S4 E8 | Tim Campbell
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Stephanie talks to audiobook narrator Tim Campbell. Tim is an Audie, Voice Arts, Independent Audiobook, and Audiofile Earphones Award-winning narrator of over 900 audiobooks. They talk about the ins and outs of royalty share, time management and more.
Links:
Tim's Website: www.timcampbell.me
Making It To The Mic Website: www.makingittothemic.com
Instagram: @stephaniepamrobertsvo
Email: stephanie@stephaniepamroberts.com
Full Transcript: Stephanie Roberts 0:10 Hello and welcome to Making it to the Mic, a podcast about how different voice actors got to where they are today. I'm your host, Stephanie Pam Roberts, and my guest today is Tim Campbell, Tim is a prolific audiobook narrator who works in all different genres of audio books. We talk about how he found his way into this area of voice over his time management tactics and more. So let's dive in. Here's my conversation with Tim Campbell. Stephanie Roberts 0:38 Hey, Tim, how are you today? Tim 0:41 Good? How are you Stephanie Roberts 0:42 I'm good. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Tim 0:45 Of course, my pleasure. Stephanie Roberts 0:47 So I always like to start asking every guest to tell us a little bit about your journey. How did you make it to the mic, and what did you do before voice over? Tim 0:55 Sure, I went, like a lot of voice actors, I went to theater school and music school. I studied I had a dual major in theater and music in undergrad at Pepperdine, and then I went to USC and studied vocal performance and got a master's and a graduate certificate in that. And then I got out of grad school, and I was kind of trying to decide whether I wanted to stay in LA or do the young artist program thing at an opera company. I did some I traveled around a little bit and did some shows, some musicals and stuff. And I fell madly in love with my now wife, and decided I wanted to kind of stay in Los Angeles more, more permanently. I was trying to look for, you know, side gigs and things I could do to make money between musical theater and opera performances. Tim 1:49 And I randomly, my mom was moving packing up the house, and she was like, Oh my gosh, look at she sent me a text message of a picture of a dream job list that I made when I was 13, and on it was like, professional soccer player, professional baseball player, astronaut, directing the Lord of the Rings movies. Because at that time, there were no Lord of the Rings movies, so I thought, like, why I could just like, direct the Lord of the Rings movies? That'd be great. And the last thing on the list was audio book narrator. Because I'd grown up listening to audiobooks. Listen to dozens every year, traveling to and from, you know, schools, sports rehearsals, I just was constantly listening to audiobooks. And I was like, huh, I can't really do astronaut or professional soccer player at this point, but that's still the possibility. So I just got on Google. I was current. I was doing a production of Jekyll and Hyde in some random Theater in San Bernardino. And I was staying with a buddy who was in med school, and I got in their closet with very little cheap USB mic, and I went on Google and found acx.com and just did some auditions, just for fun, because it was free. And I was like, hey, this might be kind of interesting. And I booked three gigs with my first five auditions, and I had no idea what I was doing, so I had to overnight teach myself home recording, you know? And I turned in some audio, and the folks that hired me were like, Do you have any idea what you're doing? And I was like, Absolutely not. I have no idea what I'm doing. Stephanie Roberts 3:26 Well, at least you were honest. I feel like there's like a whole, like, fake it till you make it thing. And I like that you were honest. And you were like, I really don't! Tim 3:33 They're like, We can hear babies crying and dogs barking, and there's like, an airplane at one point. I'm like, yeah. I don't know what I'm doing. So they luckily were patient, didn't fire me on the spot said, like, we can help you with this. Like, check out this resource, check out that resource. These are the technical specs you need to hit, and here's some YouTube videos on how to do that. And so they were patient and allowed me to have the chance to try it out. And I figured it out, and I've basically been working full time as an audio book narrator since that July 2011 I think it was when I did my first three, three books. Stephanie Roberts 4:09 And were those books for different authors, or they were all like a package deal. Tim 4:14 A couple, a couple were from the same series, and one was a separate, little young adult thriller, just, you know, random royalty shared deals on ACX back when it was first starting. So there was like 600 people on it instead of 500,000 or whatever it is today. Stephanie Roberts 4:32 Wow. Have you ever worked in other genres of voiceover, or do you want to, or you feel like you found your lane, and that's where you're staying. Tim 4:40 I have. I've done some commercial stuff. I've done some, you know, promo stuff and online, new media, content, different things for friends, usually. And I like it, and it's fun, but it's like, my real passion is audio books. Like I've always wanted to do audio books. I love doing audio books. I find it incredibly fulfilling, artistically and creatively, and I don't find those same sparks, I don't find that same interest in commercial stuff. So although I do it, and, you know, it's generally fun and quick and a good paycheck, and I'm usually working with friends when I do that kind of stuff, my real interest lies in, you know, audio books, the acting, the whole narrative structure, storytelling, that kind of thing. So I find, like, a lot of people in different areas of VO are like, doing it because they they need the money and and it's fun, but they also, like a lot of people, would rather be on a TV show or in movies or, you know, auditioning. And a lot of people do all of them, which is great. Like my buddy Ramon is an incredible TV film actor and also an incredible narrator, and also an incredible voice over actor. He does everything. But for me, like, I just love doing audio books so much that I'd rather spend my time doing audio books and making money that way than, like, auditioning for all the other stuff. Stephanie Roberts 6:02 Yeah, and I love that. I think it's so important to hear that perspective, because I think you're right. It's like, if you're a voice actor, you have to do it all. And I love when I get to talk to people who are very, very specific about what they do. And you know, that kind of specialty means that you can focus everything on that your all of your, you know, marketing materials can just be focused on audio books, all of your, you know, classes that you want to take, coachings, everything gets to be so hyper focused. And I think there's something to be said for that. Tim 6:33 I still sing professionally, and I still do opera. I sing with the master crawl at Disney Hall, and I sing with La Opera Chorus, and I sing on film and TV soundtracks. So I also have all those different things that I'm doing as well, and a whole community. Me and my wife are both professional singers, so we have this whole musical community that we've been part of for 20 plus years in Los Angeles. So I don't really have the time to do, you know, my audio book day job, and then also my singing jobs, and then also spending three to four hours a day doing auditions for commercial stuff that that's just the one that's like, the least important to me, you know, on the list, on hierarchy. Stephanie Roberts 7:12 And how do you get most of your audio books at this point? Do you audition for them? Or you just get calls from, you know, previous authors that you've worked with. I'm, I'm curious how that, how your how your work comes. Tim 7:24 At this point, it's, it's almost entirely casting director driven. So I started out doing indies, as most people now do, after I had done, I don't know, 50 or so. I got my first title with tan tour, and then brilliance, and then slowly, I started to work with all of the main production houses. And now I'd say probably 70% of my work comes from those production houses, from casting directors. So if I'm auditioning, it's generally like, we've narrowed down our to like, three possible narrators. Could you do a five minute sample that kind of thing from the specific book, but mostly it's just casting directors being like, hey, we've got this title. We think it'd be a good fit. Do you have time in your schedule and or interest in this title or this genre? And I'm usually say yes, because I like doing everything, but that's how most of my work comes. And then I have a lot of ongoing relationships with indie authors who I worked with when I was starting out, who we've got continuing series. So I'd say like, 30 to 20% of my work each year is my own production house, producing for authors that I've worked with for a long time. Stephanie Roberts 8:30 Oh, that's really cool. Yeah, I think it's interesting too. You know, even, like, an audio book audition is more time consuming if you get a commercial audition, that's just a tag, and all you're saying is, "at Wendy's," that takes, I don't know, one minute, maybe if you do a few takes, and I feel like there's a headspace that you need to be in to be an audio book narrator, and and auditioning is even part of that headspace too. Like, for me, I like the more fast paced stuff, and I get a little antsy when I have to record long form stuff, and so I think I would love the acting side of it, because I also come from an acting background, but the rest of it is a little intimidating to me, like the time of it all. Tim 9:14 Right - I teach some seminars at places like Circle in the Square and Elon University, different places where now I have friends who are in charge of theater departments and stuff, and I will go in and do like, a brief two hour class on audio books and voiceover. And a lot of times people like, how do I get started? And I always tell them, like, take a book, take your favorite book, and go sit in a closet in the dark with just a lamp on and read for eight hours out loud. And if like, that is super fun for you, which it is for me. Then, like, find the book you hate and do it with that, and then see if that's still fun for you. And then start to do some auditions and stuff, because it is a real like, I am a nerd who grew up reading, you know, Lord of the Rings in like, third grade, and just read. Like, dozens and dozens of books every year. Like, got all of the Red Robin gift certificates if you like read the most pages in class and, like, fourth and third grade and stuff. And I would win those every time, because I just loved reading. Stephanie Roberts 10:14 Oh, see, ours was Pizza Hut. It was BookIt. Tim 10:17 Yeah, like, it's something that like, if you like reading, and you like doing funny voices, and you like doing accents and playing like characters that you would never get to play in any other medium. Like, I'm really good at doing, like, 80 year old British like rich Duchess and things like that. Like, I'm never gonna play any of those characters in any other but, like, I get to do dozens of them in my audiob work. Tim 10:40 So, you know, it takes a very specific interest and skill set, and you have to be pretty focused and be able to get into a good flow state where you're concentrated, but not ain't like tight, and be able to do that for hours a day. It is much more like a day job you're doing, like a job where you're working six, seven hours a day. But if it's something that you really like doing, then that work is like heaven. It's just so much fun. Stephanie Roberts 11:06 Right? I've never heard anyone give that as like a prerequisite to to, you know, figure out whether you like audio books or not. And that is so brilliant, because I love reading, and I, you know, throughout the pandemic, it was something that I latched back onto. You know, when I lived in New York City, I rode the subway and I had a Kindle, and I read all the time. And then we moved to the suburbs and had a kid, and it was like, I don't read anymore. All I was reading was parenting books. And sometime in the pandemic, I was like, I need to read again. So I started reading before bed. And so I have, you know, that's like my time to unwind and not look at my phone anymore. And I love it. But even reading out loud to myself at that time, I don't know how long I would last, I definitely wouldn't make it through thenwhole book. Tim 11:55 Yeah. I mean, I love it. I think it's so much fun. Stephanie Roberts 11:59 I think that's awesome. So for you, knowing that all of your projects are need to be, you know, actually, like, timed out, there are deadlines and things like that, and you know, the amount of time it takes to do one book. How do you budget your day, your time? Like, what is your what is your method for that? Tim 12:19 Sure. So now my wife and I have three year old twins, so that's kind of forced me to be a little more organized and structured in my recording schedule, as opposed to my laissez faire mid 30s, where I could just record at night or the morning or whenever I wanted. Stephanie Roberts 12:36 Exactly my daughter's seven. And I feel that it's like, what did I do before I had those time constraints where I must only be able to work during these very specific hours? And I don't remember! Tim 12:47 I know. I just looked back at my Instagram and it's like hundreds of photos of me mountain biking in the Santa Monica Mountains. I'm like, wow, that was a very different life. It switched overnight from like mountain bike and books to like only baby photos. I treat it very much as like a day job, because I really prioritize time with them and with my wife. That's kind of like my number one priority. Tim 13:09 So I get up at six, usually 5:30 ,6 , in the morning, whenever the babies get up, essentially. And I spend an hour, hour and a half, with them, getting them their breakfast, getting them dressed and ready, and then at seven, I wake up my wife, and she takes over with the babies, and I work from about seven to 9:30. I have lunch at like 9:30 I work again until one ish, and have another snack and a tea. And then I finish up narrating around three, 3:30 every day, and then take back over the babies and my wife gets to chill out a little bit, and I basically me and her watch them the rest of the day, and we play around, and I end up reading almost as much as I did at work to them, and then right like, they're already narrating their own lives, because we read to them so much. They're they're like, they'll get in a fight, and they'll be like, "I want that toy," He yelled. Stephanie Roberts 14:01 I love it. That's great. I love that they narrate. That's amazing. Tim 14:05 So basically, that's my recording schedule, and then I build prep time into that. I'm not a huge prepper, like I narrate between 100 and 120 books every year. So I'm not like spending a week getting a book ready to record, like I'll do a skim read and I'll do a prep read, which is where I have research words that I'll look up in the PDF file, like, accent, dialect, voice, angry, sad, like, I'll look up these different character things that kind of give me the sense of the outline of the characters. Mostly. Tim 14:37 Now it's wonderful because the publishers are sending me character breakdowns and prepper breakdowns and pronunciation lists and all this stuff that I used to do on my own, so I don't spend a lot of time prepping for me. That's not useful. I'm able to differentiate characters, remember character voices pretty easily, and I do that in my head. I don't highlight I don't make different colors for different I don't break down scripts at all. I don't mark scripts at all. I don't annotate, and that allows me to keep up a more rigorous schedule. And I don't think that that stuff's unimportant, but for the way my brain works and my dramatic and artistic memory, the way my memory functions and character functions in my head and my mouth, my accents and stuff, they come back pretty easily. I have pretty good recall, so that would be a waste of time for me for the most part. Yeah, so I mostly am recording, recording, recording. Stephanie Roberts 15:25 I love that. I think it's, it's like there are different types of people. And, you know, in the theater world, there are people who are swings and understudies, and they specialize in that, and they're dance captains, and they have the, like, the brain for that in the eyes and the, you know, the memory and all of that. And I feel like this is like, it's like your calling, like you were meant to, like, find this little niche. Because I think a lot of people that I've spoken to that's something that is a huge part of their audio book prep is, you know, making each character a different color, and all that kind of stuff that organizes. So I love that you can just that that's kind of your your gift is you can just look at it and keep moving. So that's that's amazing. Speaker 1 16:05 I also had a pretty unique like, training specifically for this, which I didn't know was going to be specifically for this, but getting, you know, spending eight years in theater school and music school, and then also getting a minor in, like, Western literature and philosophy, yeah, and also being multilingual, speaking and studying multiple languages for singing opera has like, I can speak Italian, French, German, Spanish, Latin, all these different languages that at the time were for singing, but have translated so well into thrillers and mysteries and all kinds of stuff. Speaker 1 16:39 I do probably a third of my work as a Brit, as an English or Scottish person, because I lived there. And I know I can, I can do those accents as a native, and I work with people in London who, for years, didn't even know I was American. Oh, that's awesome. So like, I have a specific set of I feel like Liam Neeson, I have a very specific set of skills that at the time were kind of for different reasons that all kind of coalesced into being the perfect background, in addition to my passion and love of reading and doing funny voices and accents since I was little, all of this training kind of was the perfect background to slip right into audio books, because I need all of that for for doing my job. Stephanie Roberts 17:19 So you started in 2011 so what year did you make your first ... What was your first six figure year? Tim 17:26 My first six figure year was, let's see, the first few years, I basically doubled my income each year thanks to my beautiful wife. I made, I made around 10 grand my first year just on royalties and doing different book like I only did about 12 books or something. And then my next year, I did about 40 books, and I made around $25,000 and then my third year, I made around $60,000 and then I'd say, by like, my fifth year, fourth year, I was making over six figures each year. Tim 17:59 And then for a few years, I was making, you know, three or four times that on royalty books that I'd done when I was first starting out because of their sales. I was lucky when I first started out to do some really high end indie series that had sold hundreds of 1000s of copies in paperback and on an e book. And I just auditioned for these because they looked like cool projects, and I was pretty unexperienced, inexperienced, and the author was willing to work with me and take a chance on a young narrator who didn't have a lot of experience. His name was Scott Pratt, and his books basically have sold hundreds of 1000s of copies for me, and have gave me basically the springboard to then break into mainstream stuff, into SAG AFTRA, doing SAG and union work exclusively for a long time, because I was making such good money on the royalties from his book sales. Tim 18:55 And I'd like to say that it was like a strategic choice on my part, and I planned it all out and researched his book sales, but I had no idea. I was just like, wow, these legal thrillers look like pretty fun, and they come with a stipend. That sounds great. I could use that extra $100 an hour, or whatever it was. And luckily, he took a chance on me and basically changed my life completely because that income from the royalty of those now, I think there's like 10 or 11 in that series, really was the platform from which I branched out into mainstream publishing and working with all the main publishers and taking more time to audition for per finished hour projects, rather than royalty titles and indie titles and that kind of stuff. Stephanie Roberts 19:36 So the royalty titles... are you still making money from those books? Tim 19:41 I am, yeah, I'm still making five figures a month on sale, royalty sales alone. And I haven't really done a lot of royalty books in the last I'd say five years. I do a few each year, maybe 10, but I know that those books will sell pretty well, and I know those authors very well, and we've got long standing relationships that I want to you know, honor. Yeah, and I know that their books will at least make me back my money. And if they end up having a best seller, then it'll make me a lot more money than doing a per finished hour title. Stephanie Roberts 20:09 And are those agreements like for infinity? Tim 20:13 They have a seven year lifespan on Audible, and then you can authors can re up each year after that. So some books will go in and out. Some will last the full seven sometimes authors will ask if it's okay, like, if their book isn't selling, to buy back the rights and do something else. But generally, yeah, they'll, they'll sell for those seven years. And then if an author chooses, they can re up the agreement each year after that, and you continue to make split the sales, which is really nice Stephanie Roberts 20:38 Interesting. It's like passive income. Tim 20:41 Which is really hard to get in performing arts, like, having 10 to 15 grand, and for three or four years it was, you know, 15 to 25 grand coming in each month is insane as a working actor, yeah, because it gives you so much freedom to choose projects, to make more connections. You've got, you've got a safety baseline of income that's allowing you to branch out and do different kinds of stuff, right? I could do an opera, but I knew I would still have a base amount of income coming in that would allow me and my wife to survive. And she was also working, you know, her teaching job and some other doing musical jobs and stuff. So we were able to make things work based on that income, until I was able to work like as a full time sag narrator, and still get some passive income and also a lot of upfront union income. Stephanie Roberts 21:30 Is there a way to because I feel like I've heard people say that they they don't typically like doing royalty shares, because it can be more volatile in the income. Tim 21:41 It is way more volatile. I mean, I probably have done a few 100 royalty share books, and I'd say like 95% of the sales has come from 15 of them, right? So it's a much more high risk, high reward kind of situation, and that and that those 15 books like paid for my first house that we bought and then paid for the second house that we bought. And, like, it's really high risk, but then if you hit the right thing and get lucky and do your you can do research. Tim 22:09 And there's people who do, like, a ton of royalty stuff and almost no mainstream stuff, because they know they have certain authors that they know they're gonna sell a certain amount of units. They do their research on up and coming indie writers who are selling a high amount, who haven't been gobbled up by a main mainstream publisher yet, they go and bid for those books off the top, knowing that over the seven years or 10 years, or whatever, they can make a lot more money if they do a royalty share. Tim 22:33 I don't actively pursue that kind of stuff and do that research as much, because I'm doing so many mainstream books which allow me to, you know, get healthcare for my family through SAG AFTRA for our insurance. There's benefits and negatives. You know, I don't make as much money now as I did for like, a three to five year span five years ago, but I'm still making really good money, and I have a lot more security, yeah. So I'm willing, at this point in my life to kind of take that balance and with indie publishing and AI and all the different stuff that Amazon and audible are doing to kind of diminish the income for independent narrators and use their own algorithms and their AI programs and their quote, unquote synthetic voices to kind of meet the indie demand that's a much more volatile space right now so I'm glad that mostly I'm out of that, except for ones that I know will do well. Stephanie Roberts 23:24 Right now, you almost have the means to choose to participate in that or not Tim 23:30 I do at this point. Yeah. Stephanie Roberts 23:31 That's so interesting. I feel like every area of voiceover has its own set of quirks and rules and like things to know, like if you book a SAG AFTRA commercial versus if you book a non union commercial, there's all these different things to learn about. And I feel like I didn't really know much about that. There are people out there who are like, this is what I do. I go after these books and I do this research, and I feel like that's like a totally foreign world to me. That's that's pretty cool. Tim 23:57 I feel like there's still this lagging sense in the voiceover community that audio books are like this quaint little thing. Like, I went in to audition for one of the biggest agencies in Los Angeles for voice over, and the head of the agency, like the president, repeatedly called audio books books on tape. And he was like, how do you make any money doing these books on tape? And I was like, I don't know where to start. He's like, what? Like, what are you making? And I was like, I'm making, you know, I made $350,000 last year doing quote, unquote books on tape. And, yeah, I like, worked like a regular job, but that's like, a really well paid regular job for an actor. Stephanie Roberts 24:34 Absolutely, that's like a lawyer, a doctor, you know, someone with a very high pressure job situation, and many, many, many more hours out of the house, away from their family. Tim 24:46 Like there's still, I think sometimes in commercial and mainstream VO this idea that audiobooks are like a bunch of weirdos in their closets doing funny voices, making like, $15 a month on royalties. But it really is a booming, booming industry. Industry, and has been basically since I started, which was lucky for me, I started right as the audiobook revolution took off and exponential growth in sales, year upon year upon year upon year. Tim 25:13 You know, it's a much more competitive world now than it was when I started, but also, like, I still feel like the general idea of the audiobook industry is one of kind of like the little brother in the voiceover world, whereas, like, there are people making really great livings, working from home, working four to six hours a day and spending the rest of the time with their friends and family and buying houses and basically like an upper middle class of working actor who are making a really good living in this business that are kind of like unknown. You know what? I mean, it's kind of like a secret. I still feel that way, a little bit. Stephanie Roberts 25:52 I feel too, like, it's, it's almost like, well, I'll just try an audio book. You know, there's like, there's still, I think a lot of people out there who don't specialize in it, because they don't think that there's maybe that much money to be made, and the amount of time that it takes to make the money maybe isn't appealing to them. So I feel like people like dabble in it, but don't really know the kind of real ins and outs of it. Tim 26:17 There are a lot of parallels, I feel like, to classical music and singing classically, where it is a small world, and it takes time to build up a body of work and relationships over years, where you start to get hired for more and more lucrative stuff, until you're making a good living and you have all the connections and all the friendships and all the community in that business, and if you're just, you know, dipping your toe in the water, it can be hard. It takes time, essentially. Tim 26:46 And I was really lucky in that, like my wife was willing and able to support us living in our tiny, one bedroom apartment in South Pasadena on $30,000, $35,000 a year teacher salary while I played around ripping up mattresses and putting them on the walls so it would sound better, like I was really lucky to have that support from her at that time, which I know a lot of people don't have, yeah, and also that I really just knew that I wanted to do audio books. Like I wasn't doing audio books because, like, nothing else had worked, or because, like, I wanted it as a way to get into voice over so then I could do, like, commercials or promos or whatever I like, wanted to do audio books, and that was what fit my skill set. And so I was willing to throw all of my time and energy into doing audio books, because that's what I wanted to do. Stephanie Roberts 27:32 Yeah, do you have an agent? Tim 27:34 No, nothing. I do everything myself. Stephanie Roberts 27:37 And do you edit the books yourself? Tim 27:39 Nope, I have a, I mean, all the mainstream stuff is edited in production houses like, you know, Brilliance and Blackstone and all. They have whole production teams that take care of everything but the 20% of the books that I do that I'm producing with my production company, I have an amazing editor who also is a director and also a narrator, but he is thankfully still willing to take on my stuff for me, because we've worked together for a long time. He edits it all down. I have a great proofer who is an amazing classical singer that I've worked with and known for 20 plus years, who is also an incredible editor, copy editor, and she does audio proofing for me, so I consider my stuff, and she knows how to proof it and send me back any corrections. So basically, I outsource my production stuff, just like a regular production house. I have people that I work with, and I pay them part of my per finished hour rate that I charge for independent publishing. So they get, you know, their hourly rate I pay them from my small business, basically. Stephanie Roberts 28:39 Right. And when you record art, do you ever record with anybody on the line, directing or they're like, live proofing? Tim 28:48 Sometimes, yeah, it's rare now because it's twice as expensive, essentially. But I do, like, when Penguin Random House does that a lot. So whenever I do a Penguin book, generally, there's a director on the line that you're working with. They're always awesome. They're the kindest, most wonderful people. A lot of times they're narrators themselves, or they're theater people or stage directors. So that's really fun. Sadly, it's cost prohibitive. I think a lot of the smaller public like places, can't afford that. Tim 29:18 Like few years after I started, you know, I was flying to New York to record in studio for Harper and flying to Michigan to record in studio for Blackstone. Or, sorry, Brilliant. But nowadays, everybody's got such advanced digital setups that we're able to do almost all the simultaneous recording stuff on Zencaster or wherever, you know, whatever program people are using to do group records. So we don't really fly into studio as much anymore. I'm almost always self directed. I'd say one, two, maybe three books a year I'll have a director. And the rest, I'm doing all myself, which is great, because I almost went to get my doctorate in in directing for opera. Tim 29:58 So like again, I had this interest in like I was a good singer, but not a great singer. I liked being on stage, but I also liked storytelling in whatever form, and the ability to play all the characters and direct the production was really enticing to me, because I can make all the creative choices on my own. I can shape the piece of art as I think best fits the text and the intentions of the author, and make character choices that I want to make. And it's really fun for me to have that creative control on top of the, you know, acting. Stephanie Roberts 30:31 Yeah, it's neat to think of it that way. I feel like in so many times, in this shorter form, like commercials and the corporate narration stuff, it's like, it isn't so creative. It's just sort of get the job done sometimes, and you've you've forgotten exactly what you've talked about one second after you finish talking, because it's sometimes stuff that you don't even know what you're saying. You know, in that tech space especially. Stephanie Roberts 30:55 So do you have slow times, or are you so, like, is your calendar so kind of booked in advance that you you already kind of know when you can take things on or when things are going to be slow. Tim 31:08 Generally, I don't have slow times, and I'm really lucky. I schedule aggressively. I am flexible with fitting stuff in for people who I have ongoing relationships with. I've gotten good at scheduling buffer times into my schedule, knowing how much it's gonna take me to narrate certain projects and leaving a few days here and there, where I can fit other stuff in if I need to last minute. But also I like to take a week off every six weeks or so to just be with my family 100% and sometimes we travel to see family, and sometimes we just stay at home and are together every day, and I get to be with the babies all day, every day, which is the best. Making a living as an actor is incredible and such a gift. But the ability to spend time with these little miraculous beings who we like wanted for so long, and they finally came and to be with them every day, for hours a day, and not have to commute to a job like to be here and know that after I finish this I'm gonna go out and give them hugs and kisses. Is so much bigger than any paycheck I've ever got for any project. Tim 32:14 It's just the greatest possible way to live life is to be able to spend so much time with the people you love and have the flexibility. Like we just spent six weeks at Nana and Baba's house, their grandparents, my wife's parents, in Pennsylvania, and we went there for six weeks. I have a studio there. I have exactly tuned it so it matches my studio here. I can work there and record, and then we're with the in laws and able to do all the fun stuff of, you know, living in the Pennsylvania countryside for the summer, when it's way too hot in LA for anyone to be outside. But that kind of freedom also in my scheduling, to, know, it took years, you know, to get to the place where you're like, I know I can take this long off, and this is how much buffer time I'll need here, and this is where that project's gonna go. So I book out generally, like, currently I'm booked out two and a half months solid. Generally, between three and four months solid, I'm booked out. And so right now I'm taking projects for, like, late October, early November, kind of through the end of the year. Stephanie Roberts 33:19 And that's pretty cool too, because in this business of, like, today, after we finish recording, I have no idea what I'm gonna do, because I well, I have one job that I need to record, and then beyond that, like I have no idea what's gonna happen the rest of this week. And the planner in me gets a little wonky when that happens. And so I feel like that would feel really good to know, like I have voice over work. Tim 33:45 It's crazy. I've got books. I've got books scheduled for next summer, and just knowing that they're there, you're just like, that's great. Like, I'm still, even if I never, if I took three months off, I would still have, I would still be a working actor a year from now. So that kind of security, I feel like, is so rare, right? Stephanie Roberts 34:02 And like, if nothing else, you have whatever that chunk of money is going to be at that time, yeah. And I feel like in this business, we, we don't often have that kind of foresight in the future. Tim 34:16 Totally, I'm someone who I enjoy that security like I didn't love when I was a working actor, not knowing, like, what my next production was going to be, or I should say, a stage actor, but full time opera singer, not knowing what my next paycheck was going to be, and not knowing, having any idea what, what if any income, I was going to have for however long. So knowing that, you know I'm I have a full time job acting for the next three months is awesome. And then I plan in my vacation. I you know, I have a week off in October where we're going to go see my family in in Oregon, and then I have a week off in November where they're going to come visit us for Thanksgiving. And then I'm going to take three weeks in December, where I work for a week in Pennsylvania, but we'll be there for. So like, I can shape my personal life, or, I guess I should say I can shape my work life around my personal life and the things that I want to do. Stephanie Roberts 35:08 And that's so cool. I feel like, unless you're on Broadway and you have or, you know, a long, long term run, you can't really do that, even in the the theater world, that's a really cool thing to bring out in this, you know, area of voiceover is that audio books can become a sort of job where you make a salary, or akin to a job where you make a salary, Tim 35:31 Yeah, as much as like a salary you as you would want as a performer, and you can also work as much as you want when you have more free time and work as less if you want to spend more time with family, like I just turned 40, I've got two three year olds. They're only going to be little for so long. So like this year, I might only narrate like 90 books, instead of 120, 115 I might only, you know, I've taken I've scheduled more buffer time into my schedule in the hopes that I don't have to fill it, and I can just spend those extra days with them. Stephanie Roberts 36:05 Right because in a few years, they're going to be in school, and you'll, you know, you'll have that time back. Tim 36:10 You know, maybe I'll take a bike ride again at some point, but like, they're my priority right now. So it's nice to be able to have a full time job where I'm making a good living, to have that freedom of financial security, but also freedom of time to spend with them. Is the most important thing that that financial security kind of buys. Stephanie Roberts 36:28 How long does it take to record a book? I mean, I know that's different depending on the length of the book, but... Tim 36:36 Oh sure, well, that's easy. That this is another thing that you figure out is like, I narrate. I'm a naturally energetic and excitable person, and I narrate at a slightly faster rate than most people. So a lot of the estimates you get from companies are like, this book will take this long, but I look at the word count, and I know, for me, it's gonna take an hour less or two hours less, because of the speed that I speak at. And I know that say it's a thriller that's going to go faster than, say, a non fiction about the meaning of life and what happens outside the Big Bang. Like that's going to go slower because I'm talking about concepts that are complicated, and I'm figuring them out as I go through the book, just like the just like the listener. Tim 37:15 So I know different genres are going to go faster or slower. I know that I speak at a certain at a certain rate, so say for a 300 page or like a 100,000 word book, for me, that's going to be around nine hours, which for the generally accepted rate, would be around 11 hours. So I'm slightly faster than 10,000 words per hour is my rate that I narrate at. So I can budget accordingly in my schedule, and know exactly how long a book is going to take, give or take a couple, you know, hours in a day. So I'm working like six ish hours a day, and I'll usually get between two and a half and three and a half hours of audio done during that time. So a 10 hour book would take me roughly four days, and I'll usually budget five days in. Then when I have enough of those extra days, I can fit in another book, or have an extra day off to be with a family, that kind of thing. Stephanie Roberts 38:11 And is that like, word count to hour ratio, including taking into account, like, mistakes that you're gonna make and having to or are you just a super accurate reader at this point, probably both. Tim 38:21 Oh no. I mean, I stop all the time. I stop all the time when I'm reading, like, some days, it feels like every single sentence, I'm like, Oh, I messed that up. Oh, messed that up. So a finished book will be like, 10 hours, say 100,000 word book, like nine to 10 hours, and I'll get two to three of those hours done per day. Stephanie Roberts 38:41 Yeah, I feel like that's when I was first learning about voice over and audio books and stuff. It was like, so hard to wrap my head around that concept of like per finished hour. But that's not really the hours you're spending recording. If you are a really not accurate reader, that could be really time consuming. Tim 39:00 We do what's called punch and roll. That's like the industry standard, unless you're working with a director or something, and then sometimes you'll do a free roll where you just keep reading and keep reading, and they're marking all your mistakes, which is, feels like such a luxury now, because you're just like, what I don't have to like, stop and figure but a lot of times I get in trouble on those sessions because I'm so used to doing punch and roll that I automatically start stopping the audio to cut in where I made the mistake. And they're like, don't cut in. Stop, keep rolling. And I'm like, oh, sorry. It's a habit. Tim 39:26 When I started out, I'd say I was working like four hours per one hour of finished audio, and now I'm working like an hour 45 to two hours for one hour of finished audio, because I've done hundreds of 1000s of hours or whatever, of books at this point, and I've naturally just become a better, more accurate reader. And my brain has, you know, figured out how to craft these books. It's very good at the process now where I was figuring it out when I first started out. Stephanie Roberts 39:54 Right and punch and roll, for those who may not know, is where you're recording. You make a mistake. You actually stop recording. You go back and put the marker before you made the mistake, and basically edit out the mistake as you're going. So when you come out of the booth, in theory, you have a mistake free file, right? Tim 40:12 Yeah. The publishers listen to it, and they send back a list of corrections for stuff you didn't catch, stuff that slipped by, which is sometimes an extraordinary amount. Then you make the corrections and they but it's pretty, pretty easy process. Stephanie Roberts 40:24 I've played around with that. I don't do a ton of even just like other long form voiceover stuff, but I've played around with it. And you have to really get your brain involved, because I'm so used to just letting it roll. I'm like, Yeah, fix it later. And so I just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, make mistake, whatever. And then I always edit later out of the booth. But I can imagine that that when you're recording 10 plus hours, that's not efficient at all. Stephanie Roberts 40:47 Yeah, it's you get a full 50 hour audio file to get 10 hours of audio, that's a lot of time you're paying an editor. Stephanie Roberts 40:54 Ah, that's true too. You're you're spending more money on the back end to pay people to edit out mistakes you could have edited out in the moment. Tim 41:04 Yeah, and honestly, it becomes physical, like it becomes physical you get so habituated you have your keyboard shortcuts and your mouse shortcuts that you just don't it's like breathing. You literally just know that you messed up a sentence and stop and cut in and keep going, and it's not taking any time at all. Like, at this point, I'm doing like, an hour of finished audio with an hour of 45 minutes in the studio, that kind of thing, if I'm really focused, which doesn't always happen. Stephanie Roberts 41:31 And I feel like, for me, since I'm not that used to it, I'll go in thinking, like, this is how I'm gonna do this, you know, longer project today, and then I'll do it for the first, like, two or three mistakes, and then I'll get so in the zone, and I'm like, and then I look back and I'm like, Oh no, I missed mistakes. And then I get frustrated that I didn't do the thing. So then I have to go back and re edit it anyways. But yeah, I can imagine that that's just once you get used to it. That's just a workflow that you can keep up. Tim 42:01 I know we're getting close to the end. I just wanted to say something that I kind of glossed over earlier, that I think is really important, especially for anyone who's starting out, is like being willing to try everything and not just be like, this is the only thing I want to do. I knew I wanted to do audio books, but I was also willing to try commercial, try animation, try promo stuff, and really your your talents and your interests will, and your passions will, will push you in, and you'll end up in where you need to be, kind of like, don't get so fixated. I feel like earlier, I kind of made it seem like I was so fixated on being an audio book narrator that I made it. I manifested it. Tim 42:44 But really I was fixated more on being an opera singer or a Broadway singer, and I was doing that, but I wasn't it wasn't meeting my needs, either financially or human in a human level, and I wanted things from my life that were not going to be conducive with a with a live performer lifestyle. So I knew that I needed to try some other stuff. And I think one of the great things was that I afforded myself the ability to try a bunch of different stuff and fail at it or find out that I just didn't like it. And the combination of allowing myself to experiment and try different things, and allowing myself to be open to storytelling in whatever form, ended up with my unique set of skills perfectly coalescing with the right niche in the right industry, with the right community that has the same kind of values as a human that I have, that I ended up in the in just the right place because I was open to that and to trying lots of different stuff, Stephanie Roberts 43:44 And I think that can also be said for probably the different genres within audio books. Like you may go in thinking like, I only want to narrate, you know, romance, and then all of a sudden, Tim 43:55 And then you're winning an audio award for erotica, and you're like, Wait, how did that happen? Stephanie Roberts 43:59 Wait, do you have a pseudonym? Tim 44:02 I do! I have several! I have a pseudonym for contemporary romance. I have a pseudonym for historical romance, which generally is as a Brit or a Scot. So I didn't want to, I didn't want people basically looking at my audible thinking I was American, and being like, what is this British guy doing here, or vice versa. And then for general, general fiction, fantasy, that kind of stuff, I just use my regular name. So I've got, basically, I have pseudonyms for the different brands where I want to keep them differentiated. I don't really care about content, if it was a content thing, but when I first started, I was working a lot as a classical singer, singing in churches. And the number one thing that would come up when you Googled me was all of my audio books. So I didn't want a bunch of, you know, I didn't want to lose work because some church lady or some administrator who hired me for Handels Messiah for Christmas Googled me, trying to find my website, and found a bunch of you know, romance titles, but now it's just more like branding. It's just to keep things separate. Like, you know, if, if I'm doing contemporary, like, that's the name, and if I'm doing historical, that's the name, it's just to separate brands, to not to, basically, to not cause confusion for people who are looking to cast me from Audible places like that. Stephanie Roberts 45:17 Another audiobook narrator that I interviewed said that her pseudonym won an award. And I thought that was great. I was like, she didn't win it. The pseudonym won the award. Tim 45:29 Yes, my pseudonym is an Audi award winner, but also I'm an audio award winner because I am my pseudonym, right? Stephanie Roberts 45:34 That's true. That's true. Well, this has been so fantastic. Tim 45:39 Wait, who was it? Stephanie Roberts 45:39 Oh, Andi Arnt. Stephanie Roberts 45:41 Oh, my God, I love Andi! She's the greatest, speaking about people who are wonderful advocates for our little niche of the industry, like she, everyone loves her. She's such an amazing person and such an amazing colleague. She's supported so many of us. Almost everyone has worked with her or for her at some point. And she is a real guardian for like, the things that make our sector of the industry so wonderful and unique, which we haven't really gotten into. Stephanie Roberts 46:08 But audiobooks is this really amazing and special place where everyone's really supportive of each other. There's almost no competition, there's almost no bad mouthing, and if people bring that stuff into our little community, it quickly gets snuffed out. So I've never worked with a more lovely, accepting, supporting group of people, literally like cheering for each other in the categories at the Audi awards, for their friends to win over themselves. It's just like it's a really special group of people who put community and storytelling and humanity above competition and pettiness and rivalry and all that stuff that exists in other sectors of the of the entertainment industry so much. Stephanie Roberts 46:50 I love that. Well, is there anything else you want to add that we didn't cover, or anything that I didn't get to ask you, that you wanted to share with us? Tim 46:58 I just want to say, like, none of none of the success that I've talked about, or the financial freedom, or the freedom with my family in the time would have come about without, like I said, the first publisher who hired me, giving me the allowance and helping me learn how to self record and home record, and the first publisher I worked with giving me my first mainstream book, even though I'd never worked with a mainstream publisher before, and friends who I met working for one at a conference out of like, spending a day talking about, you know, some random Shakespeare production that a friend did with them, like those people introducing me to, like, the head of casting at Blackstone or wherever, like all of these really lucky and selfless acts of many people and mentors and friends and casting directors all taking a risk on me as a performer, giving me my first chance, my first book, my first whatever, my first multicast, all of these people have taken chances on me. Tim 48:00 So I like to think that I prepared myself for those chances as best I could, and I did a lot of groundwork on my own, teaching myself things and training to do this job. But without their taking a risk on me, none of this would would have been possible, and without them continuing to take risks on me and hire me. None of this will be possible in the future. So all of this success is completely reliant on the kindness and belief and support and inspiration of people outside myself and outside my situation. So I just like want to say thanks to those people. There are so many of them, and to anyone listening, prepare yourself. Give yourself the skills. Prepare yourself as best you can. Don't get fixated on one idea, be flexible and also, like, open yourself up to the support and inspiration and kindness of other people, because without those people, like, there is no there is no career, you don't just make your own career. Your career is completely based on on the whims and the support and the ideas and the belief of people outside of yourself. Stephanie Roberts 49:08 That has been a common theme too, is just be really awesome at what you do, but also be a great person to work with. Tim 49:14 Oh, yeah, I Yeah. I haven't even mentioned that, but you like, don't be late. Don't take advantage of people's time. Don't lie, don't make excuses. Like, be honest. People are willing to forgive you if you're honest. You know, basically, yeah, be a good person. Be a good colleague, because no one wants to work with a jerk and no one wants to hire you again if you're hard to work with. There's so many talented people who can do this job. Be kind, be decent, just because you should not even because it helps you get hired, just because that makes the world better! Stephanie Roberts 49:45 That is very, very true advice. Well, thank you so much. This was awesome, and I hope everybody got a really cool look into audio books today. Tim 49:54 Yeah, it's a wonderful world. Stephanie Roberts 49:59 I think one thing that really sticks out to me this season is passion. All of my guests have so much passion, not only about voice over in general, but about their specific genres too. I loved learning about how royalty share books can create great passive income, and how Tim manages his time and schedule so he can earn six figures and spend time with his family. If you'd like to learn more about Tim, I'm linking his website and socials in the show notes, which you can find at my website makingittothemic.com. Please make sure you follow or subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and please leave a rating or review at Apple podcast so I can reach more people. Thanks so much for listening. And here's a little preview of the next episode- Milena 50:42 I'd really didn't start seeing big success until I started getting really good coaching, got great demos, and really got dialed into the community and learning the industry as a whole. Stephanie Roberts 50:55 That's next time on Making it to the Mic