I just got my first Audible recording opportunity!  And immediately, I remembered an interesting exchange I had with an engineer recently.  It was our first time working together, and he expressed shock that I had read through and prepared the manuscript ahead of time on an audiobook we were recording.  I was shocked that he was shocked…..  then he explained to me that most of the narrative work he does is with Audible and that the readers don’t consider the narrator pay rate to be worth the extra time it takes to do a pre-read and prep.

So. …here I am looking at doing a job at about a third of my usual rate.  Do I put in the usual prep time?   I know that Audible is getting audiobooks out there to a wider audience through significantly decreased prices….and my narrator fee is one source of those reduced costs…ouch.  So am I doing a pre-read and prep?  I want to say…. You Betcha.  It’s an art and a craft for some of us – not just a business.  What I put into the world through my voice is a significant piece of who I am, and I want to bring as much integrity to that “product” as I can.  But ask me after the hours spent reading and prepping and noting – pronunciations and references and dialects and trying not to think about how much my time is and is not worth…and I might be just a tad cranky about “craft”. …  What do you think?