I Tanked When Producing My Memoir into an Audiobook. Here’s What I Learned

Last spring, months after my debut memoir Pieces of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters was published, I was determined to contract with a narrator and production studio to record it as an audiobook.  Couldn’t you record it yourself, you ask?  Absolutely. If I had the right voice training, a personal studio for recording, and skills to edit audio recordings, it’d be a cinch.

So I signed up for ACX, Amazon’s Audiobook Creation Exchange. It’s one of the programs allowing indie authors to get their books made into audio recordings and distribute them. Like an online dating site for authors and producers, ACX invites authors to find their perfect vocal match by either sifting through audio clips of narrators available for hire or inviting narrators to choose books to audition for by perusing authors’ profiles and select whose work to audition for based on the story description and reading the uploaded book’s first pages . Positive online reviews or book awards enhance a profile further, and may attract the attention of a more experienced narrator.

The author pays the narrator in one of two ways: up front with per finished hour (PFH) or through 50/50 profit-sharing. The former means the author will pay a sum, likely in the range of $2,000-$6,000, based on both the narrator’s experience and estimated length of time the book will require. The latter requires no up- front capital. The author and narrator agree to share profits of the audiobook evenly.

It took me twenty years to birth my memoir. It would take an audiobook narrator an estimated 16-24 hour do her magic—two hours to successfully complete one hour of narration—so that my memoir could reach a fast-growing audience of book listeners. And yet, we’d equally share the profits.
Though paying per finished hour would have given me a larger percentage of the earnings, I didn’t have cash set aside. I’d already paid for a terrific PR campaign and sponsored my own book tour that extended to several states. My credit card had stretch marks. Profit sharing was my only solution.

I created my profile on ACX. By then, it was eight months after I published, and my memoir had won a few awards and had garnered over fifty online reviews. I crossed my fingers that I’d attract just the right narrator.

After listening to only a few auditions, I got impatient. I perused the audio clips, but the voices I loved belonged to narrators who didn’t love my offer of profit-sharing. I settled on a woman with a warm, relatable voice. We connected directly through ACX. Like many narrators, she was an actress. A single mom, like me. She was new to the audiobook world. She loved my book. And the price was right. I was only too happy to sign on the dotted line and roll my sleeves up to begin collaborating. Together, we agreed on a schedule and on how best to communicate, especially when she might need help with a name pronunciation. We also determined a deadline to complete the recording by August, with recorded chapters being sent to me via ACX for review, one at a time, every week or so.

After that, I sat back and waited.  And waited. And waited some more.

The deadline for the first chapter came and went. So, I re-set it. That deadline was missed as well. The reasons ranged from getting a new pet to catching a cold to supporting a friend who was having a family crisis.

Once recorded chapters were sent to me, I was even more troubled. The tone, the energy, the pronunciations were off. I followed up with emails and my own recordings clarifying pronunciations, and eventually sent her links to articles and blogs for narrators starting out. And though she tried to fix the issues, my narrator struggled to make it right. I began dreading her emails.

More  than nine months after we began working together, six months after the audiobook’s completion deadline, I had exactly one well-narrated and edited chapter.

Then I listened to a podcast featuring an experienced narrator. Later, I attended a talk in my hometown where two guest audiobook narrators described their training, how they set up at-home recording studios, learned to edit, and their process for moving into successful and sustaining careers.

Here’s what I learned…

*Audiobook narrators often break in to the field by volunteering to read for the blind at a site like LibriVox or work under the supervision of a coach, who may teach courses on the topic. Audiobook narration is much trickier than simply reading into a microphone. Narrator Karen Commins shares her thoughts on the first steps of would-be narrators, here. ,

* Memoirs are among the most challenging projects for narrators. The number of characters and the book’s tone must be managed delicately. The normal progression for first-time narrators is to begin with a children’s book, then a novella, and finally with a full-length manuscript. My memoir, with its diverse cultural and geographical references, would be tricky for an experienced narrator. And by selecting a person with little to no experience, I’d unwittingly asked her to run a marathon without taking the time to get in shape beforehand.

*Allowing my audiobook narration to limp along after too many missed deadlines helped no one. My narrator was hurt when I asked her to dissolve our contract, and I was disappointed with the time and energy I had wasted which could have been avoided had I minded my details to begin with

In the end, the narrator and I both contacted ACX via email stating our intention to dissolve the contract .

I have every confidence that with the right training and support, my narrator will have a terrific career in audio narration. But she needs more guidance than what a newbie author like me can provide.

Days after pulling the plug on my ACX contract, I signed a contract with Vibrance Press to record my audio book. Again, I entered in to a profit sharing plan with the company while my new narrator got paid directly through her contract with them. This time around, it took my experienced narrator just three business days to completePieces of Me before forwarding it to a professional editor. And I can’t wait to hear the results.

If my next book is indie published, I may turn to ACX again Only then, I’ll be smarter about how I approach it.

—

Lizbeth Meredith is the author of award-winning memoir Pieces of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters by She Writes Press. Her work has appeared in Feminine Collective, Sunlight Press, and Jane Friedman’s blog.

The audiobook version of her memoir will be available soon.

PIECES OF ME: RESCUING MY KIDNAPPED DAUGHTERS, Lizbeth Meredith

In 1994, Lizbeth Meredith said good-bye to her four- and six year-old daughters for a visit with their non-custodial father only to learn days later that they had been kidnapped and taken to their father’s home country of Greece.

Twenty-nine and just on the verge of making her dreams of financial independence for her and her daughters come true, Lizbeth now faced a $100,000 problem on a $10 an hour budget. For the next two years fueled by memories of her own childhood kidnapping Lizbeth traded in her small life for a life more public, traveling to the White House and Greece, and becoming a local media sensation in order to garner interest in her efforts.

The generous community of Anchorage becomes Lizbeth’s makeshift family one that is replicated by a growing number of Greeks and expats overseas who help Lizbeth navigate the turbulent path leading back to her daughters.

BUY THE BOOK HERE

 

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips