VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Scott Pollak

If this was already brought up elsewhere, I couldn't find it via a search here so...

Anyone else been contacted by Bee Audio to be part of their audiobook narration team? The rates aren't great, but I've also seen worse. Was wondering if anyone here has any experience with them?

Along those lines, has ANYONE landed a narration job yet thru ACX? I haven't gotten a nibble. Of course, that might be because I simply suck.
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Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.

www.voicebyscott.com

Bish · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 5:44 am Post subject:

I think there's a number of the community here that have been lucky with ACX. A short while ago, I wrote an update on my career progression, and was pleased to note that I managed to get two books awarded on the same day! Since then, I've managed to win another... so I'm lucky enough to have three books in production at the moment. All three of these books are being done "royalty share", and I chose to audition for them after deciding that they had a fighting chance of making reasonable sales (I didn't audition for everything that wanted a Brit voice... in fact, I've auditioned for only 14 in total, so I'm pretty happy about getting three of them!)

I'm not 100% sure of Bee Audio's business model, but from what I've seen (read or maybe imagined), they place a heavy premium on their own value-add, doubling the talent fee. I'm not sure what they supply for this... complete editing and file prep, I would hope. It may well be worthwhile becoming part of a "stable", but the value-add must have a reasonable cost.

Of course, I could be completely wrong.

Cheers
Peter
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Donna · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 7:57 am Post subject:

Scott, I've been talking to Bee Audio as well, and just got my first ACX offer yesterday! Let the fun begin...

From what I gather on Bee's website, they charge the client $295 pfh and the narrator gets $100 pfh. If you're a whiz kid at editing and mastering, you may not find that much value added, but from where I sit (day after day in a small dark room in a corner of the basement), having somebody to take my rough edited dry audio and turn it into finished product sounds kinda nice.

Sure would like to hear from Jeffery Kafer on this, though!

Wink

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Eddie Eagle · M&M Joined: 23 Apr 2008 Posts: 2393

I've done some stuff for Bee but they want you to edit it. They are good people but the rates fall short.

Bish · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 12:01 pm Post subject:

If they want the talent to do the editing, I'm actually at a loss as to what they're bringing to the table that warrants 2/3 of the per hour charges?
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Bish a.k.a. Bish
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whalewtchr · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 5:12 pm Post subject:

I've just finished a book with Bee Audio, Prophet's Prey. First, let me say I am not advocating just sharing.

You basically are a member of a team; Research, Narrator, Proof Reader, Engineer and Coordinator. The editing I did was by choice and not mandatory, when I make major mistakes, I am happy to just delete from the track...it's a punch and go process, Pro Tools rocks for this purpose alone. Research puts up a Hobo Laughing

F of the script with pronunciations etc, if you have additions to the research they include. Once the research is posted it's show time. You upload the narration, the proofer checks for Narrator mistakes and sound quality (mouth noise, clicks) and you do Corrections on the fly while narration is in progress.

What they bring to the party IMHO is QC which Audible is a stickler about...if your noise floor sucks they tell you immediately, if you have too much mouth noise going on etc etc you'll know about it and they will work with you to get your studio perfect for the project. If you want to edit, they have a program for that and pay you separately to edit your own project but....their standards are very high.

The downside is that as a narrator it is nice to have a Director to give you honest feedback as you are performing-you're on your own to self direct and you cross your fingers that you are nailing it.

They also are on very tight deadlines which is ok if this is all you do, I actually turned them down on this project the first time because the deadline was unrealistic for me, they came back with extra wiggle room and I agreed to get on board...in the end it was still probably off four days.

I do not do royalty any more...too much effort with little or no return. My suggestion would be to not go that route, though ACX is really pushing it, not Bee. Personally, I have not had good luck with it as not every project is going to be a slam dunk at retail.

Yes, 100 pfh is not great, but if you are a decent narrator, you will always be working at the Hive-you would have to do the math based on your own abilities to figure out if it is worth your while. There is a lot of work available and they are looking for narrators.

Perfect? No. I enjoyed my first experience with them though.

My two cents.
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jonahcummings

Scott Pollak · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 6:28 pm Post subject:

Thanks everyone, and especially Jonah, for the insight. I told them I was interested in learning more and we'll see where it goes from here.
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Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.

www.voicebyscott.com

Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 9:02 pm Post subject:

I've never worked for Bee and won't. Their rate is too stupid. I can take the $295 myself, edit, and "research" on my own and pay someone $15 pfh to do the QC. The Audible mastering spec is easy especially since it can be done through a bunch of automated scripts. Bee wants you to think they add tremendous value, but I don't see it.

Research: I can look on Youtube for name pronunciations as well as anyone else.
Narrator: That's me.
Proof Reader: I have an army of stay at home moms who will do it for $15/ finished hour
Engineer: That's me and my automated scripts
Coordinator: unnecessary overhead

Don't forget, you have to line the coffers of the executives, too.

As for ACX, I've had one pay-for-production gig and have about 6 royalty-share gigs lined up, but ONLY authors that I know who have a track record of sales. Like Jonah, I'm very cautious about the titles I narrate if it's royalty-share.
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Rognog · Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 6:41 pm Post subject:

I've landed two gigs via ACX and so far it's been a great experience!
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Diane Havens · Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 7:18 pm Post subject:

My first title landed through ACX -- FEAR PRINCIPLE -- was released today. Haven't been auditioning there much really -- but that book was a pleasure, the process easy, and my audio approved immediately. So that was a wonderful first experience with them.
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Donna · Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 10:05 am Post subject:

Congratulations, Diane! I started production on my first title today. So happy to hear that your experience was a good one.
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Diane Havens · Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 10:48 am Post subject:

Thanks, Donna. The Audible people are really quite supportive so I wasn't really surprised. I recorded a book at their studios some time ago -- great atmosphere there in Newark, too. They pay well, and respect the narrator. I'm glad ACX seems to be off to a good running start. Have fun with your book!
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Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 1:22 pm Post subject:

And the royalty share is far more generous than anything I've seen. 25% to the narrator alone is *good*. Usually, Audible takes 85% of everything and the narrator, publisher, and author are left fighting over the 15% scraps.
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Jeff
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Donna · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 7:07 pm Post subject:

Hey gang!

This might need a new thread, but I'm very in to recycling and hate to let a good topic go to waste.

I was looking over the recording specs at ACX, and see they want 16/44.1 mp3 at 192 kbps. In Sound Forge, that is a stereo file only. I asked if that's what they want, and the answer was "if that's the way SF does it, send us a stereo file."

Why does this make me nervous?

It's a Mac Mac Mac Mac world...
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Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 9:10 pm Post subject:

Donna, you should be able to convert the file to mono and then have the option of saving it as a mono 192 kbps file.

The difference in audio is going to be negligible, so if they're OK with you submitting it as stereo, then don't break your neck trying to figure it out (though it seems like something basic you should probably make yourself aware of). Or if you're concerned, submit it as a 256 kbps.
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