Dear Angela,
Thank you so much for your kind words. Writing is a bit of a roller coaster, as are the associated tasks. 🙂 It’s nice to be among friends and share.
I always love hearing from people who ended civilly. That’s how it should be. It gives me hope.

Thanks for linking to my article for those wishing to become a narrator. I also write articles aimed at helping authors at http://www.KarenCommins.com/blog.

I’d like to clarify a couple of points in your post.

You wrote: “It would take an audiobook narrator an estimated 16-24 hour do her magic—two hours to successfully complete one hour of narration.”

The 2:1 ratio of real hours needed to record the audio is only part of the story.

The industry rule of thumb is that 6.2 hours are required in real time to produce 1 finished hour of audio. The extra time is spent in editing the audio to:
— remove mouth and other extraneous noises
— adjust pacing
— proof listen
— correct misreads and other technical errors by re-recording them and seamlessly inserting them into the original files

This timeline starts when the narrator enters the booth. Before she can record, though, the narrator has spent time in reading the book at least once, absorbing the author’s intent and story arc, and researching pronunciations.

The edited audio then must be mastered to make all of the files have a consistent volume and pleasing tone.

You wrote: “The voices I loved belonged to narrators who didn’t love my offer of profit-sharing.”

A Royalty Share (RS) contract is really a way for an author to defer the narrator’s fee so that it is paid over time out of the royalties earned for the audiobook.

As a result, the narrator has ALL of the risk for low or no sales of the audiobook. The time I spend in narrating a book on an RS contract is time that I could spend in narrating a book for my per finished hour rate. The author would still earn royalties from the other editions, but the narrator would only earn if and when the audiobook sold.

Furthermore, more experienced narrators like me send our recordings to a professional audio editor/engineer who must be paid at the time service is rendered. If a narrator is fronting all of the costs of production, she wants some assurance that the audiobook will be worth the long-term gamble.

To mitigate the risk, I’m one of the many narrators who accepts RS contracts when the author pays the cost of my editor. The editor’s fee is substantially lower than the narrator’s fee. In other words, I am more willing to risk not earning enough royalties to cover my fee when my up-front expense for my editor is reimbursed.

We refer to this scenario as a “hybrid” deal. Unfortunately, the ACX site makes no provision for or reference to hybrid contracts, so many authors don’t know to ask about this arrangement.

Once your audiobook is released, you’ll find many ideas for marketing it at:

http://www.AudiobookMarketingTips.com

I hope these thoughts are helpful to your readers. Congrats again, and best wishes for your continued health, prosperity, and success!

Cordially,
Karen Commins
http://www.KarenCommins.com