Making Audiobooks on ACX | Pam Rossi ACX Narrator

About this video

Dale interviews Pam Rossi, a radio DJ for over 30 years — 17 of those as host and producer of the Over Easy show on WCSX in Detroit, and currently host of Sunday Morning Brew on WOMC — about narrating audiobooks on ACX. Rossi says she connected with Dale through ACX after auditioning for his books, has been doing ACX for about two to two-and-a-half years, and focuses mainly on nonfiction such as business, self-development, bios and memoirs, health and fitness, sports and history. She explains narrators find work via profile keywords and by searching ACX by voice, language and genre, and that she vets rights holders by checking whether they will promote the book and how the book is already doing on Amazon. She stresses that one finished hour generally takes two to three hours to produce, narrators cannot read for more than three hours at a time, and preparation includes checking pronunciations. On pay, she says beginners may charge about $100 per finished hour while experienced narrators can charge up to $500 per finished hour; under a royalty share she receives nothing until a book sells, within what she describes as a seven-year window, with ACX keeping 60% and 40% left to split. She also discusses the $50 bounty when a new Audible member joins through a book, split as $25 each. Rossi also describes her own book Over Easy: Conversations with Pam Rossi, built from over 300 interviews, edited down to over 500 full-color pages and printed via IngramSpark, plus alternatives to ACX such as Authors Republic and Findaway Voices.

Key takeaways

• One finished hour of narration generally takes two to three hours to produce, and narrators should not read for more than three hours at a time
• Rossi says beginners may charge about $100 per finished hour, while experienced narrators can charge up to $500 per finished hour
• Under an ACX royalty share the narrator is paid only when books sell, from the 40% left after ACX’s share, within a seven-year window as Rossi describes it
• A clean, edited audition script matters: typos and grammar mistakes signal to Rossi that a book is not ready and she will likely pass
• Rossi vets rights holders before auditioning, checking their promotion, followers and how the existing book is doing on Amazon

Episode details: published September 15, 2017 · 37:08 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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