![]() ![]() ![]() The narration rate with other publishers varies.) If you want tips for negotiating a higher price, check out my article Cruising for a competitive advantage (Each publisher has negotiated contracts with SAG/AFTRA, and only the ACX rate is publicly available. If you are producing the retail-ready project, you need to factor in costs for an editor and proofer as you will pay those out of your PFH rate. Be aware that the SAG/AFTRA union minimum on ACX is $250 per finished hour. You have to decide how to negotiate a rate acceptable to both of you.Įven with this formula in hand, you still will want to research current audiobook rates. Chances are very good that you will come up with a pay rate for this audiobook that is $1000s MORE than your client wishes to pay. Multiply the real-time hours by the hourly rate of pay you need to survive. Note that preparing to read (pre-reading the book, looking up pronunciations, etc.) is NOT included in this calculation, so you will need to add time for that process.ģ. The general breakdown of hours for experienced narrators is: For instance, a 10-hour book may require at least 20 and, if you are doing your own editing (which I don’t recommend - instead, outsource it), 60 or more hours of your life from the time you record the first word until the last byte is uploaded or mailed to the client. Multiply the number of finished hours by 6. This number is a very conservative estimate of the number of real-time hours you and your team will spend in recording, editing, and transmitting your book. You find it helpful to use a decimal-to-time calculator with your finished hours figure to see the minutes and seconds.Ģ. Real life examples usually aren’t so tidy with whole numbers. (300 * 2 = 600 minutes)ĭivide the total number of minutes in the previous step by 60 to get the finished hours. Multiply the total pages in the book by your average reading time per page from your sample read to see the total estimated minutes. For instance, if it takes you 10 minutes to read 5 pages, your average time per page would be 2 minutes per page. Keep going when you have errors, and stop your timer when you’re done.ĭivide the time you obtained doing the sample read by the number of pages in the sample to get the average time to read each page. To estimate finished time, start a stopwatch as you read 3-5 representative pages aloud as if narrating. If you don’t have the word count available, you can estimate the finished time by following these steps: If you’ve done some projects where you were given a word count, divide the word count by your finished time to learn your average words-per-minute rate of speech. Some narrators have reported that using 9000 words per hour (or 150 wpm) is a better average rate for more people. Your actual rate of speech and finished time may vary significantly from the estimate due to the complexity of the text and your acting choices. If you don’t know your rate of speech, Audible uses 9300 words per hour, or 155 words per minute (WPM), in its calculation for books posted on ACX. Divide the word count of the book by your rate of speech per hour to get the estimated number of finished hours. Here’s the simple mathematical formula for solving this problem:ġ. Best wishes for your continued success!Īpparently, I overwhelmed this person with good information that would require her to actually do some research because she re-posted her question on a voiceover forum within an hour of receiving my reply. I would only perform an audiobook at that very low rate if I wanted to build commercial credits. Small publishers only pay $50-100 per finished hour. ![]() You’ll have to consider all of these factors about the time commitment along with your experience, relationship with the client, training, and studio equipment to determine a rate that is fair compensation. As Paul points out in his comment to my article, you also need to add time for preliminary research. My article shows you how to calculate the real time required for editing to produce the book. Paul’s article shows you a formula to calculate finished time. For instance, Audible uses an average rate of speed of 155 words a minute, or 9300 words per finished hour. You can figure out the finished run-time based on the word count. While the question you asked seems simple, the answer requires more explanation, as found in this blog post and the one from Paul Strikwerda linked within it.Īs basic info, you need to know the WORD count, not the page count, of the book you would narrate. I’ve been asked to record a 200 page audiobook. Last week, someone sent me this question: My email inbox continues to provide fodder for blog articles. ![]()
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