Elizabeth Bell, Author

Undeniable Love. Unflinching History. Unforgettable Fiction.

Writer's Life

How I Found My Audiobook Narrator

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I’ve been an audiobook addict for years. I listen to an average of two books per week while commuting or doing housework. As someone with the equivalent of two full-time jobs, multitasking with audio is the primary way I experience books. If they weren’t mine, I wouldn’t have time to read my own epic novels! Having my four books converted to audio for book lovers like me was an absolute must. But how?

First, I educated myself about the audiobook production process. Great resources to get me started were Joanna Penn’s book Audio for Authors (I went for the audiobook, of course); this YouTube series by author and narrator Catherine Bilson; this Kindlepreneur post; and this FAQ at NarratorList.com. I also picked the brains of my fellow indie historical novelists with audiobooks to find out how they’d done it. They were Melissa Addey, Lars D. H. Hedbor, Susan Higginbotham, Susie Murphy, and Michael L. Ross, and they were so helpful.

I knew audiobooks aren’t cheap to produce—we’re talking thousands of dollars. Some indie authors narrate their own books, but this wasn’t for me. I’m not good enough with accents, and my books have a smorgasbord. Nor do I have access to a quiet space or the right equipment. I could have hired a production company to find a narrator for me, but doing the search myself helped keep my costs down.

When hiring a narrator, there are two main payment paths: Royalty Share (RS) and Per Finished Hour (PFH) as well as a couple of hybrid options. Royalty Share means the narrator records the book for no money upfront in exchange for a percentage of the royalties the audiobook earns over a set period of time, usually 50/50 with the author for seven years. Per Finished Hour means that the Rights Holder, in this case the author/publisher, pays the narrator an agreed amount for every hour of the finished audiobook, say 10 hours. A narrator can read roughly 9,300 words in a finished hour. The narrator puts in say 80 hours total on the book, but they get paid only Per Finished Hour. They’ve done prep work like mastering an accent and learning how to pronounce local place names. They’ve also done retakes because nobody sits down and records a whole chapter perfectly in one sitting.

Because of all the accents in my books, I knew I needed an experienced narrator to do my characters justice. I also write long books (requiring more hours in the recording booth) with steamy sex scenes (which some narrators don’t want to read). I knew these factors would narrow the pool of possible narrators. I decided to pay PFH. As an artist who values fellow artists’ work, this method made me more comfortable than asking a narrator to take a gamble on me with RS. So I saved my money, and an insurance settlement allowed me to afford PFH if I could find a narrator who wasn’t asking top dollar, which can be $500/PFH. On a 15.3 hour audiobook like mine, that’s $7,650. For one book.

How to find this narrator? An author needs to put together an “audition script,” selections from her novel that she asks prospective narrators to record. Then the author decides on the performance she thinks fits her work best. It’s important to choose representative excerpts containing both narrative and various character voices. The recommended length of an audition script is 3-5 minutes.

With a family saga like mine and such a large, diverse cast, I knew that length wouldn’t be enough. This narrator was actually auditioning for my whole series: four long novels, almost 60 finished audiobook hours total. The Lazare Family Saga is my life’s work, and I would be paying this narrator more than I’d spent on anything in my life. I needed to know the narrator was versatile enough to handle my epic books, that they could do a French accent and a Charleston accent and an Irish accent; male, female, and child voices; act in tragic scenes without going over-the-top; understand my sense of humor; read sexy scenes and not sound silly; and hopefully sing a few 19th-century songs as well.

My audition script was about 10 minutes long, snippets from five scenes. I saw this as part of the screening process: if the narrator didn’t care enough about my project to read it all, then they wouldn’t be a good fit. Only one of the 34 narrators who auditioned didn’t read the whole script. (But if everyone in your novel has similar accents and you don’t need so much versatility, don’t waste narrators’ time by exceeding the recommended script length as much as I did.) In addition to the scene snippets, I included the context of each scene, who the characters were, and how they should sound.

I posted my audition call in three places: ACX (owned by Audible/Amazon), NarratorList, and a Facebook group for narrators. The narrator I selected ended up seeing all three calls. I detailed the genre, the word count, the accents needed, the content warnings, the upper limit PFH I could afford, that my timeline was flexible—everything a potential narrator needed to know when considering my project. Since the text version was already published, I linked to it on Amazon so the narrators could see the reviews and read the opening pages if they wanted. In the Facebook group, even narrators who weren’t interested commented to praise the thoroughness of my audition call. If you want to do Royalty Share, you’ll also need to explain your current sales and future marketing plan so that the narrator has confidence the book will sell.

I left my audition call open for two weeks. I got the most responses in the first week and the majority through ACX. (I should note here that I hate the antiquated, clunky, frustrating ACX interface and its practically nonexistent customer service. If the site had been live when I was searching for a narrator, I would have started with Findaway Voices Marketplace.) I invited some narrators to audition after fellow authors recommended them and I’d already heard their samples. But for most, their audition was the first time I heard their voice.

Inside a recording booth: acoustic panels in the background and a microphone and pop shield in the foreground. A pop shield protects the microphone from “plosives” like p sounds, which produce harsh puffs of air that you don’t want to hear when you’re enjoying a story.

I anxiously listened to each of the 34 auditions as they poured and trickled in. I put these narrators into an Excel spreadsheet, noting who’d done well with the French, who’d done a convincing Irish accent, whose natural voice I particularly liked, who could do sexy, what their weaknesses were, etc. Did they understand and express the emotion in my words without overacting?

Sometimes I communicated with the narrator through ACX Messaging (again, hate) or email as well. If the person seemed genuinely enthusiastic about my book, that made an impression on me. Other narrators seemed to be primarily interested in showing off.

Most narrators had websites or at least profiles on ACX or NarratorList. I listened to the samples they’d posted so I could get a sense of their range beyond what I’d heard in their audition. I found the books they’d narrated on Audible and Overdrive, where you can listen to 5-minute samples. What other genres had they narrated? Any historical fiction like mine?

I left the call open to both male and female narrators. Did I want someone who could be me, only better? Or did I want a male voice, since most of my point-of-view characters are men? I received 24 auditions from men and 10 from women. Of my Top Five, the narrators who were so good they gave me chills, three were men and two were women.

I sorted the narrators into the very scientific categories of: No, Probably Not, Low Maybe, and High Maybe. None of the narrators were “perfect.” None of them read every line with the emphases I would have given each word, and almost no one pronounced all the French names correctly. I’d already learned from Mr. Hedbor that I would have to “let it go” as I listened, that no narrator would recreate the voices in my head 100% of the time.

But on some things, I would have to stick to my guns and ask for changes, like the narrator who made my thirty-one-year-old priest protagonist (who’s supposed to be sexy) sound like a gawky, drooling teenager. “How easy would this person be to work with?” became a significant factor. Did the narrator seem like someone who would take offense if I insisted they change a voice or pronounce Ève the French way, or did they seem like a true collaborator, someone who could take feedback and run with it—as long as I trusted them most of the time? Did I think I could trust this person to get my books right most of the time?

The official process on ACX is that after the author has approved the audiobook’s first fifteen minutes, the narrator proceeds with the rest. The only changes the author can request after that are proof listening errors, where the narrator skipped or changed a word. One of the reasons I chose the narrator I did is that he’s allowing me to listen to each chapter as he records, and he’s open to implementing feedback beyond the first fifteen. But I am endeavoring to “let it go” unless he’s pronouncing something incorrectly or his performance is changing the meaning of my words.

Before I made my decision, I asked for a callback, a second audition script with different scenes. I’d ended up with very few lines from my heroine, Tessa, so I asked for more of her as well as a full verse of song. Price was also a factor. Most of my auditioning narrators did not provide their PFH rate; but of those who did, I was pleased to discover that price did not necessarily equal quality. My top two narrators, who did provide their rates, were at the low end of the scale. Before I signed a contract with my final pick, I contacted a couple of the authors who’d published audiobooks with him to ask if they’d recommend him.

After years of anticipation, months of research and preparation, and fourteen days of anxiety, I found a narrator who is the total package—even if he did pronounce Ève the English way in his audition. We fixed that, because he’s open to feedback. He is a consummate actor—he also plays roles on the stage. He’s great with accents. He’s American, but he studied acting in Ireland. And boy howdy, can he sing! He seduced me with “Danny Boy” before I even asked for a song. Above all, his speaking voice is perfect for my priest and doctor characters. His voice is warm, versatile, rich, expressive, and soothing—he has great bedside manner, so to speak! He sounds like someone I want to confide in because I trust he’ll truly listen and give me good advice.

His name is Dallin Bradford, and I know he’ll win an audiobook award someday. Don’t take my word for it. Have a listen for yourself. Do you think I chose wisely?

You should be able to enjoy Dallin’s full performance of Necessary Sins next month, May 2022.

P.S. Since there can be only one, I wrote kindly-worded rejection letters to the 33 narrators I decided not to choose. Most of them wrote back to thank me. One even said it was the best rejection letter she’d ever received! Apparently letting narrators know they didn’t get the part isn’t industry standard. But I’ve been on the other side of rejection letters as an author querying literary agents. I know how heartbreaking it is to receive a form rejection and how frustrating it is to receive NO RESPONSE AT ALL. Writers and narrators are fellow artists who owe each other the courtesy of a kind, definitive answer. If you’re an author auditioning narrators, I encourage you to send every one of them a reply.

On Second Thought…

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"Ring out the old, ring in the new…"
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam (1850)

In November-December 2021, I completed a new edit of the entire Lazare Family Saga. I am a perfectionist; I could honestly go through these long books every year and find things to change. But I shall endeavor to be satisfied with Version 2021. My primary purpose was to make certain I was happy with the text of all four books before they become “set in stone” in audio format. This will hopefully begin in 2022, depending on how long it takes me to find a narrator and his or her availability.

As for the ebook and print editions, the beauty of being an indie author is that I can make changes at any time. These edits weren’t substantial enough to qualify as a revised edition; they were mostly a scattering of line edits for clarity.

I did tweak some scenes with Joseph and David. I have always loved these characters, because—not in spite of—their flaws. But I’ve realized that some readers find them difficult to like, so I’ve tried to soften some of Joseph and David’s reactions to keep them more sympathetic. One of my earliest readers said I have a tendency to “turn it up to 11,” referencing the hilarious film This Is Spinal Tap. And yes, yes I do. Teenage me who conceived these characters wasn’t satisfied with wounded heroes; they had to be profoundly screwed up so that their redemption was as dramatic as possible. But I sometimes crossed the line into melodrama. So I’ve tried to rein in my over-the-top impulses while retaining Joseph and David’s authentic Catholic/Victorian wounds.

I also realized that a scene between Clare and Verily was more focused on the heroism of White mistress Clare teaching her enslaved Black maid Verily than it was on Verily’s agency and desire to read. This was a holdover from an earlier draft and a less socially conscious version of myself. Shame on me, regardless. So I tweaked that scene too.

The other significant edit I made was in changing the first name of the English-born plantation steward Mr. Cromwell—most characters use his last name—from Byron to Lucas. He’s a tricky man to name because of his duality. (HERE BE POTENTIAL SPOILERS.) Cromwell is gorgeous and brilliant—and ruthless. Multiple characters mistake him for a good guy, even a romantic figure—which is exactly what he wants them to think, because he’s actually a villain.

What would you name this man?

This model is a decent physical match for Cromwell, although his attire is more Regency, a few decades before the 1850s when the character appears in my story.

(Image source: Servian Stock Images via Depositphotos)

In my early drafts, Cromwell’s first name was Lyndon. I liked the idea that “a boy named Sue,” a young man with a “weak” name, became tougher because of it. But in a pivotal scene in Book 4, Cromwell forces a female character to say his first name, and I didn’t want something “wimpy” in this context of sexual threat. Since Cromwell is Byronic—”mad, bad, and dangerous to know” in the immortal words of Lady Caroline Lamb—I changed his name to Byron. But I was never really happy with it; Byron was too on the nose, and it was “de trop” to name him after two larger-than-life English historical figures. (“De trop” = excessive, literally “too much” in French.)

The Cromwell half had to stay. In fact, this is the only character name that hasn’t changed over the course of three decades. As I explain in Book 2, this name is meant to recall the ambitious and ruthless Oliver Cromwell, “the butcher of Drogheda” (the real place in Ireland, not the fictional one in Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds). I also love the sound of Cromwell, the harsh opening and the soft conclusion—back to that duality.

I needed a first name with more subtlety, but I couldn’t find it. Then I listened to the audiobook of Courtney Milan’s A Kiss for Midwinter in-between December 2021 edits, and the name of one of her supporting characters lit a lightbulb in my brain: Lucas! It was perfect! It recalls both Lucifer, a traditional name for the Devil, and Luke from The Thorn Birds. Yet Lucas also sounds proper and sexy. Thank you, Courtney Milan! (Seriously, check out her books. She’s awesome.)

Changing Byron to Lucas created a small domino effect: I had to make sure that my find and replace function didn’t eliminate the times I still wanted to say Byron (the poet). I also had to change the name of a minor character in Book 3 who was called Luke, and I had to make sure that find and replace didn’t eliminate the times I still wanted to say Luke (the saint). Oh, the joys and challenges of being an indie author with technology at my fingertips!

An update to my formatting software, Vellum, also allowed me to add this lovely background image to the first pages of each chapter in my print editions: roses with falling petals. The symbolism is perfect for my garden-inspired love stories.

Please note: although all of these changes are now live on Amazon, they’ll take a few weeks to show up in the copies you can buy from other places like Bookshop.org. It’s complicated! And if you buy a used copy of my books, none of these updates will be present. (I the author and publisher also won’t receive a penny of compensation from such a purchase.)

Why didn’t the name Lucas—or any of these other text changes—occur to me earlier in the three decades I’ve worked on this series? I can only quote the saying: “Hindsight is 20/20.” I’ve been so close to this series for so long, I had whole passages memorized. It’s difficult to edit in such a state. Only several months’ distance and a larger pool of reader feedback have provided me with the perspective I needed.

I do apologize to any readers currently in the middle of The Lazare Family Saga who are tripped up by these changes, in particular Byron Cromwell becoming Lucas Cromwell. Hence this explanatory blog post. As Joseph would say, “Mea culpa.” You have witnessed the imperfect and dynamic creative process. 🙂

Necessary Sins Has a New Cover!

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Being an independent author means a constant, steep learning curve. Most recently, what’s literally kept me up at night is the realization that my beautiful book covers are nevertheless preventing The Lazare Family Saga from reaching readers. In the 21st century, books—especially indie books like mine—are competing in a crowded digital marketplace. A book brand-new to a reader browsing Amazon or Facebook has literally two seconds to communicate “You would like me!” before that reader scrolls past, never to think of it again. Book covers communicate “You would like me” by reminding readers of the books they love and by communicating genre. Beautiful as they may be, my current covers aren’t doing either of those essentials well.

I thought I understood good cover design. I planned my covers for years as I was writing. I even based my cover concept on other historical novels I’d seen. But those covers came from traditional publishers with marketing budgets and/or authors who were already established. I’m trying to reach people who’ve never heard of me, so my covers have to work harder.

I didn’t fully appreciate The Two-Second Rule or the importance of a cover looking good at thumbnail size. In a digital environment, a book isn’t a physical object to be leisurely admired but a tiny postage stamp that needs to work at a glance. My current covers from Bookfly Design are beautiful and they illustrate my books well. Between picture research and fine-tuning, these covers represent years of painstaking labor by both my designer and myself. I love them, they’re works of art, and I’ve got them hanging on my wall.

The four original covers of The Lazare Family Saga

Alas, I’ve learned the hard way that a beautiful work of art does not necessarily make a good book cover. At thumbnail size, these covers aren’t doing their jobs of attracting new readers. There are too many focal points: top image, decorative title plate, and bottom image. People don’t know where to look, so they look away. To quote a marketing adage: “The confused mind says ‘No.'” The first cover, the most important one, is also communicating the wrong things. It’s not saying “antebellum American South” or even “historical fiction” clearly, and many people are mistaking it for genres it’s not.

If you’ve read Necessary Sins, you know why I suggested to my designer that we feature the hands of my priest protagonist, Joseph Lazare. When he’s ordained, his hands are anointed; and when Joseph and his soulmate Tessa touch hands in the book, the moments are erotically charged. But that eroticism is apparent in the cover only if you’ve already read Necessary Sins. To people brand-new to my work, those tender joined hands apparently indicate “This is sweet and clean Christian fiction”—in other words: “There is no on-the-page sex and this book will confirm your faith.” Which is not at all what Necessary Sins is about!

Therefore, in the short term, I worked with my current designer to revise the cover of Necessary Sins so that it more clearly communicates “forbidden love in the antebellum American South involving a Catholic priest.” I was happy to find stock images we could use for both Joseph and Tessa. These images were just uploaded to stock sites in 2020, so they weren’t available when we were designing the first Necessary Sins cover back in 2019.

The new Necessary Sins cover

Can you make out the Spanish moss and the parterre garden behind the woman, typical of my Charleston, SC setting? They aren’t as clear as I’d like, but that’s a saga in and of itself. The woman’s barely-visible attire might also be mistaken for a nightgown. In the original image, she’s fully dressed.

As you may know, chopping off people’s heads is standard practice in historical fiction covers, and it certainly has its advantages. I love the dramatic lighting in the image of this priest in a confessional, but the top half of the model’s head is all wrong for Joseph. The model is a White man with brown hair in a 21st-century style; but if we crop him correctly, he’s more racially ambiguous and can “pass” for Joseph, my black-haired priest who has French and African ancestry and passes as White.

The right mood for Joseph, but the wrong looks (from Depositphotos)

As of this writing, the new cover is live only for the ebook of Necessary Sins. My designer is currently at work on the paperback and hardcover versions. The “hands cover” has become a limited first edition—so if you love it like I do, now would be the time to buy it. 😉

Prefer the ebook? You’re in luck: my shiny new cover and all its contents are on sale for just 99 cents/pence through December 8, 2021. I do like how the man and woman are separated on the new Book One of the series and united on Book Four. It’s great symbolism.

The Lazare Family Saga with the new Necessary Sins cover

However, this new version of Necessary Sins doesn’t solve the thumbnail problem or pass the Two-Second Test. In order to fix those, after much figurative hair-pulling and literal gnashing of teeth (damn TMD), I have decided to hire a new cover designer to completely redo the whole Lazare Family Saga series. I hope we’ll end up with people on all the covers, and that we’ll be able to include their full faces. After weeks of searching, I’ve found some promising new stock images.

We can’t use the shot of the priest in the confessional with the dramatic lighting, because I’m determined that Joseph will finally have the right skin tone on my upcoming covers. This is impossible with an unedited stock image, because light-skinned Black men in cassocks simply don’t exist on stock sites. But my new designer should be able to do a “head swap” and dress a light-skinned Black model in a cassock, given the right images. Have I found them? Will my designer find them? Will we go in a totally different direction with the new covers?

Only 2022 knows.

Your turn! What do you think of the new Necessary Sins cover? What would you like to see on my redesigned Lazare Family Saga covers? What are some of your favorite historical fiction or family saga covers? Are you an author with a cover revision saga of your own? I’d love to hear from you!

What I’m Working On Now

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Now that I’ve published all four books in my Lazare Family Saga, I’ve had interviewers and readers asking about my next project. My answer will disappoint many. It disappoints me too. I wish I had the luxury to write full-time, to dive into something new.

The reality is, I do not. My time and energy are severely limited by the “real job” that keeps a roof over my head—not to mention all the other unavoidable crap that eats up your “free time” when you’re an adult. Scintillating activities like car maintenance and dishwashing. That’s why the Lazare Family Saga took me nearly three decades to research and revise. Most weeks, I have only a few hours to devote to something of my choosing. That’s it.

The other reality is: I had to publish this series independently, and I’ve spent thousands of dollars I could barely afford in order to get the Lazare Family Saga into readers’ hands. I simply can’t do that all over again. This series has truly been a labor of love and my life’s work.

My challenge now is to make the most of my magnum opus. I need to devote my precious few free hours to learning marketing, which I absolutely loathe. But I have to reach new readers and make the last three decades worthwhile.

I’m also planning new formats: hardcovers and audiobooks. I’m particularly excited about the latter. I adore audiobooks and listen to an average of two per week. Audiobooks are how I experience 99% of my fiction and much of my nonfiction—it goes back to that limited free time. With audiobooks, I can multitask.

Vintage books with headphones plugged into them

Once upon a time, I dreamed that a miniseries would be made of my novels—after all, miniseries inspired me. I know now this won’t ever happen. But if I can find a great narrator, audiobooks will be the next best thing. Unfortunately, great narrators are expensive, so it will be a slow process.

I’ve had people try to tell me I have more books in me, but I don’t think I do. I’ve filled this series with the things I love, and the struggles and triumphs of the Lazare family are extremely personal for me. I feel as if I wrote every word of this saga with my blood.

If you enjoy the Lazare Family Saga, please recommend it to other readers, and please leave reviews of my books. I cannot adequately express how important those are or how much they mean to me. And please consider rereading my series in a few years. I’ve carefully crafted each scene and line with foreshadowing, callbacks, subtlety, and symbolism. I think you’ll get more out of my books the second time. Savor them!

Red feather pen writing "With Love" in blood

Please note: While there are other authors named Elizabeth Bell, the only books by yours truly are Necessary Sins, Lost Saints, Native Stranger, and Sweet Medicine, the four books of the Lazare Family Saga.