I received some confusing messages this week on ACX, and at first thought I was getting scammed! This was the posting:

Blockchain: Everything You Need To Know About The Technology Behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency (Cryptocurrency Investing, Bitcoin For Beginners, Blockchain) By: J.F. Thompson

Being a geek and a nerd, this looked interesting, so I auditioned and got the following message back:

Hi Russell,

Thanks for auditioning. would love to offer you this book.

As you can see it’s a 3 book in 1. I have the 3 individual books on ACX that i can give to you first. Here is one of them>>

https://www.acx.com/titleview/A3BV3T3GA61U0V

Rate per hour i can offer is $25 per finished hour.

I would like to offer all of 3 individual books first. Then when it came to this Crypto: 3 book in 1, you wouldn’t need to narrate the entire bundle just upload the files you already have done from the 3 individual. I can pay you a flat fee then of $25 the 3 book bundle.

I read this and thought, he wants me to do three books, then he will pay me a flat fee of $25 to produce them on ACX. That doesn’t sound like a great deal. In fact, that sounds like a really bad deal. But instead of blowing him off, I sent one back that said effectively:

I don’t understand, but it seems like I am getting ripped off.

In the end, if was all worked out, and it worked out well. On ACX, there are a lot of these bundled books, and it appears that often times, maybe most of the time, a Rights Holder will have some individual titles produced, and then for whatever marketing reasons govern this kind of thing, they will then bundle them together and sell them that way.

The lesson? For me, it was two-fold:

1. The obvious one about the bundle.
2. The deeper lesson addresses my innate suspicion of online activity, even when I am a major contributor to the conversation! Of course, you have to be cautious in these dealings, but I have not found anybody on ACX trying to pull something over on me, despite how it might look at first. There are clearly some poor authors with works on ACX, and some people who do not play well with others, but I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and take them at face value. So far, that approach hasn’t done me any harm.

As for current works, the Confidence book was approved and is awaiting the final check. This was also a bit of a learning experience, as I believe this Rights Holder is from Italy, and the topic of narrating a work in English not written in an author’s native language presents some challenges. I would be interested in hearing if any of you have done any narration with interesting English language usage.

And finally, I was very interested in a book entitled Mortal Men, Immortal Warriors, for which I auditioned. This is a Royalty Share work, which I have not done so far, and have not spoken to so far. Therefore, we have two topics for future posts. Please chime in early on the RS vs. PFH debate if you have an opinion.

Categories: Voice over Work