For a long time now, I’ve really wanted to have at least one of my books in audio. There’s probably not a lot of profit in it, but it’s something I would love to have. When my friend, Sharon Gerlach announced that her book, Office Politics, was available in audio, I asked her about it. She used ACX (an Amazon company).
Okay, here’s how it works. You put your book (or books) on the site, and it lets narrators know if you’ll pay by royalty share or by hourly fee. Right now I have two of mine up for royalty share. I honestly don’t think I’ll get any takers. For one thing, they show your ranking on Amazon. Unfortunately, they show your PAPERBACK ranking instead of ebook ranking. Which, of course, is a lot worse. Also, Soul of a Vampire only has one review, although it’s a 4 star, so that doesn’t appeal to many narrators, because these people want a book that sells well. Haunted Lake has 34 reviews for an average of 4.1, so that would be appealing maybe…except for the paperback ranking, of course. So if no one picks it up, I’ll probably go with the per hour option. I’m not going to post that on there, though, because if I’m going to pay per hour, I want to pick my own narrator and make an offer. If I announce I’ll pay a flat rate, I may get offers I don’t want, and I hate to reject people. Awhile back, I looked into getting a narrator for Haunted Lake, but the one I contacted wanted $1500. I just couldn’t afford that. On ACX, they have different narrators who work for different fees. They have a $0-50 all the way up to $400-$1000. There weren’t many at $0-$50, so I checked out narrators from $50-$100. If I can get one at $50, Haunted Lake would be about $270. At $75, it would be $405. I’m going to leave it up as royalty only for a week or two and see if HL gets any takers. If not, then I’ll decide.
So what do you all think? Would you do this if you lost money or broke even? Would it be worth it to have your books, or at least one of them, on audio?
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