3 ms·

I pay per finished hour (PFH). Never seen a good reason to do a royalty split.

by impostervt 5y ago

cutenewt 5y ago
What's a typical range for PFH?
- impostervt 5y ago
  Prior to the audition phase, the book owner (me) specifies a pay band. Lowest is $50-$100 per finished hour of audio. I think above that is $100-200, and there's one more above that. I go for $50-100 PFH and get dozens of auditions. My last book had like 50 auditions. Most were horrible. I got around 5 good ones.
  - delgaudm 5y ago
    >Most were horrible. I got around 5 good ones. Probably because $50-100 PFH is a pretty low rate. So you're getting entry level narrators. Narrators willing to work at or around minimum wage, and in actuality much less. Here is why I say that - authors/non-narrators don't consider that the ACX narrator is expected to do all the following: pre-read, script interpretation, direction (i.e. rehearsal), re-reads, editing, quality review, technical compliance / finalization (i.e. mastering) and uploading. There is not less than 4 hours work PFH (per finished hour) of audio, and it's probably closer to 6 to 7 hours PFH for a moderately experienced narrator willing to work for $100pfh, and 12 to 14 hours PFH for the novice narrator. I've been narrating a long time and have tons of automation built into my workflow, and I am still quite often more than 4 hours actual work to create a single hour of final audio.
    - impostervt 5y ago
      I know it's a low rate and I'm surprised I can find pretty good quality at that rate. The books I publish are pretty simple - relatively short, non-fiction. I imagine fiction books requiring voices/emotion would require a higher rate.
blendergeek 5y ago
> Never seen a good reason to do a royalty split. Voice artists are just as deserving of 100 years of compensation as authors are. Thats good enough reason for me.
- impostervt 5y ago
  The books I publish are ghost written, so the "authors" don't get royalties either.
- AndrewUnmuted 5y ago
  Common misconception. In the audiobook narration world the price per finished hour is considerably more revenue than royalty split. It is therefore reserved for the more reliable and more talented ACX narrators. Source: I was the founding audio production manager for ACX.
  - delgaudm 5y ago
    >In the audiobook narration world the price per finished hour is considerably more revenue than royalty split That's pretty interesting. From your vantage point could you say why that's true? In my experience, I would agree it's true because it seems that the vast majority of Audiobooks don't actually sell that many copies. A narrator should never expect to earn, say, $1000 or more in Royalties, even over the life of the book. ($1000 dollars represents typical low-moderate PFH pay for a book length of 5-10 finished hours) My guess is that you'd need to sell probably 300 to 400 copies of an audiobook to make $1000 in narrator Royalties. I don't have hard data, but I would estimate that audiobooks probably sell at a ratio of 20% or less than the paper version. So you'd need to narrate a book that's going to sell at least 1000+ paper copies in a year before you'd have a chance at breaking even in the year you narrated the book. 1000+ sales in a year is a pretty tall sales order. According to Scribe media: [0] "In the book’s lifetime Research suggests that the “average” self-published, digital-only book sells about 250 copies in its lifetime. "By comparison, the average traditionally published book sells 3,000 copies, but as I mentioned above, only about 250-300 of those sales happen in the first year." It would appear the odds are not in the narrator's favor. [0] https://scribemedia.com/book-sales/ https://scribemedia.com/book-sales/
delgaudm 5y ago
That's great. We narrators are always grateful for the PFH rate!

I pay per finished hour (PFH). Never seen a good reason to do a royalty split.

cutenewt 5y ago

What's a typical range for PFH?

impostervt 5y ago
Prior to the audition phase, the book owner (me) specifies a pay band. Lowest is $50-$100 per finished hour of audio. I think above that is $100-200, and there's one more above that. I go for $50-100 PFH and get dozens of auditions. My last book had like 50 auditions. Most were horrible. I got around 5 good ones.
- delgaudm 5y ago
  >Most were horrible. I got around 5 good ones. Probably because $50-100 PFH is a pretty low rate. So you're getting entry level narrators. Narrators willing to work at or around minimum wage, and in actuality much less. Here is why I say that - authors/non-narrators don't consider that the ACX narrator is expected to do all the following: pre-read, script interpretation, direction (i.e. rehearsal), re-reads, editing, quality review, technical compliance / finalization (i.e. mastering) and uploading. There is not less than 4 hours work PFH (per finished hour) of audio, and it's probably closer to 6 to 7 hours PFH for a moderately experienced narrator willing to work for $100pfh, and 12 to 14 hours PFH for the novice narrator. I've been narrating a long time and have tons of automation built into my workflow, and I am still quite often more than 4 hours actual work to create a single hour of final audio.
  - impostervt 5y ago
    I know it's a low rate and I'm surprised I can find pretty good quality at that rate. The books I publish are pretty simple - relatively short, non-fiction. I imagine fiction books requiring voices/emotion would require a higher rate.

blendergeek 5y ago

> Never seen a good reason to do a royalty split. Voice artists are just as deserving of 100 years of compensation as authors are. Thats good enough reason for me.

impostervt 5y ago
The books I publish are ghost written, so the "authors" don't get royalties either.
AndrewUnmuted 5y ago
Common misconception. In the audiobook narration world the price per finished hour is considerably more revenue than royalty split. It is therefore reserved for the more reliable and more talented ACX narrators. Source: I was the founding audio production manager for ACX.
- delgaudm 5y ago
  >In the audiobook narration world the price per finished hour is considerably more revenue than royalty split That's pretty interesting. From your vantage point could you say why that's true? In my experience, I would agree it's true because it seems that the vast majority of Audiobooks don't actually sell that many copies. A narrator should never expect to earn, say, $1000 or more in Royalties, even over the life of the book. ($1000 dollars represents typical low-moderate PFH pay for a book length of 5-10 finished hours) My guess is that you'd need to sell probably 300 to 400 copies of an audiobook to make $1000 in narrator Royalties. I don't have hard data, but I would estimate that audiobooks probably sell at a ratio of 20% or less than the paper version. So you'd need to narrate a book that's going to sell at least 1000+ paper copies in a year before you'd have a chance at breaking even in the year you narrated the book. 1000+ sales in a year is a pretty tall sales order. According to Scribe media: [0] "In the book’s lifetime Research suggests that the “average” self-published, digital-only book sells about 250 copies in its lifetime. "By comparison, the average traditionally published book sells 3,000 copies, but as I mentioned above, only about 250-300 of those sales happen in the first year." It would appear the odds are not in the narrator's favor. [0] https://scribemedia.com/book-sales/ https://scribemedia.com/book-sales/

delgaudm 5y ago

That's great. We narrators are always grateful for the PFH rate!