Best Practices

A number of articles in this Knowledge Base fall in the category of Best Practices.

The info in each article is not just my opinion. Instead, I’m sharing hard-won knowledge gained through being in the audiobook industry for 20 years, listening to hundreds of audiobooks, attending continuous training and conferences, judging in the Voice Arts Awards for multiple years, voraciously reading articles, and daily discussing the topics with peers and producers in person and on-line. I also am republishing some excellent advice generously shared by other well-respected industry pros.

You can and should do your own listening and research to be aware of best practices and changing trends in the industry.

Start by listening to audiobooks published by the big 5 print publishers. If you don’t know who they are, a Google search will help you learn the answer. Learn to start with Google for most things you want to know. In this case, I’ve also included the Big 5 in the Glossary.

Subscribe to AudioFile Magazine and listen to the audiobooks in genres that interest you and especially those that earned Earphone Awards. Listen to audiobooks that earned Audie Awards from the Audio Publishers Association, Grammy awards from The Recording Academy, or any of the other dozen types of awards listed on this Audible page. Choose books with narrators who have been inducted into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame and/or AudioFile Magazine’s Golden Voices.

If your rights holder asks you to do something that you haven’t heard done before, chances are very good that it isn’t done for a reason.

In addition, a narrator should seek out coaching to improve text analysis, performance skills, and workflow. This article and those linked within it will help you evaluate a coach.

While you can ask questions in narrator Facebook groups, you need to be very careful about the advice you accept and use. All members of such groups do not share the same level of experience or knowledge about the industry.

Taking a weekend class and/or doing a short book does not make one into an audiobook expert. If someone promotes themselves in multiple roles, such as a narrator, editor, and proofer, they probably haven’t done the requisite work needed to be an expert in any of those disciplines.

I’ve also seen some on-line offerings by those who have done a number of short books and are now selling their “secrets” to success rather than becoming a better narrator. For instance, one product states “Don’t be too concerned about a lack of experience when you are just starting out.”

Wrong.

If you are presenting yourself as a professional narrator, you are implying that you have the knowledge and skills to complete the job. You can volunteer to gain experience.

Do some research before accepting advice from someone unknown to you:

• If the person is another narrator, look up their portfolio on Audible.com. Listen to some of their samples and look at the customer ratings and comments. How many books have they done with durations longer than 6 hours?
• Check the person’s web site. How do they present themselves? Do they have professional reviews or awards?

 

Other resources on this topic:

• Narrator Ann Richardson has written a golden trifecta of excellent articles that all relate to Best Practices:

1. 1. She discusses 11 general Best Practices in this article.
   2. Ann offers terrific advice about ethics and etiquette in this one.
   3. Narrators need to have integrity and set and live up to standards of excellence.

If you’ve been hired by an author, their rep, or a small print publisher, you’ll find it helpful to send an information packet at the outset that establishes expectations for both sides. When working directly with the author, you can request that the author provide you with character descriptions and pronunciations of any made-up words, supply them with an outline of your workflow, and establish expectations for payment.

When a producer or audiobook publisher hires you, though, be aware that you should NOT contact the author without first obtaining permission from your producer. Authors often license their audio rights and are not part of the audiobook production process.

Otherwise, when working with indie authors, many rights holders want you to upload chapters individually so that they can listen and critique them. As the producer, you should only upload the files of the complete, finished product. Revisions requested by the RH should be only of a technical nature, such as a mis-read or mispronunciation, rather than those based on artistic or stylistic choices.

This type of situation often becomes one of micro-management where the rights holder tries to act as a director after the fact.

Audiobook narration is a performance art based on the narrator’s interpretation of the text. The rights holder is not the director and should not expect to attend the recording sessions or re-shape the performance during the corrections process. In the same way that the author of the book is not present during the movie production of the book, their presence in an audiobook recording session would be disruptive to the recording artist and against the industry best practices.

Even in a case where the author would be willing to pay real time studio hours (as opposed to finished hours) in order to attend the recording sessions, the narrator should not accommodate this proposal. The author usually has not had any training in acting or directing and might not be able to communicate nuanced changes to the narrator.

The steps listed below outline the industry standard approach for the production process. While they aren’t rules set in stone, this workflow makes each step its most efficient.

Anyone who tells you things like “there are no rules” or “do whatever works for you” or “do whatever you feel comfortable with” or “don’t listen to the naysayers” is someone who wants to justify their own routine, ignores these industry best practices, and does not work for big audio publishers. If you hope to become a professional narrator, you will want to follow professional standards on independent productions.

Furthermore, deviating from these best practices can cause problems for people behind you on the path. Just as price shoppers brag about how little they paid, indie authors will tell their friends about directing sessions, critiquing chapters, and changing the narrator’s performance after the audiobook is completed.

Workflow

1) Narrator pre-reads ENTIRE book and does prep before ever setting foot in the recording booth. If the rights holder is different than the author, the RH may or may not allow the narrator to consult with the author.

1A) On ACX and Findaway Voices, the narrator records and uploads the first 15 minutes so that the narrator and rights holder can ensure they agree on tone and characterizations. This first 15 minutes does not have to occur at the beginning of the book. It can be any segment. Some audio publishers also have instituted this preliminary checkpoint.

2) Once the RH approves the first 15 minutes, the narrator records entire book, preferably using punch and roll technique, and making all acting choices without further input from the RH. The narrator reads word-for-word only the words that are on the page and is not allowed to make changes to the text without RH approval except in cases of obvious typos. Depending on your deadline, you may need to hand off the narration to the editor on a daily basis so that their work stays just behind yours. This situation is more common when you are working for an audio publisher,

Here are a couple of additional notes about reading the words on the page:

A) At section or scene changes, you do not insert the word “Meanwhile” or anything else. If the author wanted the word “Meanwhile”, s/he would have written it.

B) Narrator Holly Adams shared a cautionary tale on Facebook and gave me permission to reprint it below.

I recently narrated a non-fiction book for [a publisher] by a prominent expert in that field. It contained many interviews, and they were verbatim. [The publisher] makes whatever cuts/adjustments they feel are appropriate with the RH BEFORE I get the script.

It had many “uhs” and “ums”, and I was required to do each one. One of my pickups was actually to redo do a sentence because I had left out one of the “uhs” (there were two in a row for a total of three).

The prominent reviews trash me out as a narrator for “choosing to leave in the uhs”, and one review is even called “Narrators take note!!”.

DON’T take note. If you are working directly with an author, you must get their permission. If you are working for [a publisher such as] Tantor, Dreamscape, Podium, etc., THAT’S NOT YOUR CALL. You can ask, but in all likelihood, your manuscript will come with an email (or when you join the roster, it will be there) that says you must record every word, and if you don’t, you will be asked to do it over.

3) Editor edits the entire book for pacing, noise reduction, and volume consistency. The goal is to enhance the performance, not change it.

4) Proofer listens and notes errors with a timecode for the editor (noises) and narrator (misreads and mispronunciations) to fix.

5) The narrator rerecords their items found by the proofer in the previous step, which are known as pick-ups.

6) The narrator sends all the pickups (usually in a single file) to the editor, who seamlessly inserts the new recordings into the appropriate places in the original audio.

7) Once the entire book is edited and proofed, the editor or mastering engineer masters the corrected audio files to achieve consistency of sound throughout the entire book.

8) That person then exports the mastered files to MP3s that adhere to the specifications and sends them back to the producer who hired them.

9) In independent projects, the narrator is the producer who then uploads the final, mastered MP3s to complete the project.

Some people start a new session for each chapter. Others use one session file for the entire book. Either option will work within the framework stated above. Real digital audio workstations (DAW) are formulated to do long-form recording.

When working with indie authors, narrators should outsource their post (steps 3, 4, and 6-8) so that the narrator can focus on the thing that makes them money: NARRATION.

 

Other resources on this topic:

• Budget 6.2 hours (not including prep time) in real time to create 1 finished hour as explained in this article.
• I send a link to this page on my site to rights holders at project inception to manage their expectations.
• This article for authors lists 9 things professional audiobook narrators do while recording the book that make narration a demanding and challenging performance medium.
• Narrator Tom Dheere presents an audiobook production checklist on his blog.
• Colin Firth beautifully expresses the division between the author and performer in this 1:10 video.
• Narrator Tanya Eby discusses how to keep your voice consistent during narration in this article.
• In this article, narrator James Romick explains punch and roll and includes links to videos demonstrating it in several DAWs.
• This ACX blog post describes Audible’s QC procedure.
• In this 2:25 video, I show how one editor and I used iAnnotate during the corrections process. It also shows me recording the pickups.

It’s a very good idea for someone other than you to proof listen to your work for these reasons:

1) If you say a word incorrectly during the recording session, you’re likely to miss it again during proofing. Some people who hire a proofer even misspeak during pickups because your brain and mouth have been wired to say it a certain way. If you’ve been saying a word wrong for your whole life, you really don’t want to learn its correct pronunciation from reviewer after reviewer of the retail product.

2) If you pronounce a word inconsistently (like 2 ways for “either” or a character’s name), you may not notice the inconsistency throughout the recording.

3) An outside proofer will catch errors like booth noises that you are used to hearing. An experienced proofer may even hear issues with your technique that you aren’t aware of.

4) Even highly experienced narrators with 100s of books completed may average 5-10 misreads per finished hour, especially when working solo in the booth. At least 1 error every 10 minutes is common.

You should receive 3 things from your proofer: PDF, notation of errors, and voice match samples of the original audio.

The rights holder is NOT your proof listener. When working through ACX and Findaway, projects submitted to the rights holder should be the final, retail-ready product. It is incumbent upon you, the producer, to get your work proofed.

People who invest money in themselves, their business, and their production process move up more quickly in this business.

Doing lower quality work and avoiding industry best practices until you have more money will hold you back. Titles stay with you for 7 years. Audio publishers spend $1000s of dollars for the rights to produce audiobooks, so they must trust you before they will hire you to narrate for them. If you are producing sub-par work, you will be unable to earn that trust.

 

Other resources on this topic:

Since many narrators have asked me for resources so they can learn how to proof listen, I’ve included that information here.

• Proof listener Sarah Hannah Gómez wrote this detailed BookRiot article describing her job.
• This archived article offers some tips for the proof listening process.
• This interview with proofer Genevieve Louis and the sites for proofers Lynda Rossi and Dalton Lynne give other perspectives.
• I created this list of additional info, training, employers, and other ideas about becoming a proof listener.
• A time-saving app to aid in proofing is listed in the Welcome Center.
• If you want to hire a proof listener, check out my searchable directory in Audiobook Village.

 

Black, Indigenous, and Person of Color (BIPOC) people have struggled against systemic racism and discrimination throughout history. As a result, these groups of people have been underrepresented as both characters in published books and narrators of audiobooks.

The publishing industry as a whole is predominantly full of white people, although steps are being taken to improve representation in all areas.

All narrators, but especially caucasian narrators, must be sensitive to these social issues and the affect our work has on the world when deciding whether to accept an audiobook contract. We must evaluate whether our skills and background make us an ideal match for the author’s point-of-view and text.

Just because you COULD do it doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it.

Each narrator always has the option of turning down a project and suggesting a colleague who would be a genuine fit for the material.

For instance, let’s say a caucasian actor accepts a book where the main character is a Black person. The white actor is denying an authentic role to a Black person who is uniquely qualified to tell the story and should have been cast.

Thanks to narrator Leon Nixon who gave me permission to reprint these comments that he originally wrote on Facebook.

Casting is more than just choosing someone who can do a good representation of the character — the tone, inflection, accent. Casting is really about the person. Everything that we’ve done in our lives lives in us and never goes away. So when we, as professional storytellers, tell the story, we’re telling it from our unique perspective. From our experience.

When one of us is selected from our audition, or just flat out chosen for a project, we’re usually not chosen because we had a kick ass read. Heck, we’re pros. We can all give one of those. We’re generally chosen because we have a unique connection to the material.

Sure, the author has written the intention and so on, but as individuals it is important to remember, some things live very deep inside of us which make us who we truly are, and that thing — that je ne sais quoi, can’t help but come out when we tell the story. That cannot be replaced. It can’t be substituted by someone who can do “the voice” of…

In this 1-hour webinar from PRH Audio with a diverse panel of 2 narrators and 1 producer, narrator January LaVoy noted that the narrator is the “custodian of the story”. It’s up to the narrator to take responsibility for the parts we accept.

I highly encourage you to watch this webinar. The conversation about how white narrators should approach text with ethnicities so that we can honor the text and the author’s intent is particularly beneficial.

Since a single narrator voices all of the roles in a book, it’s appropriate and customary for a narrator to voice supporting and minor characters with different ethnicities. We treat all characters respectfully so that we don’t portray a stereotype. Play the characters as if they are real people and remain true to the author’s intent.

People who identify their sexual orientation or gender identity as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, or Questioning (LGBTQ) have been marginalized in society. Casting decisions about books with LGBTQ characters and themes also deserve added consideration. Where the main character’s sexuality or gay life/culture is a large part of the story, a gay actor might best serve the text and probably would appreciate the opportunity for representation. One’s sexuality may not be evident to others, which could increase the difficulty of the actor’s decision whether to narrate the book or recommend a colleague for it.

 

Case Study

In this example, a miscast narrator went beyond disrespectful and created a terribly racist and misogynistic reading that understandably angered the author. Be sure to note the title of the piece, listen to the narrator’s performance, and read some of the tweets about it.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!?! @FiresideFiction @KevinRineerVO This is what you think I’d sound like? What BLACK WOMEN AND SOUTHERN BLACL FOLKS SOUND LIKE?!?!?! pic.twitter.com/wLCm34P2l2

— Regina N. Bradley, Ph.D. (@redclayscholar) November 24, 2020

In this instance, the producer criticized the narrator’s acting choices and then accepted full blame for the recording, saying in his apology/promise-to-do-better essay, “This basically amounted to auditory blackface, in the worst tradition of racist minstrelsy.”

The white, male narrator deserves every criticism for recording this piece. As soon as he read the opening sentence during his prep, he should have told the producer that he could not perform this piece. He’s not Black, and he’s not a woman. He should not have narrated this 1st-person story.

And why didn't @KevinRineerVO look at that first sentence and say, "Ya know, ethically, I shouldn't be reading this, here's the refund of my fee because I don't want to torpedo my career and have me hecking up hardcore racist forever associated with Googling my professional name"

— Nunya Business (@MarySueSays) November 24, 2020

Listen to the difference when a Black woman records this author’s words.

HOW THAT SHIT SHOULDA SOUNDED. pic.twitter.com/JDEFsQuE2f

— Regina N. Bradley, Ph.D. (@redclayscholar) November 24, 2020

Finally, read more of the author’s deeply offended reaction to get a better sense of this cultural abomination:

I saw the apology. I don't care. I am angry. Seething from centuries of silenced Black women angry. The voice I speak with and write with is not my own. To have that taken away is unacceptable. Unforgivable. And to ask me to consider it is equally trifling and unforgivable.

— Regina N. Bradley, Ph.D. (@redclayscholar) November 24, 2020

 

Other resources on this topic:

• Narrator Tara Sands, with input from other narrators, created this one-sheet document that you can give to your rights holders to gather information about the book and help ensure appropriate casting choices.
• This article in Slate provides an excellent discussion about representation and authentic casting concerns faced by audiobook producers and narrators.
• Indian American actress Melini Kantayya describes in this Washington Post op ed how “as an Indian American actress, for me the shadow of [cartoon character] Apu loomed larger in my life than I realized.”
• This article shows results from the 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey. “The book industry has the power to shape culture in big and small ways. The people behind the books serve as gatekeepers, who can make a huge difference in determining which stories are amplified and which are shut out. If the people who work in publishing are not a diverse group, how can diverse voices truly be represented in its books?”
• The lack of diversity in the romance genre caused a major shake-up in its professional organization as detailed in this article.
• For parallels in theatre, read the statement from We See You, White American Theatre.

 

I include my name in the file name of all electronic documents I send to a client or potential client, including invoices and articles. I use this naming convention for my auditions:

KarenCommins-BookTitleAudMMDDYY    where MMDDYY is the 6-digit date

I like having my name first so it shows up even in smaller windows.

Once you’ve been hired and have recorded the audiobook, use the naming convention for the book provided by the publisher.

If you aren’t given a format — such as with books produced on ACX — name the book files consistently so that they indicate both the book and the file’s location in the book.

The following naming convention accommodates multiple front-matter files, causes chapter 1 to start with the number 001, and will work for titles having over 100 chapters.

XXXX-BookName.mp3 or .wav, replacing XXXX sequentially with the numbering convention below.

Opening Credits 000
Introduction 000a
Prologue 000b
Epigraph 000c
Chapter 1 001

If the book has fewer than 100 chapters, you can eliminate the leading 0, such as XXX-BookName.mp3

Here’s an example of the file labeling I used for one of my audiobooks. The use of dashes, underlines, or spaces between the words has not been standardized in the industy. Old systems couldn’t read spaces between words, so many people still include a dash or underline. If you want a character as a spacer, I would vote for the dash since it’s easier to see than an underline.