.
(17:51):
But in my experience, I've been very fortunate to work with
publishers who were, you know, very broadly chill about the
whole process. Everybody seemed happy and
excited to be working together and they were, they were very
clear with feedback. It's, it's honestly been, it's
been very relaxed, very chill. And I count myself very
(18:16):
fortunate in that regard. Yeah, I suppose it depends on
the nature of the project, doesn't it?
And like when you were doing prize, that meant like, we
didn't really speak at all, did we?
No. And I do apologize for that.
There it's. Not your fault.
It's just like it wasn't, it wasn't really necessary because
we had the publisher and we weregoing through them.
(18:37):
So it was and that worked fine. There's some truth to that, but
at the same time, you know why Icould understand if somebody had
been looking for, say, weekly updates, that would have been
not as much a thing. I was sure to time in when I got
a piece of the process done. Hey, here's the 1st 15 minutes.
Hey, everything has been narrated.
(18:59):
Hey, it's all edited. Here's the full, Here's the
full. I don't want to say manuscript,
but here's all of the files. And.
There wasn't a lot in between that and SO Justin was very easy
going about that. But I also would understand, you
know, if a publisher was lookingfor a weekly update or whatnot,
(19:21):
because there was a long period of silence and that doesn't work
as well for everyone, I suppose.And.
I imagine some people, especially it was quite those
who are quite married to the project, they'll be, they choose
it like a baby, don't they? So they'll be wanting to make
sure it's in good hands. Things are progressing, but
that's why you trust the so important, isn't it?
(19:43):
Yeah. And honestly, that's, I'm, I'd
be happy to work with that, you know, because as the as the
narrator, I want the same sort of thing.
I want to be sure the project looks good.
If I've got questions, like if I've got a question about
whether or not I'm portraying something as you would like it
to be seen, I'd love to be able to ask and pick your brain about
(20:07):
it and just see what you think. Yeah, no, that's, that's the way
it should be as well, because you want to get things right.
I mean, what was it like for youwhen it it came to pitching?
So if anyone out there is wanting to work with an audio
book, what what kind of a process is involved in terms of
(20:28):
like getting the pictures in advertising the project, What's,
what's the whole shebang like? As far as advertising the
projects. Yeah.
So getting started, really, likehow did you sort of pitch for
the book? What made you pitch for it?
Was there something about the project that you sort of like
the sound of? Well, I'm a big fan of science
(20:52):
fiction, fantasy literature in general.
I I really loved having the sample there on ACX just to give
it a chance or give a chance to read through it because.
Yeah, I'm starting to get a sense of the sort of stories
where my voice usually does particularly well.
And a lot of the stuff that I'vedone, not all of it has been
(21:13):
sci-fi, fantasy or thriller work.
The sort of thing where you can put in a little bit of a wrath
to the voice, speak slower, and provide a solid baseline
narration for any characters youmay branch off and do.
And so Pariah's Lament just seemed like a fun story to
(21:34):
narrate and it seemed like something that something that
might work out well with that sort of voice.
I recorded it, sent it on in andI'm happy to say it seems to
have seems to have piqued your interest.
Yeah, well, from my perspective of the process, that's what I
was looking for. It was the someone whose voice
(21:57):
matched the vibe of the story and you got it.
It's like quite a, like I say, gritty, quite a, it's quite a
gritty story. A lot of action in it, a lot of
fighting. And you want someone who's who's
going to like, say, elevate it. That's it lends the voice, the
(22:20):
voice lends itself to the story.It takes it to the new level and
that's really important. I think when you're looking for
an audio book, a voice over artist for your audio book, I
think that has got to be one of the biggest considerations.
Yeah. And as far as on on my side of
(22:40):
the process, I suppose one of the best pieces of advice I ever
got about narration is imagine your you do want to work to
elevate the story just because imagine that you've got someone
else in the booth there with youand you're reading it to them.
Yeah. So you want to make it exciting
for this hypothetical audience and for the real audience that
(23:03):
comes after that. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I mean, what's it like done the process you mentioned before
about getting the equipment and stuff and getting to grips with
the editing. I mean, how long does that take
to to master? I mean, I know you said you
should always learn something aswell, like I'm always learning
something new writing. And I don't think you can never
(23:25):
really be satisfied that you know it all.
But tell us a bit about that process.
Well, like you said, I would make no claim to mastery or you
know, to be because everybody has their own idea or everyone
has their own way of working. But what I have been able to do
with the books I've narrated so far is once I've got the project
(23:49):
and I've got a manuscript, I'll try to take about a week, less
if I can, depends on the size ofthe book, and just read through
everything once by myself. I'll get a feel for the story,
just see what arcs the characters are on, who they are,
who they become, and just sit and read parts of it out loud.
(24:09):
Try on different possible voices.
Like what? What do could they possibly
sound like when the time comes to record?
Once we've got that set, once all of those questions have been
answered, we sit down and properly record the book.
And that can take, depending on the size of the project, can
(24:32):
take a week or three to get through.
So that's just sitting down reading everything out.
No worries about editing at thisphase outside of usually the
first 15 minutes, which I tried to turn back as a sample.
So I can say like, here's what, here's what I'm doing with the
work. Are you sure this is a good fit?
I always hope so. But you know, you got to give
(24:53):
that opportunity. And outside of that, just read
everything through. If if I drop a line, don't stop
anything, we just go back, say the line again, take a deep
breath in there somewhere so that there's space and you can
clip that line out when you get to the editing after the whole
(25:14):
book is done. And that is the part of the
process that takes depending on how busy life away from the
microphone gets. I have, I have how to take
months to get through editing and editing a book based on the
size of it. So I'll go through reduce any,
(25:36):
reduce any audio artifacts in the background of the narration,
just clip out anything that doesn't that doesn't read,
write, make notes of what needs to be rerecorded, and then add
those back in where necessary. Once all that's done, we export
the files, get them out of Audacity, which is the program I
(26:00):
use for recording and into MP3 format, and I usually work with
ACX. Once everything's edited, I'll
upload those to the site, hit their button that says I've done
and send a message the the rights holder's way to let him
know, hey, I've gone through thebook.
I've made all of the edits I could find.
(26:23):
This is the finished product after one round of edits.
Do you have, do you have anything that needs to be
changed? And if they send anything back,
I go ahead, copy those notes down, go in and make those
changes, pop it on back to them,see if they have anything more
that goes back and forth as manyrounds as it needs kind of
(26:45):
unchanged. Well, the process is unchanged.
There will be changes to the work as many times as needs to
happen. Once that's all done, it's good
to submit to ACX for quality control, and of course we fix
anything that they kick back ourway.
But if all is good to go, next step after that is the book
(27:09):
coming up for sale, usually on Audible, iTunes and Amazon.
So just I wanted to ask you and for anyone who's not familiar,
because we've mentioned that a few times times, ACX, could you
tell us a bit about this platform?
Sure. So ACX is an Amazon affiliated
platform. It's the audio book Creative
Exchange, and it's a place whereauthors who are looking for
(27:35):
voice over artists to narrate their books can meet and network
with voice over artists who are looking for work to to lend
their voice to. So what's what I, what it
usually looks like from my side is there is a, there's a space
on the site where projects that need a voice over artist will be
(27:58):
posted. They've usually got a picture of
the book, its title, quick summary of what's going on in it
and any specifications that any particular qualifications that
the rights holders looking for in a narrator.
And so you can browse through that, find something that you'd
(28:18):
be interested in narrating, something that looks like it
might be looking for you, and you can record an audio sample,
submit that as an audition, senda quick message to the rights
holder if you've got any questions or if you just want to
say hello. And then once that's sent in,
(28:39):
you wait to hear back from them.Usually they can message you
through the platform. And if you if you found a
project to audition for and the rights holder likes what you
bring to it, they'll send an offer.
ACX acts as a platform that you can upload your finished
narration files to and just package the book more or less.
(29:02):
So it's ready to be put up as anaudio book available through a
variety of different sites. And iTunes, Audible and Amazon
are the ones that are the ones that I've been able to get mine
out through. Nice.
I had Spotify had introduced their own sort of audio book
creation platform. I don't know if you've ever
(29:24):
you've come across that. I haven't yet, but sounds like
something I need to go find. Yeah.
I don't know whether it's like an, I think the other name
actually. I don't know whether it's like
an exclusive thing that you haveto do, like you can't use like
Amazon. But then that wouldn't make
sense because you sort of cutting out your biggest
markets, aren't you? Well, yeah, it's it's called
(29:48):
Audio Book Creation Service for authors.
Nice and original. Spotify is Audio Book Creation
Service for authors, but apparently it's better.
I think they only take 20%. Well, no, I think you get 20% is
the, I don't know, but it's justbetter.
There's a better rate. That's what I heard, so I should
(30:10):
have a look into that. Yeah, we'll have a little look
into that one. So what advice would you have
for anyone who's thinking about maybe working with a voice over
artist for their audio book? What?
What do you think you should keep in mind in terms of
expectations and what the process involves?
(30:31):
In terms of expectations, it's like I say, can only speak about
my own experience. I suppose just that certain
parts of the process do take a great deal of time, editing
especially. And depending on what's going on
in your voice over artist's lifethat can sometime or that can
(30:55):
sometimes change how quickly thework is done.
So I know there are some folks who have got this working out to
be doing it for a living. And then there's other folks
like me who have not quite got to that point yet who may still
have a job they're working on during the day or seasonal
commitments like I work with theShakespeare Company.
(31:16):
Advice to the players, Those sort of things can slow down the
process a bit for, for said author or for said, you know,
rights holders and the narratorstoo.
I'd say communicating, especially in advance as you
can, about what delays might be expected is a good step to take
(31:37):
just as early in the process as possible.
Yeah, keeping the open communication.
Absolutely. Usually get through a lot so
long as you have that. Definitely, yeah, yeah, I know
it's it does take time as well. I think that's one of the the
benefits of having you on here is to get across the perspective
(32:00):
of what it's actually like to edit these things.
I mean, like I moan about editing this podcast that takes
me like a couple of hours that you're editing an audio book,
which could be hours and hours and hours, so.
Yes, it depends on the length ofthe copy you're working with,
right? Yeah, exactly.
(32:20):
So it is important for writers to be aware of like the time
frames and stuff like that. You're not going to get in all
your work in a week. And usually not.
I think it was very short maybe.Yeah.
And in terms of like the contracts and stuff that you can
do, because I know there's audiobooks are expensive if you're
(32:42):
paying straight up for them, Andy, but I know there's
different deals you can work outand to make it more accessible,
I suppose, but also more of a doable and realistic project for
everybody. So what kind of arrangements can
you sort of strike with please over artists?
Are the various arrangements I've seen and I've done a lot of
(33:03):
my work through ACX. I know there's some folks who
pay a fixed rate per finished hour, which is not necessarily
the same as worked hours. But like you get, I've seen
projects listed going anywhere from $50.00 to 400 per finished
hour of audio that you put out. And so that would be one of the
(33:24):
more immediately expensive formsI suppose of getting the work
done. There's also, there's also
arrangements based on a share ofthe royalties from audiobook
sales. And I know that's the sort of
thing we did with Pariahs Lament.
It's it's what I've done with a lot of my work thus far.
Nice. Those are the main 2 that I'm
(33:47):
really aware of, but I'm sure there's more to it.
Yeah, no, it's I think the the royalty shares good because it I
could say if you you could be paying thousands of pounds and a
lot of like indie authors, not comers just don't have the
budget duty. So it's and, or like say audio
is becoming so popular. So agree.
(34:09):
And a fair royalty share, I think is, is good for everyone.
But what's your perspective of aroyalty share?
I mean, I mean, I know being someone who gets paid royalties,
that if the publisher doesn't doa lot of promotion, then the
books don't really sell and thenyou don't really get any
royalties. So it does depend a lot on who
(34:30):
you work with. There certainly is that if the
if the book doesn't really sell,you usually won't end up pulling
much away in royalties. And sometimes, well, it does
mean you have to pick up other work sometimes.
But just having that as a passive income can be nice too,
especially the more books you get behind you.
(34:50):
I feel like it's probably the sort of thing that gets, I just
said what I was going to, but the sort of thing that gets
better the more you've done. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, I agree. One last question I had for you
is, as someone who started out yourself and I've trained
yourself to do this, and what advice have you got for anyone
(35:11):
who's always wanted to do audio books or is thinking about doing
an audio book of their own story?
Of their own. Well, as trite and general as
this kind of feels to say, I think the first thing I would
say, the thing I wish someone had said to me is just go for
it. From my experience, I spent so
(35:34):
long Hemming and hawing over pursuing any sort of performance
arts as career like, would I really want to do this?
Is it practical? And a lot of questions that a
lot of questions, a lot of assumptions.
Is this practical? What do I have as a fall back
(35:55):
that kept me out of it, kept me from admitting what I wanted to
do for so long. And I do regret that now, you
know, like I wish I'd started earlier.
So I would just say, don't talk yourself out of it.
If you think this is something you want to try, go for it.
And whether or not it leads to abunch of money or not, you will
(36:19):
have told a story and I think you'll be happier for it.
On the more technical side, couple of the best pieces of
advice I ever got from one of myvoice over or one of the folks I
was fortunate enough to learn from, Bruce Cronenberg, one of
them talked about earlier here, when you're narrating an audio
(36:39):
book, imagine it as you're telling a story to someone, a
family member, a younger cousin if you want, and just like tell
that story to excite them and draw them in, whoever they are.
The other thing, and I suppose this is more for people who
might be coming to it from a theater background, is you will
be sitting quite close to your mic.
(37:01):
You might have 7 to 10 inches between you and the pop filter.
You don't need to project as much as you might on stage.
Yeah, it's silly, but it's one of the things that has taken me
more time to adapt. Well, that's some brilliant
advice there in an especially inspiring voice.
So I thought I wasn't muse yet to get going.
(37:23):
I don't know what can. Ethan, it's been an absolute
pleasure to chatting with you. Thank you so much for giving up
your time. Well, thank you for having me,
Richie. It's it's been good to, it's
been good to finally see you and.
Definitely for listeners, this is actually the first time we've
spoken, which goes to show givesyou an idea of the process that
(37:46):
you don't always meet. Yeah, your voice over artists.
It just depends how the publisher decides to work at.
The publisher might turn around and say, all right, you too,
just do it. Believe we're not going to get
involved, you 2 just do it. But it just goes to show you
could still achieve a brilliant result even if you don't get to
communicate as much as as as youmight think you would need to
(38:10):
for an audio book. Do you work with the right
person? A lot of trust as well.
We should think Justin as well. Yeah, definitely.
Just a big show to Justin. Definitely yeah.
Where's the best place for us tolook if anyone wants to learn a
bit more about you? That is an excellent question.
I'm terrible. I'm terrible with the
advertising part of this, so it's probably the best place to
(38:34):
look and find out more about me would be my ACX profile.
You can learn a little more about the books I've narrated in
the past and honestly, if you listen to the samples, get a
good sense of my progression through this arc form.
Yeah, and if you need to go voice over Asus, there's one
right here. And a writer on the other end of
(38:57):
the line. Ethan, thank you very much
again. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Well, thank you, Richie. I'm glad to be here.
And thank you everyone for listening.
Thank you for listening to the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed.
If you'd like to join our writing community on Discord and
get access to fantasy writing classes and books on Patreon,
(39:18):
check the links in the description.
And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, be sure to
follow or subscribe. And to support the show, leave a
quick rating on Spotify or iTunes and share this episode on
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for listening.
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