How to Become an Audiobook Narrator Who Gets Paid
Highlights from the video:
- Rob recommends starting somewhere and whetting your chops
- How do I become an audiobook narrator? I’d like to get into the industry- any advice?
- Top 100 Public Domain Books via Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scor…
- Audible Creation Exchange (ACX) Submission Guidelines: http://www.acx.com/help/acx-audio-sub…
- How to Create an Audiobook for Audible FREE PDF edition- https://archangelink.com/audible
- Derek Doepker’s Audiobooks Made Easy Course: https://archangelink.com/derek
Don’t forget to Check out our FREE Self-Publishing Series at https://archangelink.com/intro
Full Transcript included below:
Hey everybody, this is Rob Archangel of Archangel Ink, www.archangelink.com. Today I’m here to answer another question that I get periodically:
“Hi, I’m interested in becoming a narrator and producing audio books. Can you help me? Can you give me any advice to start off, and/or is your company hiring?”
The short answer to that is—maybe. Build up your resume, make sure that you have a good body of work. If you are starting out entirely fresh and new, then I would recommend to start putting material up on YouTube and SoundCloud. There are hundreds upon hundreds of royalty free books out there in the public domain.
You can practice and really good at it. Even if you don’t want to do entire books, you can do chapters and excerpts. Start reading A Tale of Two Cities, start reading verses from the Bible, start reading whatever you want. You can record it and put it up on YouTube and SoundCloud for free. Get some experience, do all the work and mastering that’s gonna be necessary to make it available on a platform like Audible Creation Exchange (ACX). There are parameters outlined on the ACX website, I’ll leave a link the description. We also have a free DIY guide for primarily self-publishing authors who are looking to narrate their own material.
But if you’re looking to get just a basic overview into the self-narrating process, that’s a good place to start. There’s a little bit of information in there about soundproofing your room and getting yourself set up. We also have a recommendation for Derek Doepker’s audiobook creation course, and I’ll include that in the description as well. That’s a good place to get started. The key really though, is to just build your experience, build your resume, because it’s gonna be really hard to convince people to purchase anything from you if you haven’t done anything yet. It’s always hard to get the first client. The second client will be a little bit easier.
The third, and fourth, and fifth and hundredth and thousandth and millionth client is gonna be that much easier. I mean you look at a place like McDonald’s, billions and billions served, there’s not a very high barrier of entry to convince people to go in there and buy a burger or some fries, or a milkshake or whatever it is that they want to get, because they have a huge cache of credibility. Everybody knows what McDonald’s is about and what to expect. Whereas the new burger shop in your neighborhood, the new restaurant in your neighborhood, it might be a little difficult to get people in seats to try it out for the first time.
You want to build a little bit of credibility, you want to build a little bit of buzz. Get people interested in what you’re doing. Start building your own resume. Then if you can, offer to do projects for people who you respect and admire, potentially even for free. Now that’s not gonna be a money maker, it’s not obviously going to bring in enough to pay the bills, but you get some credibility out there, and you build up your sample base. People can look you up on Amazon, on Audible, on wherever and say, “Oh yeah, this person is doing some interesting things, and they apparently know enough about what they’re doing to produce a book and have somebody publish it under their name to put their name on it, and accept them as a narrator and as a producer of this audiobook.
That would be my recommendation. Start building up your brand, start doing some things for free, and then over time, work on marketing yourself appropriately. One of the key pieces of advice that I see from entrepreneurs and from people who are successful in running their own business is, you want to have a good price point. You want to charge appropriately, you want to value yourself appropriately because other people won’t value you if you’re not valuing yourself appropriately. But, you can’t blow smoke, you can’t do it without any credibility, you can’t do it without any experience, without any reason for people to trust you, and believe in you, and pay the premium rate that you’re charging.
You want to have some case studies, you want to have some examples of what you’re doing, demonstrate what you’re capable of, and then slowly start to price yourself up. You don’t necessarily want to be the lowest price point person. You may need to be initially to build up that credibility, but you don’t necessarily want to stay there, you want to increase your price over time. Eventually, if you are producing really good work, and again, I really can’t emphasize that enough. Produce the best work that you can, get really good at your craft, get really, really good at it.
Know how to master a file, know how to narrate a file with animation, with interest, with intrigue, with credibility, with all the different things that you want to have come across in your read. Get really good at that, and once you do that, build your craft up. You put yourself in a position where you can actually succeed and build on your business, and get into the industry. I hope that’s been helpful. If you have any questions or comments, leave them down below. Thanks so much for watching. Again, this is Rob Archangel of www.archangelink.com