Voiceover Information

If you’re here, you need a narrator.

As it so happens, I love to narrate. I enjoy reading, and I have an innate passion for storytelling.

Let’s work something out, shall we?

~PRICING~

“How much?” you ask? I hate having to think about money, but this is a business venture. Strictly speaking, it depends on what sort of narration you want. Based on how much I’ve invested in setup, time constraints, and so on, I would narrate in the ballpark of $50-100 per completed hour. Lower end is for things that are straightforward, static narration (character voices are just inflections of the main voice), while the upper end is for projects involving an assortment of different voices. I will, of course, workshop such voices with you to try to fit as closely as possible to your desired form.

Now, you might be wanting a slower or quicker pace, or you’re not sure how many hours your audio will require. If that’s you (and I had to look this up, myself), professional voice actors supposedly clock in at about 9,000 words per completed hour. Based upon that, you’re looking at a range of a dollar per 90-180 words (according to the above calculation. Run that past your word count and see what feels reasonable to you.

If you’re cool with that, reach out to me over on Fiverr.

Or, if you’re going the Amazon/Audible route, you can find me on ACX.

(Provided I’m getting my bills paid, I’m okay with doing royalty split instead of up-front payment if we have a middleman to sort out that headache. Or, if we’ve already got a pleasant working relationship, we can talk that sort of thing out.)

~Time~

Okay, with that unpleasantness out of the way, and if you’re still here, the next point to consider is how long it would take. I would like to say I could get it done in a day. I wish. Life being what it is, I can’t. So, again, let’s look to that professional rate. 9,000 words in a completed hour. Completed, not total booth time, mind. Due to the occasional flub and uncontrollable disruptive noise outside my recording space, I can deliver a “completed hour” with about an hour and a half of booth time. Possibly two, depending on how wide an array of voices are needed (hence the pricing disparity above).

At present, I have a good, solid 15 hours of booth time per week. If my daughter falls asleep at a reasonable hour (which is not common enough to guarantee), I can do more. When nearby construction is finished, even more. But for now, let’s say that I can narrate approximately 60,000 words in a week, not counting pickups, and very much depending upon the character voices required. A ballpark estimate, if you will.

Pickups (retakes), human error, technical difficulties, and all the chaos life often throws considered, I would like to say we (for I would consider us a team in telling your story) could get a novel of such size done in two weeks, as you’ll need time to listen through it and make sure everything is to your satisfaction before we can declare the job done.

~Only Audiobooks?~

Heaven forfend! I want to narrate all the things! If you want my voice as part of an ensemble cast, I would absolutely love to do that, as well. Reach out, and let’s talk shop. Video games, anime, YouTube, student projects, and whatever else there may be. If a voice I’ve done works for something you want, I’m down.

~AI?~

Absolutely not. If you hire me to do narration for you, I will expect you to use it for the agreed-upon purpose (audiobook sales, or whatever else you might want to use my voice for). But that’s my concern.

Your concern is more likely that I am using my real voice and not an AI. Once again, absolutely not, and you’ll learn that well enough when we’re workshopping your character roster. If you want to modulate the audio in post or have me run a filter over specific lines (to emulate a telephone conversation or what-have-you), that’s not a problem. Outside of that, the only voice modulation I’d consider employing, if asked, is something like was used for the voice of GlaDOS. (I’d have to dig it up, but I’ve used it before.)

~Other Minutiae~

You want me to sign an NDA? No problem. I do ask to be able to say that I’m working on such a project for you, at the very least, and to talk about it afterwards (spoiler-free, of course). I’d also like to use snippets for future demos or posting on social media (mutual advertising, so to speak), but I leave the limits of that to you. If you have other questions or concerns, feel free to discuss them with me.

If you’re still here and interested, let’s get on with it!