Reasonable compensation on ACX

[byJO]

I just received an offer to narrate a 324 page book for $200.

For the following reasons, I declined:

• A sample read of just one page took me 27 minutes total narrating and editing time, producing a 3.5 minute file. The editing includes overall noise reduction, masking out any breaths too loud to sound conversational with room tone, and making adjustments for to comply with ACX standards of floor noise, overall volume, and max peak levels, all of which I was able to attain.

• Extrapolating the effort expended for this sample to 324 pages, my estimated production time (324 x 27) would be just under 9000 minutes, about 145 hours time spent, resulting in 19 produced hours.

• This would pay me about $10 per produced hour, considerably lower than the minimum suggested compensation by ACX of $50 per hour, barely above minimum wage in most states.

• They also wanted the project completed in seven days, which would take me about 20 hours per day using the time spent on the sample I produced as a guide.

Am I being unreasonable? I don't think so, but I'm curious what anyone reading this message thinks.

Thanks,
John

[philchenevert]

HA! Absolutely true evaluation and decision. And you don't factor in the inevitable problems and needed fixes that will arise as you upload. And there WILL be problems. At least you know they like your reading style and voice, that's a plus.

[TriciaG]

Moved to Off-Topic, since this isn't LibriVox-related.

[lightcrystal]

I just received an offer to narrate a 324 page book for $200.

For the following reasons, I declined:

• A sample read of just one page took me 27 minutes total narrating and editing time, producing a 3.5 minute file. The editing includes overall noise reduction, masking out any breaths too loud to sound conversational with room tone, and making adjustments for to comply with ACX standards of floor noise, overall volume, and max peak levels, all of which I was able to attain.

• Extrapolating the effort expended for this sample to 324 pages, my estimated production time (324 x 27) would be just under 9000 minutes, about 145 hours time spent, resulting in 19 produced hours.

• This would pay me about $10 per produced hour, considerably lower than the minimum suggested compensation by ACX of $50 per hour, barely above minimum wage in most states.

• They also wanted the project completed in seven days, which would take me about 20 hours per day using the time spent on the sample I produced as a guide.

Am I being unreasonable? I don't think so, but I'm curious what anyone reading this message thinks.

Thanks,
John

You are correct. In fact that level of remuneration is so low and criminally unreasonable that I think that it's a scam offer. The voice over industry is one of the most scam-prone industries. It's a scammer whose only interest is to take your voice and use it in a scam script for an Indian etc scam call center. I would strongly advise dropping the offer/project altogether.The scammer does not care in the slightest how much time and energy you waste; they have nothing to lose. They just make another ACX account if ACX zaps them.

[byJO]

I just received an offer to narrate a 324 page book for $200.

For the following reasons, I declined:

• A sample read of just one page took me 27 minutes total narrating and editing time, producing a 3.5 minute file. The editing includes overall noise reduction, masking out any breaths too loud to sound conversational with room tone, and making adjustments for to comply with ACX standards of floor noise, overall volume, and max peak levels, all of which I was able to attain.

• Extrapolating the effort expended for this sample to 324 pages, my estimated production time (324 x 27) would be just under 9000 minutes, about 145 hours time spent, resulting in 19 produced hours.

• This would pay me about $10 per produced hour, considerably lower than the minimum suggested compensation by ACX of $50 per hour, barely above minimum wage in most states.

• They also wanted the project completed in seven days, which would take me about 20 hours per day using the time spent on the sample I produced as a guide.

Am I being unreasonable? I don't think so, but I'm curious what anyone reading this message thinks.

Thanks,
John

You are correct. In fact that level of remuneration is so low and criminally unreasonable that I think that it's a scam offer. The voice over industry is one of the most scam-prone industries. It's a scammer whose only interest is to take your voice and use it in a scam script for an Indian etc scam call center. I would strongly advise dropping the offer/project altogether.The scammer does not care in the slightest how much time and energy you waste; they have nothing to lose. They just make another ACX account if ACX zaps them.

Oh my! Hadn't thought of that, but it sounds right. Thanks for your analysis and affirmation of my decision to decline. I would go even further in that they probably stole the narrative and did not consider how long it was, hoping for an easy mark who wouldn't think it through. I wonder if there is a way to report this.

Thanks again!
John

[byJO]

HA! Absolutely true evaluation and decision. And you don't factor in the inevitable problems and needed fixes that will arise as you upload. And there WILL be problems. At least you know they like your reading style and voice, that's a plus.

Thanks for the affirmation, Phil! They just came back with an adjusted offer of $300 and 14 days to complete. I told them thanks but no thanks.

[SowasVon]

You are correct. In fact that level of remuneration is so low and criminally unreasonable that I think that it's a scam offer. The voice over industry is one of the most scam-prone industries. It's a scammer whose only interest is to take your voice and use it in a scam script for an Indian etc scam call center. I would strongly advise dropping the offer/project altogether.The scammer does not care in the slightest how much time and energy you waste; they have nothing to lose. They just make another ACX account if ACX zaps them.

Is that a thing? Like, is there an example? Not saying you're wrong, it's just the first time I'm hearing about this.
But, if they just wanted to create an artificial voice for scam calls, they wouldn't need to pay anything since OP has already provided free recordings of his voice on Librivox. They could use those, couldn't they?

[redrun]

Creating an artificial voice is possible, it's far cheaper than it has been before, and it sounds... good enough, though usually still odd or flat.

But why pay to develop one artificial voice based on free recordings... when you could get free "audition" recordings of actual people saying the thing you want said? These are scam artists, and they'll scam through every layer of the process.

[SowasVon]

Creating an artificial voice is possible, it's far cheaper than it has been before, and it sounds... good enough, though usually still odd or flat.

But why pay to develop one artificial voice based on free recordings... when you could get free "audition" recordings of actual people saying the thing you want said? These are scam artists, and they'll scam through every layer of the process.

I see. Well, does what they're asking to be read sound like a phone script, or like a book? That should help to figure out whether they're phone scammers
Maybe those were just people trying to get something for wayyyy less payment than usual. Also not good for the person taking the job. Either way, good on byJO for not taking that offer!

[annise]

Well, I don't know if it's true - but I suppose it is possible. I always used to say something to the scammers before hanging up but just hang up now. I changed since a scam turned up here claiming to be a family member shopping and discovering they had left their card home and would mother/daughter etc, give bank details and this family member would send me the money as soon as they got home.
And I have noticed that the would-be scammers for eBay and Amazon have more convincing accents and no background chatter.

Anne