Do you charge per finished audio or per total time to record

Julie West · **Voice Talent** Joined: 17 Feb 2005 Posts: 32

Greetings all,

I just would like to get some ideas on what people around here do...

Do you charge per finished audio, per total time to record/edit/etc, or something else all together?

In the short couple years I've been doing this, so far, I've charged just for finished audio. I've recently been offered a few longer (narrations/books) jobs. And wonder how and what to charge. And I'm just curious what other's do.....

I look forward to reading your replies,

Julie

Erik Sheppard · **Voice Talent** Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1317

You are going to get a lot of different answers on this one.

Some charge per word. Some per page. Some per hour. Some by minute. Some by finished product. Some by the type of job. And of course the rates change depending on the market. Some with green eggs and ham.

Is it a buyout? Is there a lot of editing? Is it a regular client? Is it regular work? If so, some people will give them a break but that is tough because many clients promise more work to come when there is none just to get this break.

I just kind of know what to charge at this point in my career by my gut feeling and by having the experience to know how long it will take me.

I'm sure all of this will be somewhat less than helpful. Sorry.

If you want you can just get hold of a rate card and stick to that. I know someone here has a great one on his site but I forget who. Perhaps someone else remembers?

Robin Rowan

Greetings, all,
I have been asked to bid on a dictionary project--about 34,000 words that all have to be in separate files. Sounds great, but here's the rub--it has to be finished by October 1. I estimate that at 50 words per hour (voiced, separate files, uploaded to FTP), and that's kind of ambitious--it will take between 600 and 700 hours. At 40 hours per week, that's only 2000 words, and, well, you get my point. Has anyone ever done a project this big under a tight deadline? I sure could use a little guidance.
Thanks!

Connie Terwilliger · **Voice Talent** Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 409

The time issue is in the finishing. Get Vox Studio and you can record, save and name in one fell swoop. You feed a text file (formatted in a specific way) with the script into the software and it will prompt you word by word, then save and name and move you to the next word at the touch of the space bar. This will get you up to at least several hundred words an hour.

I record much more than 50 words an hour using this program. I record hundreds of names, addresses and phone numbers of doctors and each file is about 30-35 seconds long and once you get into "the zone" you can really crank them out. It's possible for me to record about 50 of these 30-35 second files in a half hour (your milage may vary), so inividual words - you should be able to do lots more than 50 per hour.

But individually saving and naming - oh, my god!

Cira Larkin - Studio 53 · **Voice Talent** Joined: 08 Nov 2006 Posts: 497

Connie's right! Saving and naming those individual files....YIKES!

Robin Rowan · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007, 22:25 (GMT) Post subject:

Hi Connie,
You may have just given me the information I need to make this work! I am not at all familiar with Vox Studio, but I sure will check it out immediately! And you're right, it isn't at all feasible to do this the "old-fashioned" way. But until you're faced with one of these behemoths, how do you know to look for a way that does it better? Thanks a million. I'll let you know how it all turns out!
Best,
Robin

Connie Terwilliger · **Voice Talent** Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 409

And did I mention that the software also puts the "right" amount of space at the beginning and end...when I discovered the functionality of this program by accident through a post to the yahoo message board, I celebrated with a bottle of expensive champagne!

Maxine Dunn · **Voice Talent** Joined: 25 Apr 2004 Posts: 675

Connie Terwilliger · **Voice Talent** Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 409

First one on the list! It is 399 Euros. The company is in Belgium.

http://www.xentec.be/products/vox_studio/vox_studio.htm

Maxine Dunn · **Voice Talent** Joined: 25 Apr 2004 Posts: 675