Ever thought about your writing being shared as an audio book?
Bill Forsythe is a Voice Actor who narrates and produces audiobooks exclusively for Christian authors.
He has:
• Personally narrated and produced audiobooks for independent authors
• Recorded and produced audiobooks that authors recorded in Bill’s studio
• Recorded women narrators in his studio for authors who needed a female voice for their book. Bill has worked as narrator and producer for Christian authors who reside in the United States, Canada, Europe and Africa. He also recorded, edited and mastered a Spanish-language audiobook that required a female Spanish-speaking narrator. He is an expert at recording, editing and mastering audiobooks. His acoustically-treated studio includes state of the art equipment and software to record, edit and master the audio files. In addition to providing all of the individual files required by every audiobook retailer, Bill provides complete, compiled audiobooks for authors to sell through their own web stores. Before embarking on his voice acting career, Bill was an entrepreneur, building two companies of his own and successfully managing transportation for some of the world’s largest events, including the Olympic Games. He lives in upstate South Carolina with his beautiful wife, Adel.
Some Useful Resources About Audiobooks from Bill
Selling Your Audiobook Direct
Here is a link to an author who sells her audiobooks on her own website. That option provides much more royalty income than going through Audible, Amazon and Apple where they keep at least 60% of the royalties. To sell direct, or with wide distribution through retail outlets, authors must NOT sign exclusive distribution contracts, but must have non-exclusive agreements. While this may look like the author is giving up 15% of their royalties from Audible, Amazon and Apple Books, the general feeling I hear expressed among authors nd narrators is that the reduction in royalty rate is more than offset by a much wider distribution of their audiobooks to other outlets, including public libraries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhzyYwP3ws0
Guide to Audiobook Distributors
While Audible is by far the largest distributor of audiobooks worldwide, they are also the least transparent about how much money they receive from audiobooks and how they divide those funds up. This article is published by Scribe Media – who has affiliation with Author’s Republic. Yet, I find the guide at this link to provide a very good and balanced evaluation of retail audiobook distributors.
Narrator’s Roadmap
This link provides wealth of information for (and about) narrators,
AND for authors who may want to explore narrating their own books as audiobooks, there is a section in the Welcome Center of this website for resources specifically for you.
A question was asked on the Writers Aglow Zoom call, “How would it look for me if I came and recorded my book in your studio?”. My answer was that I do charge $150 PFH (Per Finished Hour) to record, edit and master an audiobook that another person narrates – whether it is narrated by the author or another narrator.
However, what I also wanted to say is that I am happy to have an author come to my studio in Greer, SC, and spend a few hours at no charge to see what this experience is like, what equipment and software is required, what the workflow is like, to record their own voice in a few passages of their own book and hear what they will sound like in both raw recorded form and in a Mastered recording.
We are less than 15 minutes from the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP), and there is a very nice Hampton Inn in Greer, within a 5 minute drive from our studio. The Greenville-Greer area is a wonderful place to visit. Adel and I are leaving next Monday for vacation and I will be out of touch until May 20, but I would be happy to set something up after that.
Thanks again for having me in your Zoom meeting.
-Bill Forsythe
wpforsythe@me.com
(940) 765-9224