Digital Audiobooks…A Voice Over Opportunity
July 8th, 2009 Posted in blogWhen I interviewed top audiobook narrator Scott Brick recently for a Voice Registry podcast, he talked about not only being hired by the big publishing houses, but about his own company where customers can purchase audiobook downloads- A relatively new concept in the world of publishing. Since then, I’ve been keeping an eye (and ear) out for this new field for voice talent.
Creative Content is a digital audiobook publishing company in the UK, producing specially commissioned content from experts in the fields of business etiquette, self help and self improvement distributed through digital audiobook downloads. Founders Ali Muirden and Lorelei King, have worked together in a professional capacity for the last 10 years in their respective roles as Audiobook Publisher and Actor/Voice Artist/Writer.
-Tracy Pattin
I asked Ali about her company and what the future holds for voice actors and the audiobook part of the voiceover industry:
TJP: How is the UK audiobook industry different from the U.S.?
AM: The UK audio industry is much smaller in turnover and sales units than the USA. It’s partly because the US audiobook industry has been established for longer and partly because the retailers there recognise it as a valuable source of revenue. Also, probably because distances tend to be longer for drivers in the States audiobooks are more popular with customers to help ease the boredom on a long drive! Unabridged is still not as popular here as it is in the US and this might partly be because the economics of producing unabridged here still make it impossible to price them competitively in the High Street retail sector!
TJP: Do you hire voice actors? How do you find them? What about U.S. voice talent? Can they do projects for you if they’re in the U.S. and not in the UK?
AM: Creative Content actively sources and uses US voices. We have world rights in all our titles and consequently can sell them anywhere in the world and we took the view from the off that we should use American voices on our audio publications. Our titles are deliberately targeted for a world market rather than just the UK so it is important that they appeal right across the globe!
TJP: What about the American accent versus a British accent? Is one more in demand?
AM: We find an American accent is usually more favoured in Export markets.In the home market many British people also seem quite happy to listen to American voices…. we get so much fantastic US TV here that it seems quite natural to us Brits to hear American voices!
In part 2 (Thursday, July 9th) Ali Muirden talks about the impact of the digital download in the publishing industry and what they look for in voice talent.
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4 Responses to “Digital Audiobooks…A Voice Over Opportunity”
By J.S. Gilbert on Jul 8, 2009
I’d be curious to hear what their criteria for hiring voice actors is and some sort of idea how they base pay. Also do they require deliverables to be fully edited, without breaths and so forth?
Here, in the U.S. my experience with some of the larger publishers tends to be somewhat different, with one in particular that asks the talent to send them raw recordings with marked up scripts to indicate edits, which then gets sent to an editing house.
One of the other large publishers asks for seperate files for each chapter and full edits along with normalization, breath reduction and so forth.
Another publisher I have worked with has file naming conventions for every paragraph.
Pay levels tend to be all over the place as well.
By Lorelei King on Jul 9, 2009
Hi J.S.! My partner Ali and I are very hands-on with every one of our publications. Quality is important to us (and frankly, we’re both control freaks!), so we record and direct the audio here in the UK with one or both of us present. Our post goes out to a trusted team (also in the UK) that we’ve worked with over the years.
What we look for in a voice varies from project to project – but generally speaking, we like intelligence, warmth, being easy on the ear … the usual things. And experience is VERY important, particularly for a small publisher like us – studio time is expensive, so narrator fluency is crucial. We need to be able to record and edit with a minimum of fuss.
Ali was head of Audio at Macmillan Publishing for many years, and I have been a voiceover for more years than I care to admit to, so I like to think we have an instinct for good readers! Additionally, we are lucky to have access to a pool of great narrators – both British and American – here in the UK.
We tend to record in 3-hour ‘blocks’, and – since you’ve asked – our pay scale is pro-rata consistent with the major audiobook/educational producers in this country.
Setting up a publishing company in this economic downturn has certainly had its challenges – but we are loving every minute of it! (We’re particularly proud to have had an iTunes best seller with our title ‘The Lowdown: Improve Your Speech – British English’.)
As I hope you’ll agree, audio publishing is a great field to work in. It’s a privileg to meet and collaborate with so many very talented, funny, hard working people.
By Silvana Vienne on Jul 9, 2009
Thanks, Tracy, for directing us to this site, and to everyone here for posting interesting info for voiceover actors interested in book narration.