richardmurray

KWL Live Q&A – All About Audiobooks with Karen Grey

All About Audiobooks featuring Karen Grey

The Kobo Writing Life team is happy to announce our next Live Q&A on June 29th from 12:00 PM-1:00 PM EST. KWL Director Tara and author engagement manager Laura will be joined by audiobook narrator, author, and audiobook production consultant Karen Grey! Be sure to have your questions about everything to do with audiobooks ready for this amazing talk.

Hello authors!

For our sixth live Q&A of the year (we’re halfway through, everyone – amazing!), audiobook narrator, author, and all-around audiobook expert and founder of Home Cooked Books, Karen Grey (who narrates under Karen White), will be in conversation with KWL’s director Tara and author engagement manager Laura, discussing all there is to do with audiobooks! We will be discussing everything from Karen’s career as an audiobook narrator to audiobook production processes to marketing your audiobooks and more.

https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/06/01/kwl-live-qa-all-about-audiobooks-with-karen-grey/

Questions to your experience: 
What must/need to/can't/shouldn't be in the description of an audiobook?
What is the most effective audio book excerpts or samples?
What is the most/least effective audiobook covers?
How should an audiobook be utilized in a newsletter?
What is the most unique utilization of audiobooks you know of?

Untimed Index Notes

How she started in the industry
The different labors in the industry: readers/profers/editors- you have to give the different labors time: readers will need to reread. Profers will ask for things to be reread. Editors will massage the audio for the audience.
Picking an reader- wait for the best voice, readers are booked. A reader needs to have read at least twenty books before.
Voice tags and changing your writing to fit audiobooks- read words aloud
If you are an indie author, if the narrator spoke it better than you wrote it, change the ebook. 
Give narrarators a pronunciation list
Accept the suspense of disbelief in a story involving characters not your native or multilingual
You can be the producers in terms of paying narrators
People are paid for how long when book is done not how long they work in composition, the rates are wide, be careful if they are for the full production or just narration
https://www.sagaftra.org/contracts-industry-resources/audiobooks
Cheapest marketing offer is her newsletter
https://airtable.com/shrwJOoufJITREr5H
Any do or do nots for audiobook samples or covers? 
Cover should be professionally created, a square, be recognizeable as ebook. Include narrators.
Sample- less than 5 minutes, choosing a good meaty section, if multiple narrators, represent all of them., highly recommend posting online, avoid any flag words
https://airtable.com/shrwJOoufJITREr5H
https://airtable.com/shrzWXKgatyH0qpny
Advertising on Kobo
Talk about audiobooks in newsletter
Link to use kobo graphics in advertising
https://kobowritinglife.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360059386211-Rakuten-Kobo-Logos-and-Website-Buttons
Audiobook publishers associations have done research , people are liking shorter books, audible has a rule, a book can only be in one bundle
One point of recording short thing, if anything is under an hour for Screen actors guild, you have to pay for one hour.