Narrations | Dave Courvoisier's Blog

ACX Incentive

July 11, 2011 By CourVO 10 Comments

The launch of Audible’s site for narrators in May sent ripples through the audiobook business. The blog I wrote about ACX was one of my most-visited articles.

Check back in a few days, I’m working on some Q & A with one of the principal officers you’ll want to read. In the meantime, the folks at ACX are offering some meaningful incentives you may want to consider as you decide on auditioning. (note, offer assumes you’re “approved”…See below the release they sent me).

The offer below is a creative tool. Overall, the compensation model ACX has devised is not perfect, but shows they did plenty of research and consideration before launch. It reveals what I believe to be the widest spectrum of choices for narrators seeking more work, and hoping to find a pay solution that works for them.

ACX’s limited incentive plan:

To celebrate the first hundred ACX audiobooks in production, we have a new special offer for you, THIS OFFER IS ONLY FOR PRODUCERS WHO ARE EITHER “AUDIBLE APPROVED” OR WERE PART OF OUR BETA-TESTING PROGRAM EARLIER THIS YEAR.

If you accept a Royalty Share offer on any ACX title by August 31st, it comes not only with the usual extra $100 per-finished-hour stipend (e.g. $1,000 for a 10-hour audiobook), but we’ve sweetened the pot by making your second Royalty Share deal earn a $200 per-finished-hour stipend (e.g. $2,000 for a 10-hour audiobook), and your third Royalty Share deal earn a $225 per-finished-hour stipend (e.g. $2,250 for a 10-hour audiobook). See Stipend Offer Terms and Conditions for complete details and requirements. The stipend is, of course, in addition to the Royalties and Bounties you earn on sales of the audiobook. Here’s how it’ll work, step by step:

Choose any book being offered as a Royalty Share deal. We especially recommend titles from this list, which were hand-picked by Audible’s editors for their good sales potential
Submit your best audition
If you get a Royalty Share offer on one (or more) of these titles, accept the offer.
Upon your completion and approval of the audiobook, submit an invoice to ACX for $100 or $200 or $225 X the number of finished hours
We pay you that fee
You also earn half of the 50 – 90% escalator royalty on each sale of the audiobook (i.e. 25% – 45% as outlined here)
You also earn half of any $25 bounty generate by downloads of the audiobook, as outlined here

You can get this per-finished-hour stipend offer on up to three productions, so don’t be shy about auditioning. Good luck!

Best,
The ACX Team

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Auditions, Compensation Tagged With: ACX, Audiobooks, Compensation, incentives, narrations, narrators, VO, voice acting, voice actor, voice over, voiceover

Fraley Freebie

February 4, 2011 By CourVO Leave a Comment

November 2008

Wanna get into audiobooks? Pat Fraley’s a master at them…and lucky for us…he’s one of the top, if not THE top audiobook coach anywhere. And not just Pat, but all the incredible talents, and producers, and first-rate narrators he always brings in to teach WITH him.

Pat’s weekend audiobook workshops “The Billion-dollar Read” are career-changers for the attendees. You walk away with demos good enough to land you jobs, a head packed full of ideas for how to market yourself and enough talent-tips to chew on for years. You’ve just met some of the top people in the business, and you’ve gained Pat as a mentor.

I speak from personal experience. I completed his workshop in November of 2008, and I’m a working audiobook narrator, listed on Audible, APA, and currently working on two books, with several more on the horizon.

Pat’s approach is no-nonsense, although he has a lot of fun (always!) with his students and his teaching methods.

Please watch the following video Pat’s generously sharing everywhere. It distills down his proven “Formula For Getting Audiobook Narration Work” to about a 15-minute video presentation with Pat himself narrating. His workshops are always priced reasonably, but you won’t find a better value than these 15 minutes.

Thanks, Pat…!!

CourVO

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Training/Education Tagged With: Audio Books, audiobook, Audiobooks, billion $ read, narration, narrations, narrator, narrators, Pat Fraley, voice acting, voice actor, voice artist, voice talent

Best Mic for Audiobooks

November 24, 2009 By CourVO Leave a Comment

‘Guess I never thought too deeply about audiobook-narrating requiring a specific microphone, but after reading THIS article on the Open Book Blog, I can see the wisdom of it.

Check it out…there’s a nice explanation here of the different types of mics regardless of whether you’re into long-format narration or not.

CourVO

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Mics Tagged With: Audiobooks, long-format narration, microphones, Mics, narrations, voice actor, voice artist, voiceover artist

A Healthy Narration

September 14, 2009 By CourVO 1 Comment

16357783 Yay for Kat Keesling, Diane Havens and many of my other buds from VO Universe and the VO-BB who organized and contributed to the reading of the proposed health care reform bill.

See NY Times write-up HERE.

See VO-BB forum thread HERE.

Visit the official site HERE. (you can also volunteer to read)

One of the voice-talents, Chriss Mezzolesta gets interviewed on TV for the story HERE.

CourVO

Filed Under: Forums, Heads Up!, Kudo's, Networking, Op/Ed, People Tagged With: Diane Havens, HCR, Health Care Reform, Hearthebill.org, Kat Keesling, narrations, voice actors, voice over, Voiceovers

Update on ‘Share the Experience’

September 2, 2009 By CourVO Leave a Comment

Ace AudioBook narrator Scott Brick writes to say the contest for amatuer audiobook narrators is behind schedule, but by no means abandoned. See his note below:
___________________________

Yes, we’re still alive — thanks to everyone who checked in on us, just to make sure ;) — and the judges are still plowing through all the entries we received for the Share the Experience contest to celebrate Scott’s 10th year as an audiobook narrator. Check out Scott’s update right here:
http://www.scottbrickpresents.com/wordpress/
Know someone who wants to keep up with the contest? Send them to this link to subscribe to Scott’s newsletter:
http://www.scottbrickpresents.com/wordpress/subscribe-to-my-newsletter/

CourVO

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Heads Up! Tagged With: Audio Books, Audiobooks, narrations, narrator, Scott Brick, voice, voice overs, voice talent, voiceover

Social Butterfly

May 28, 2009 By CourVO Leave a Comment

Stu Gray.

It’s all his fault.

He put me up to it.

The Nashville-area voice talent and prolific VO blogger approached me a couple of weeks ago with the idea of doing a Q & A about social networking. He with the "Q". Me with the "A".

Well it took me long enough, but I finally finished. Good questions…wordy answers.

We agreed to sort of share the wealth…so if you want to get the full impact of my pithy musings about social networking, and its value to voice actors, you’ll have to visit BOTH sites.

I recommend you start with Stu’s blog: The Creative Mouthpiece. Click HERE.

Then see the link underneath my name, below, to read more.

Thanks, Stu, for coaxing me to really think about the value of social networking to my business. I hope by sharing what little I know, someone may gain some momentum.

CourVO

STU: What prompted you to get involved with Social Networking?

DAVE: Blogging is where I started…so yes, I’m big on that. More than any of the other network marketing sites, this is the fullest measure of YOU…mostly because you OWN the site, and it’s YOURS to do with what you will. Over time, prospective clients (even friends and peers) can be reassured by coming to know the real you on your blogsite. Hopefully, that gains you trust and believability as a person fostering business relationships.

When is the best time for you to connect and get "social"?

Heh. Anytime. The iPhone makes that possible. Because of my schedule…it’s usually middle-afternoon, middle-evening, and full-bore from midnight to 3am. But seriously, ANY time is a good time…the sun is shining somewhere on the globe at any given minute.

What are the best way to make contacts with potential clients on LinkedIn?

This is one nut I have not fully cracked yet. I think it has huge potential. Right now, I’m amassing legions of connections without regard to whether I know them. This flies in the face of LinkedIn rules, but as a LION (Linked-In Open-Networker), I belong to TopLinked.com and it nets me hundreds of contacts/week. LinkedIn allows it. I’ve also curried some nice recommendations, and write recommendations for others. I’ve tweaked my profile to be consistent with my brand (as I do across all social networks), and I continue to watch and learn. I am extremely wary of “social network gurus” who want to parlay my eagerness to monetize applications like LinkedIn and Twitter. I think most of them are scam-ish. Meaning, they’re not illegal, but they’re of questionable value to me. It’s just how SOME people have found a way to make it work for them. If you read the disclaimers associated with these offers, you’ll see a lot of back-treading. With LinkedIn, you can conduct surveys and send out mass mailings or questions that are sort-of veiled marketing messages. What I see as the big experiment is to find a way to market, without it sounding like marketing. So far the way to do that, as defined by a number of people who seem to know what they’re talking about, is (as I said before)…be helpful, offer to be vulnerable in giving readers a window into your true self, and give something of value (usually information) for free.

Is there anything you would like to add, that I did not ask you about your social media/networking, that you feel someone should know?

Read what others post and respond in the same vein. That could be with humor, sympathy, sarcasm, irony, or righteous indignation. It’s all about dialogue and relating… When you consistently see a point-of-view you like, follow that person. A wise person would also follow a few people who DON’T share your sentiments…that way you stay balanced. On Twitter’s “Follow Friday”, pay special attention to those people being suggested by those you already follow. Register with MrTweet.com. I’m not sure how they do it, but they’ll analyze your traffic, and within a couple of days, start suggesting other people you “should” follow. They’re pretty right on. I’ve found oodles of people to follow through MrTweet.

Filed Under: Op/Ed Tagged With: announcer, announcing, artist, audio, Audiobooks, audiotx, Demos, documentaries, ISDN, male voice, male voice artist, male voiceover, narrating, narrations, Podcasts, source connect, speaker, speaking, voice acting, voice actors, voice work, voicing

DMOZ

May 26, 2009 By CourVO 1 Comment

‘Heard of the “Open Directory” project?

Their “about” page describes it as: “…the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. The Open Directory was founded in the spirit of the Open Source movement, and is the only major directory that is 100% free. There is not, nor will there ever be, a cost to submit a site to the directory, and/or to use the directory’s data. The Open Directory data is made available for free to anyone wo agrees to comply with our free use license.

Kinda sounds like Wikipedia, but remember, it’s a directory, not an encyclopedia. (I just haven’t figured out where the acronym DMOZ comes from in their URL.)

With such an ambitious mission statement, you’d have to expect there might be mention of a good many resources for Voice Actors, and you’d be right. Not only that, but apparently, I’m VERY late to the party. TONS of links, references, resources, names, agents, coaches, production houses, talent…you name it.

On the site, you’re encouraged to submit your own website for approval, but they’re also big on you volunteering to help edit submissions.

Click HERE for the page that reveals results of a search for “Voiceover” resources.

….and….volunteer!

CourVO

Filed Under: Web/Tech Tagged With: announcer, announcing, artist, audio, Audiobooks, audiotx, Demos, DMOZ, documentaries, ISDN, male voice, male voice artist, male voiceover, narrating, narrations, Podcasts, source connect, speaker, speaking, voice acting, voice actors, voice work, voicing

Eldorado Recording Services

May 24, 2009 By CourVO 1 Comment

George Whittam is a techie’s techie. He’s also a great guy, a voice-actor (when he wants to be), and about as sharp as they come with the artistry of audio engineering.

His latest newsletter is a treasure trove of ideas, contacts, important dates and solutions. Please read and make contact with him if you’re so moved.

I especially love the service ERS provides in checking to see if your travel location (hotel) will be able to handle your ISDN needs. Great idea!… but of course, you need to be a subscriber.

Link to his blog and read it…you’ll learn a bunch!

CourVO