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Post by lou on Dec 6, 2016 8:15:18 GMT -5
okay, I spent an hour this morning at ACX (felt like four hours, but that's just me and admin, hating each other, lol).
So. First question of what I'm sure will be many: should one revise the text of the book to get rid of extraneous dialog tags? (they'll become unnecessary with the narrator changing voices to make it clear to listeners who is speaking, though they were probably needed in the e book.)
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Post by Becca Mills on Dec 6, 2016 16:49:43 GMT -5
Sounds like a good way to break WhisperSync.  We need to get Mark back here. He knows everything about audio there is to know. |
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Post by Miss Terri Novelle on Dec 6, 2016 17:31:53 GMT -5
Agree with that and a hearty welcome back to Becca who hasn't been around as much.
Audio is on my long range list, but I'm going to tell you a secret. I helped a friend audition narrators for her books and the whole thing freaked me out. I don't know why the idea of hearing someone read my books makes me squirmy but it does.
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Post by lou on Dec 6, 2016 18:47:03 GMT -5
Agree with that and a hearty welcome back to Becca who hasn't been around as much. Audio is on my long range list, but I'm going to tell you a secret. I helped a friend audition narrators for her books and the whole thing freaked me out. I don't know why the idea of hearing someone read my books makes me squirmy but it does. It it like a form of stage fright? Kind of a naked-in-the-town-square feeling? |
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Post by Miss Terri Novelle on Dec 6, 2016 19:06:58 GMT -5
No, not really. It was weird listening to the voices and trying to evaluate them. I've listened to audio on long car trips, but it wasn't the same.
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Post by Daniel on Dec 7, 2016 7:37:35 GMT -5
I suspect narrators are used to dealing with dialog tags that can be dropped when the voice acting makes them unnecessary. Besides, the tags might help the narrator understand who is talking, even if s/he doesn't vocalize them. If readers need them, the narrator probably does as well.
However, I've never done audio, so feel free to take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
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Post by lou on Dec 7, 2016 11:44:26 GMT -5
I've also been contacted recently by an independent audio company who does Andy Weir's, Buroker's and a few others whose names I know. So there's one more decision to make, and with insufficient information... and with the inclination to break into hives over any decision like this. (not literally. Or maybe they erupt in my brain, which is what it feels like.)
BRAIN HIVES
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Post by ameliasmith on Dec 7, 2016 17:19:00 GMT -5
On the Marketing SFF podcast (if I'm remembering right) Lindsay Buroker was very happy with using a company to do her audio books. You'll want to look into it in more detail, of course, but it sounded good when she talked about it. It was not yesterday's episode, maybe the week before?
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Post by lou on Dec 8, 2016 8:57:14 GMT -5
Thought I'd talk through the process to y'all with hopes that either you can help me, or my experience can help you later on.
So. I have six auditions already. Two are good actors but not right for this (one would be perfect for lit fic). One has nearly 200 credits with indies and says she never does royalty share anymore but would be willing to do it with me. The one I like best so far--the one who I think really got the characters already--has no credits at all. Makes me a tiny bit nervous, that. But I do like her best. Hmmmm....
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Post by scdaffron on Dec 8, 2016 10:35:39 GMT -5
I have no advice, but I am sympathetic. In my brief foray into listening to ACX samples, I ran into the same thing. Because I don't listen to audiobooks, I worry that I'm not a good judge of narrators. With that said, a lot of the real pros with a gazillion credits didn't sound "right" for my books. The one or two that were okay, had way, way fewer credits. What I'm looking for is a female voice that has a tiny bit of snark without sounding mean. No overt accents either. I gave up after I became completely befuddled by the whole process  |
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Post by lou on Dec 8, 2016 11:38:44 GMT -5
Okay, so I've wasted most of a morning (or not wasted, but if it ain't writing, it feels wasted) on this. Running around getting input from all those in the know whom I know well enough to ask questions of. Do not pick the great but untested narrator (damn!), they say, for two reasons: 1) a five minute sample isn't a 25-hour book series. You don't want to have to be back-and-forthing with this person to correct bad spots, including bad production quality that might come from her inexperience, and 2) a narrator with 200 other audio books brings her own fan base. Use her. However, having read Lindsay's long blog post on it (thanks, ameliasmith), now I'm leaning toward the audio publisher route. Yeah, you give up royalty percentage. But you also get an advance. (never thought I'd have cause to use that word again in my writing life.) So...I've a phone appt. with the acquisitions editor and we'll see where that goes. One positive I can see to this is that there's the possibility of library distribution, which might bring in more fans to my ebooks...maybe. But mostly, it's basically farming something out to someone for a loss of money because I really do not want to add more admin hassles to the admin hassles I already have. The deal is: I give you X % of my sales...you give me much less hassle. Already did that with D2D when I was wide, so this seems equivalent. The difference here is, I get little to no control. They'll adapt the cover...so I won't have do pay for that...but I might hate how it comes out. So it carries all the costs of any kind of publisher. I might hate the narrator--tough for me. At least I'll be disinclined to complain that they're not promoting me enough, because any promo is more than I usually do, so...they'll have me beat, whatever they do. More as more happens... |
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Post by Miss Terri Novelle on Dec 9, 2016 9:36:45 GMT -5
And now you know why I didn't do anything. I got a bad case of paralysis from analysis
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Post by lou on Dec 9, 2016 13:09:51 GMT -5
one of lindsay's fellow SFF Market podcasters (I can't tell the voices apart, so I don't know who) said something like, "After trying several ways, now I only do it if someone emails me and offers to produce." This might actually be the right answer, assuming the production company looks like they know what they are doing.
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Post by Daniel on Dec 9, 2016 19:43:05 GMT -5
one of lindsay's fellow SFF Market podcasters (I can't tell the voices apart, so I don't know who) said something like, "After trying several ways, now I only do it if someone emails me and offers to produce." This might actually be the right answer, assuming the production company looks like they know what they are doing. That actually makes total sense to me. If I'm selling so well that someone else is willing to take on the risk of production, I'm probably selling well enough to earn back the cost of production and then some. Otherwise, audio probably isn't going to turn a book that isn't selling into one that is. The way I see it, you either have to be willing to take on the horrendous task of doing it yourself, or have solid and consistent sales so audio has a prayer of earning an ROI from the horrendous production costs. Bottom line? Audio is a ton of work and somebody has to get paid to do it somehow. |
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Post by elephantsbookshelf on Jul 16, 2017 9:52:26 GMT -5
Just looking to embark on this route, though I see it more as a 2018 project. Laying down some ground work.
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