Should I remove breaths from my audiobook?

Breath is life.

New narrators — and particularly new rights holders — who haven’t listened to many (or any) audiobooks often think that breaths should be removed from the recording. Breaths are routinely removed in other voice work such as animation and commercial voiceover. Commercials must run within a pre-set, rigid time of 15, 30, or 60 seconds.

However, we don’t have time constraints in audiobooks. Breaths are the foundation of spoken language and become part of the artistic performance. They affect the musicality and pacing of the story and help convey the emotion and mood of the text.

Hearing an audiobook without breaths feels unnatural and even robotic to the listener. People may feel anxious when they can’t hear the narrator take a breath.

The audiobook industry standard approach is to leave breaths in the audiobook but make adjustments to some breaths in post-production. For instance, loud, gaspy breaths may be minimized or eliminated, especially if they start a paragraph. Breaths should sound natural and subtle throughout the audiobook, with plosives and extraneous mouth noises removed.

While recording, the audiobook narrator must do her part to breathe using good technique. You may need to adjust your microphone position and/or learn to breathe from your diaphragm.

When punching in, you want to ensure you don’t cut the breath as it would stand out to a listener if left in the audio. Your editor would need to cover cut breaths with room tone.

As you prep the book, give thought to places where you want to breathe or slightly pause to enhance the story you are telling.

Where/how can I learn accents and dialects?

Performance

Fiction books often feature characters with a wide variety of accents. It’s important to do your due diligence to determine if your capabilities are in best service of the text. Remember, the back story you imagine and accent you choose for your characters must be grounded in the text. Listen to this 1:40 audio clip from the TV show Hot in Cleveland (s6, e15 “All Dolled Up”) for a humorous example of what NOT to do.

The book’s location(s) will dictate the type of accents needed, if any. The characters who live in the same place wouldn’t hear their accent differently, As narrator and dialect coach Joel Froomkin explains:

In general if the book takes place primarily where the language is native, you do not do a foreign accent because the characters are not speaking a foreign language to THEM. Hence, A Tale Of Two Cities isn’t narrated with a bunch of French accents. The foreign language itself is considered the non-accented neutral.

If the author states a character is from a certain place with a distinctive accent like London and doesn’t indicate the character has no accent, you should give that character an appropriate accent based on the location and the character’s socio-economic background and status.

However, if you can’t convincingly speak in the accent of the main character(s), you shouldn’t do the accent. The goal is to sound like a real person, not a caricature. Sustaining an accent throughout the book grows even more difficult if you have not lived there or at least had significant experience in speaking with the accent.

On the other hand, if you say you can do an accent, you need to do it WELL. You don’t need to be at the level of fooling a native speaker, but you do need to be respectful, convincing, and consistent.

Usually, hinting at the accent is enough to satisfy the listener. Barbara Rosenblat, who is known as the Meryl Streep of the audiobook world, wrote in her book Audiobook Narrator: The Art of Recording Audio Books:

Clarity is key…Your first responsibility is to be understood….

When I refer to “nuance”, I mean giving a good dollop of the flavor of the character so that you place your listeners firmly in the world you want to share with them without blowing them out of the room.

The resources on this page can help you hear accent traits and the musicality of the language, which is essential for a more authentic performance. Of course, listening to an audiobook from a native speaker certainly gets the musicality of the language into your mind! For instance, listening to David Tennant perform How to Train Your Dragon helped me perform a few lines of Scottish in one book.

Language repositories:

The British Library’s free database of British Accents and Dialects has recordings representing different accents and dialects in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Specialty recordings, like British prisoners held in Germany during WWI, are found on this page.
The International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA Dialects Archive) is a free site containing around 1500 sample recordings of native speakers from around the world speaking the same passages in English, often as a 2nd language.
A regional US map and links to vocal repositories are included in this Lifehacker article. Of the sites linked in the article, linguist Rick Aschmann’s site discusses US and Canadian accents and is particularly useful because he catalogs YouTube clips with good examples.

Language apps/sofware with native speakers:

Babbel Fee-based subscription
Duolingo Free and paid services
Fluenz One-time payment
Mango Languages Paid subscription but may be available through a library
Rosetta Stone

Your library also may have courses in popular languages produced by Berlitz, Living Language, and Pimsleur.

This KB article on pronunciation includes links to several sites with native pronunciations.

Radio Stations:

You can also listen to radio stations in the country to aid your musicality. I’ve found that WordRadioMap.com is a good choice because you can quickly pick a country and city from drop-down menus and then click on a station to start listening.

The Radio.Garden site lets you search for a station with text or by “spinning” the earth and clicking on a dot representing a station. Narrator Madeline Mrozek alerted me to this site, which also has an iPhone/Android app.

With some Google searches, you might find radio stations in other countries with programming in English. You can also search the Apple and Google app stores for other radio apps.

Movies:

Some narrators like to watch dubbed movies with sub-titles. Narrator Jennifer Blom offered this handy tip for Netflix users: Login to Netflix and go to this page. Select the language you want to see programs available in that language.

Other narrators have recommended the specific resources below for the accents listed.

Australian

British

The Ask List of words from chapter 2 of Edith Skinner’s classic book Speak With Distinction includes essential words pronounced differently in American and British RP English.

Italian

ITALIAN REACTS to “How to Do an Italian Accent”

Korean

Kim’s Convenience (Netflix episodic series)

New Orleans

A variety of New Orleans accents from YEAH YOU RITE!

Polish

Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice
The PronunciationStudio.com blog (shared by narrator Hope Newhouse) can help you work backwards with 10 English Pronunciation Errors by Polish Speakers.

Queens/Bronx

Jimmy Napoli, NY tour guide

Russian

Jodie Comer in Killing Eve (BBC America episodic series available on Hulu)

Welsh

Gavin & Stacey TV show (streaming channels listed on the page)

What rate should a newcomer charge?

Auditions/Career

The audiobook industry doesn’t have a “beginner” rate. The ACX union minimum, which is a professional rate, is $250 PFH to produce a retail-ready product. If you don’t feel your skills are at a level where you are comfortable charging that rate, you will want to get more training and do more volunteer and royalty share projects to gain experience.

If the book runs less than 1 hour, bill for one hour. Otherwise, invoice for the exact time. Enter the audiobook’s finished length in this time to decimal calculator. Multiply the resulting decimal number by your PFH rate to determine the cost.

_________________________________________________________________

Thanks to sound engineer Amanda Rose Smith for her permission to re-publish the following information that she originally posted on Facebook.

Let’s talk rates, people.

So, for context, for any new people who don’t know me, I’m not a narrator. I’m the head of a small pub’s audio department, and hire narrators on a regular basis.

Here’s the deal.

No one worth working for is going to be offering you $75 PFH. That’s not a thing. No successful business that you want to be associated with, or who will have any projects that you’d want people to see in your portfolio, is going to pay you that little.

Around $200 PFH is the BOTTOM of what you should be asking for, for clean, punch-recorded audio.

This does not include:

mastering or editing (beyond the clean, punched audio)
a proof listen against the script to catch errors

If you need to deliver final audio, you should be aiming for $250-300 PFH, at LEAST.

And just to pre-empt some questions and excuses that always come up —

1) “But I’m just starting out, and need experience!”
If you aren’t ready to do pro work, you’re not ready to be taking on ANY projects. There’s no “bad work” discount. If you’re doing bad work, you shouldn’t be doing paid work. Practice. Volunteer to read for blind people. Get coaching. Don’t put bad work out into the world for cheap.

2) “But no clients will pay that!”
Yes, they will. I am living proof of that. If you can’t find clients to pay those rates, you’re looking in the wrong place for work. A lot of successful ACX narrators bring their own authors onto the platform. Look into that. Or get some business coaching. Marketing yourself and networking are separate skills from narrating

3) “Mind your own business. If you don’t want to work for the rates I work for, charge higher, and let me charge what I want!”
Oh, alas, if only we all worked in a vacuum. But we don’t. Every time you take less than a living wage, you’re telling your client that’s okay, and that’s what they should pay everyone. You’re hurting your colleagues just as much as you’re hurting yourself.

4) “Well, at least it’s better than working for free with RS!”
RS isnt supposed to be free. If you’re not getting paid for any of your RS titles, you’re doing that wrong, too. It’s not free work, and it’s not a total gamble. You shouldn’t be taking RS titles that you don’t have some reason to believe will make your standard PFH rate, at minimum, over time.

Look — If you come at a career from a place of scarcity, you’ll always lose. No one values people who don’t value themselves — and why should they?

You know yourself best. If you think you’re worth less, I’m going to believe you.

Joining this field doesn’t come easy, and it doesn’t come quickly. It’s ok to spend a few months or more, just training and learning, before going all in.

And if you do it right, you’ll be up and running within a year. I’ve seen it happen over and over and over again.

It’s not magic or rocket science or luck. It’s just starting a business thoughtfully.

Glossary of audiobook-related terms

Glossary

This page includes most of the acronyms, initialisms, and terms the narrator might see in auditions and internet forums about audiobook production. Thanks to the narrators in the Facebook Indie Audiobook Producers and Narrators group for suggesting many of these entries.

AA
Adobe Audition, audio editing software

AAP
Audible Approved Producer, a designation bestowed by ACX to narrators who are a master of the craft and consistently produce high-quality recordings

Abridged
A condensed version of the book. Abridgements were common in the 1990s and 2000s to save production costs so that an audiobook did not require an unwieldy number of cassettes or CDs in the package.

ACX
Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX.com), a free marketplace between rights holders and narrators for audiobook production

AHAB
Casting database developed and used by Penguin Random House Audio where narrators can create a profile

AIFF
Audio Interchange File Format, a method of storing uncompressed audio data that was developed by Apple Computers

APA
Audio Publishers Association, the audiobook industry trade association with many member benefits specifically for narrators

APAC
Audio Publishers Association Conference, the APA’s annual event

Audacity
Free audio editing software

Audie
Awards of excellence in narration and production in numerous categories given by the APA each year after a stringent judging process.

BDSM
Bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism in erotic romance book

Big 5
The 5 largest print publishers in the US: Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette. You can see all of their divisions and imprints at this link.

CRX
Corrections found by the proofer where the narrator must re-record phrases or sentences due to mispronunciations or misreads (also known as pick-ups). Narrators usually label the re-recorded file with CRX in the title.

D
Dominant in erotic romance book

DAW
Digital audio workstation, which can be a hardware- or software-based system with an audio interface to record and play back sound. Pro Tools, Reaper, and Adobe Audition are examples of commercial software DAWs.

DNF
Did not finish. Audiobook listeners may use these initials in a review of an audiobook they stopped listening to because they didn’t like it.

Earphones Award
Editors of AudioFile Magazine confer this designation on multiple titles in each issue that are considered to be extraordinary listens.

Editing
The process of critically listening to the raw audio recording and eliminating or reducing mouth noises and gaspy or cut breaths, covering extraneous background noise with room tone, and adjusting the pacing as needed to make the finished recording sound like one continuous take.

Editor
The person who does the editing. Experienced narrators tend to edit their auditions and hire an editor to edit an audiobook. You’ll find a vetted directory of editors in Audiobook Village.

FB
Facebook

FLAC
Free Lossless Audio Codec, which is an uncompressed audio file format that is small like an MP3 file but has full sound resolution like the original WAV file.

FAQ
Frequently asked questions on a web site or in an internet group

F/F
Female Female couple in a romance/erotic romance book

Finished Time
The duration of the retail-ready product. The industry rule of thumb is that ~6.2 hours of work in real time are required to produce 1 finished hour of an audiobook once the narrator starts to record. Note that audiobook prep is not included in this time estimate.

2 hours of recording
3 hours of editing
1.2 hours of proof listening

FV
Findaway Voices, an audiobook marketplace and distribution site where narrators can create a profile and be cast by indie authors to narrate titles.

FX
Processing effects (plugins)

H&R
Health and retirement part of payments to SAG/AFTRA from employer to fund those benefits to narrators

HC
HarperCollins, a Big 5 publisher

HEA
Happily ever after, a term used by romance writers and listeners

HF
Historical fiction

HR
Historical romance genre

Hybrid
A contract where the narrator receives payment partly by an up-front PFH rate and part over time in a royalty share contract

IG
Instagram

Intro
The opening credits where the title, author, and narrator are announced.

JIAM
Acronym for “June Is Audiobook Month”. The APA started this promotion at a time when audiobooks weren’t mainstream entertainment, and the tradition continues each year. Narrators will post on social media with the hashtag #JIAM. Members of PANA can download templates for posts.

litRPG
Literary role playing game genre

LU or LUFS
Loudness Unit or Loudness Unit Full Scale. The Loudness Unit is an arbitrary measurement which allows a person to control the audio output. The LUFS measures the loudness of audio without reference to decibels.

Master
The final step in audio production which adds effects to make the sound most pleasing and at a consistent volume throughout the book.

MC
Depending on context, either main character or motorcycle club romance sub-genre. Usually the narrator is the same gender as the main character in a fiction book or the author of a non-fiction book.

MG
Middle grade

M/F
Male Female couple in a romance or erotic romance book

MFM
Male Female Male trio in an erotic romance book

M/M
Male Male couple in a romance or erotic romance book

MP3
A file format of compressed audio that loses some of the file’s resolution in order to make the file size smaller. Most narrator uploads are MP3 files.

MS
Manuscript, which should have been edited for plot, grammar, and punctuation before it ever reaches a narrator’s hands

NA
New adult genre

NF
Non-fiction

OP
Original poster, a term used in internet forums to indicate the person who started the discussion.

Open Record/Roll Record
The narrator records the audio and leaves all mistakes and re-takes in the file. The narrator often uses a dog clicker to highlight the re-take in the WAV. This type of file requires more editing time — and therefore increases the editing expense — as the bad takes must be removed. This recording method is the opposite to P&R defined below.

Outro
The closing credits where the title, author, narrator, and all copyrights are announced. The outro may also include a sentence from the publisher about their web site, catalog, etc. so that users could find their other titles.

PANA
Professional Audiobook Narrators Association

PD
Public Domain, which means the book’s copyright has expired, making the book available to record by anyone without any royalties due to the author or publisher

PFH
Per finished hour, the payment rate most used in the industry for narrators, editors, and proofers. Studio time may be charged according to real hours.

Pickups
Corrections found by the proofer where the narrator must re-record phrases or sentences due to mispronunciations or misreads. Narrators usually label the re-recorded file with CRX in the title.

PNR or P&R
Punch and roll, a recording technique where the narrator stops recording when they mistake, go back a 1-2 seconds in the recording, start recording at the mistake, and say the corrected sentence, continuing on with recording until the next mistake. P&R removes all the bad takes from the file in real time of recording, making the task of editing much more time- and cost-efficient. This article explains it and links to videos demonstrating it in several DAWs.

Post
Short for post-production, the stage when the recording is edited and mastered.

PRH or PRHA
Penguin Random House Audio

Producer
The person who pays for the production. They may or may not cast the talent, schedule studio space, and hire the director, engineer, and proofer. On ACX, the narrator chosen to narrate the project is called a producer because the narrator would be performing all of these tasks. The rights holder would be a co-producer in this instance.

Proofer
The person who listens to every word of the audiobook for sonic and textual clarity while reading the text. The proofer determines misreads, mispronunciations, and extraneous sounds that the narrator and editor should re-do before the book is mastered and released for retail sale. You’ll find a vetted directory of proofers in Audiobook Village.

Publisher
The company or individual who acquires the audio rights to the book and releases the audiobook for sale.

PT
ProTools, a DAW from Avid and long-known as the industry standard software

QC
Quality Control

Reaper
DAW that runs on Windows, macOS, or Linux

RH
Depending on context, rightsholder, meaning the person who controls the audio rights to the title, or reverse harem, a romance sub-genre

RP
Received Pronunciation, a regionally-neutral, middle class British accent

Room Tone
The background noise in your recording space, which should be as close to silent as possible. Record at least 10 seconds of room tone in each session so that your editor can copy and paste room tone as needed to cover extraneous noises in your recording.

RS
Royalty share contract. In this type of contract, the narrator’s fee and other production costs are not paid at the time of recording. Instead, the narrator gambles that the book will earn out and defers her fee and costs to be paid from the royalties earned by the audiobook’s sale over the 7-year term of the contract. The rights holder receives half of the royalties of the audiobook and also makes money on sales of all other editions. The narrator receives the other half of audiobook royalties available and is only paid through those royalties from audiobook sales. Therefore, all of the risk for low or no sales of the audiobook rests with the narrator on a royalty share contract.

RS+ or RSP
Royalty Share Plus contract on ACX, which is that site’s implementation of a hybrid contract of a negotiated payment up-front along with a RS contract

RMS
Root Mean Square (average loudness over time)

RX7
iZotope RX7 is a set of tools used in post to repair and clean up your recordings. Some people may have older versions like RX6.

S
Submissive in erotic romance book

S&S
Simon & Schuster, a big 5 publisher with its own audio production offices

S1
Studio One, a DAW from Presonus

SAG/AFTRA
The merged US labor union of Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television And Radio Artists to which a narrator can join.

SF
Sound Forge audio editing software

SFC
Strong female character

Slate
When instructed to do so, the voice actor states their first and last name at the beginning of an audition recording.

SOVAS
Society of Voice Arts and Sciences, which produces the annual That’s Voiceover conference and confers the annual Voice Arts Awards in a number of categories including many for audiobooks

SR
Spoken Realms, an indie distributor through which narrators can become a featured voice and publish our own audiobooks

SM
Social media

TBL
To be listened to, an abbreviation used by audiobook listeners to note titles they intend to hear

Thread
A discussion in an Internet forum or on social media.

TW
Twisted Wave, an Mac-based audio editor

Unabridged
The complete, word-for-word text printed in the book is read in the audiobook edition, with the exception of certain sections.

USB
Universal Serial Bus connectors allow you to connect peripherals to your computer. USB microphones typically have inferior components and produce noisier recordings than professional-level condenser microphones with XLR connectors. They also can introduce delays and hums in your recordings that will require extra work to eliminate in post-production.

VST
Virtual Studio Technology (plugins)

WAV
The uncompressed audio file format created when you save your recording

WIP
Work in progress

XLR
The audio industry’s standard electrical connector that is circular and has 3 pins. Professional microphones have XLR connectors.

YA
Young adult genre

How to say web site URLs and email addresses

How to Say It

Suppose your book includes a web address like:

“http://www.KarenCommins.com/othermedia/GraphicRomance.mp4”

You don’t need to say http:// or www. at the beginning of the URL for 2 reasons:

1. The general population has used computers and the Internet.
2. Computer servers almost always will connect to a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) even when you don’t type the protocol (http://) or World Wide Web (www.) designations.

The period in a web URL or email address is spoken as “dot”. A hyphen is called “dash”.

Therefore, you would say this example address using these words

Karen Commins dot com slash other media slash graphic romance dot M P four

A good mnemonic for remembering the difference between slash and backslash is that the slash symbol / leans to the right. Web addresses always use slashes, not backslashes, so you will be RIGHT in saying slash!

For what it’s worth, a backslash \ leans to the left. You will see it on Windows machines for directory paths, where Mac machines use a slash for the same purpose.

If your book is non-fiction with real addresses, you would need to take care to spell out any words and include any capitalization AFTER the slash following the domain name, as if the listener is taking dictation and typing in the address as you speak.

In our example, KarenCommins.com (Karen Commins dot com) is the domain name. In a non-fiction book, our URL could be said as

Karen Commins dot com (that’s k a r e n c o m m i n s) slash other media slash graphic romance (all one word) dot m p four (with a capital G in graphic and capital R in romance)

Email addresses are written as Karen@NarratorsRoadmap.com. You’d say “Karen at Narrators Roadmap dot com”. Email addresses are not case-sensitive.

Many narrators have asked about the pronunciation on the site Reddit. The information on that site is organized in groups that begin with “r/”, such as “r/schnauzers”. Even though the co-founder said “ahr slash” in this clip, some publishers have directed narrators to say “the sub-reddit”. In my example, you’d say “ahr slash schnauzers” or “the sub-reddit schnauzers”. My choice would depend on the context and audience.

By the way, if you see one of my domains mentioned in your book, please let me know!

Can the RH buy out an ACX RS or RS+ contract?

ACX

Sometimes, the rights holder of an audiobook created under an ACX Royalty Share or Royalty Share Plus contract will want to dissolve the contract after the audiobook is on sale. In many cases, the sales have been better than the RH expected, and they would like to receive all royalties rather than split them with the narrator.

In other situations, the RH wants to distribute their audiobook on other platforms. With an RS or RS+ contract, they are locked into Exclusive Distribution with Audible for at least 90 days and up to 7 years.

The only way a RH can ever break an RS/RS+ contract with the narrator is to pull the book. (Refer to the section titled Contract Language in this article.)

Per the ACX blog article linked above, the RH cannot pull the book before the end of the 7-year distribution term without the narrator’s consent. The article explicitly states:

Rights Holders with Royalty Share or Royalty Share Plus deals must provide Producer consent when making their request.

Furthermore, Section 8(b)iii of the contract clearly states:

Rights Holder may not cancel Producer’s engagement under this Section 8(b) after Rights Holder has approved the Completed Audiobook. “Completed Audiobook” means the audio recording of the entire Book, following the editing and/or mastering process.

If an RH approaches you and asks you to dissolve the contract before the end of the 7-year distribution period, be aware that the decision rests completely with you. You have no obligation to terminate the contract.

Observe how you feel. What does your gut tell you to do — retain the contract or release the RH from it? Listen to your intuition because it will give you correct guidance.

If you decide you are willing to terminate the contract, the RH should buy out your share. Skilled negotiators often ask the other side to go first. I therefore would request the RH make me an offer of fair compensation for the termination fee. Of course, my idea of “fair” and theirs might differ!

Compute Your Compensation

I’d average the monthly royalties earned thus far for the audiobook and multiply those amounts by the number of months remaining in the contract to estimate what I might expect to earn over the contract life. Be aware that monthly sales tend to drop over time, so you may adjust your final figure downward.

How does that number compare to your PFH rate multiplied by finished time for each book? If the guestimated royalties would be greater, use that number as your base. Otherwise, use your PFH rate. Remember, a RS contract is a deferred payment of your PFH rate, so you should earn at least that much.
Have you earned back your production costs such as your editor’s and proofer’s fees? If not, add any unrecouped expenses to your figure.
I would also add in the cost of any attorney fees for this transaction. (You typically won’t need an attorney for contract termination.)

Finally, if the author has earned some sort of bestselling designation (NY Times, USA Today, etc.) and/or is prolific with more books coming out, I’d add an arbitrary figure to compensate for the loss of the prestige of having her books in my portfolio.

Tally all of these figures together to determine a reasonable counter offer. Know the minimum you would accept because the RH would likely try to negotiate you down.

Inform ACX

You must use the ACX message system as the official record of your communications regarding changes to the project.. This 2017 ACX video shows how to dissolve the contract for books still in production, but the process would be similar for completed audiobooks that are for sale.

This ACX Help page lists the steps for notifying ACX about contract dissolution for RS/RS+ books that are for sale. The sentence “There are other factors that come into play” indicates that Audible could say no to the request. Be sure that both you and the RH write to Info@ACX.com and outline your agreement about contract dissolution.

As an aside, I want to point out that the ACX page links to the Production Standard Terms, which is your contract. This page is also linked on your project. On your Completed Projects tab, each book that says “Accepted as a Royalty Share deal” to the right of the cover art includes the Production Standard Terms.