Episode 46: Audiobooks 101: What Indie Authors Should Know Before They Start

Cassie Newell (00:18)
Welcome to episode 46. I'm Cassie Newell and I'm here with my co-host Angela Haas. And this month we're diving into some hot topics. Today we're excited to talk to Heather and Jeffrey Kafer of High Gravity Productions to get behind the scenes look at what it takes to run an audio book production company along with working with your significant other.

Angela Haas (00:39)
ooo

Cassie Newell (00:40)
High

Gravity Productions is the creation of Heather Costa and Jeffrey Kafer, husband and wife narration team, audiobook industry veterans with over 1200 titles narrated combined and hundreds produced. They are the premier audiobook choice for independent authors and publishers alike and they live in Los Angeles with their children and their mini golden doodle. Welcome to the show, Heather and Jeffrey.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (01:04)
Thanks for having us. Glad to be here.

Angela Haas (01:04)
Welcome.

Cassie Newell (01:06)
And

I was thinking, and you're doing seven of my audio books. A lot of, a lot of short romance books that sounds like a crazy amount when I say seven, but I can't believe it'll be seven. It's exciting. So exciting. So working together as a married couple, let me just start off with that. Let's go right. The checkular. How, how does I'm.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (01:21)
Not quite the same.

Angela Haas (01:28)
Let's just go right for the jugular. Out with everything. Dish.

Cassie Newell (01:35)
I'm guessing that has some unique dynamics. Like, how do you balance that creative collaboration with the business side of running a company?

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (01:38)
Yeah.

So I think the reason it works is because we know each where our strengths are. We kind of know there's different things that we each are responsible for. And then big decisions we collaborate together. Well, I'm gonna say, know how that the old thing of just stay in your lane. I've learned to stay in my lane. You know, she is the

for reasons that will become apparent. She is the people person. She wants to talk to the authors. I'm not allowed to do that.

Cassie Newell (02:19)
You're not allowed to do that at all!

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (02:22)
No, I do but that's It's fun. We have a thing where like I'm like so I'm gonna send this email to the author about something in my lane and I'll show it to her and she like I need to Heather this You if it's about finances it tends to be blood right?

Cassie Newell (02:41)
I love it.

There's not a lot of touchy-feelys,

right?

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (02:49)
and zill payments or whatever it is

Angela Haas (02:51)
Well,

sometimes finances do make you cry. There are emotions there, I would say.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (02:55)
I don't want to make

the people stuff, right? She's good at it. Everybody likes her. A couple of people like me. But really she is the face and the heart, as I like to say, of this company.

Cassie Newell (03:10)
That's nice. I love that.

Yeah, I think between Angela and I, I'm doing this podcast. It was really interesting. Our skills of what we thought we were doing at the beginning and how it's kind of evolved and changed over time too. You know, we kind of figured out what each of us is kind of good at too. So I totally get that.

Angela Haas (03:32)
Yeah, we didn't know what we didn't know in the beginning. I, I mean, we're planners, right? And we had plans for things, but you can have plans and you're like, no one told us about this. Okay. and then you have to pivot which we do. And I'm sure that is something you have all had to master those pivots or like, you can have a plan or maybe you're,

Cassie Newell (03:35)
You

Angela Haas (03:56)
not planners, I don't know, but you have to be to have a company like this and have it run smoothly. mean, tell us about like mastering some of those pivots along the way.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (04:06)
Well, so, you know, we started out as narrators, right? And there's a certain, there's certain things we need to be responsible for as narrators, even if we're outsourcing, the production of it. When you start a company and you have a roster of narrators and you have a bunch of editors, there's a whole slew of other nuanced things like the text stuff is different and, ⁓

The accounting is very different. you know, it's not just me anymore invoicing for books that I've done. It's making sure everybody else is getting paid and make sure it's done according to various contracts we have, cetera, et cetera. So it's the bigger the company, the bigger the small things are.

Cassie Newell (04:43)
mate.

Right. Yeah, because I know just from my experience, right, we auditioned a number of narrators and then you have the whole editing side and you have the whole ALC side of that, which has been so beneficial to me as an author. So I can't imagine all the pieces and webs I don't see, but I appreciate that you handle them.

Angela Haas (04:53)
Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (05:09)
It's great to hear.

Yeah, that's what

we to. Behind the scenes. we love it. That's part of the job. We wouldn't do this if we didn't love it. You know, this is just part of the industry we live and work in. Yeah. But there's definitely, well, you know, I was going to say there's definitely things that, you know, we're like, yeah, this is solid. We got this. And then there'll be, cause we're always looking, you know, people that we work with were like, Hey, if you think something's missing or like we'll think something's very clear. And then maybe somebody missed something. ⁓ and we're like, ⁓ okay. Yep. Nope.

Cassie Newell (05:24)
Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (05:48)
I got to put that here. got it. So there's definitely like holes that we didn't realize, you know, over the years that you kind of just figure out pivot and exactly.

Cassie Newell (05:58)
pivot and figure it out.

Yeah. And the industry is constantly moving too. So that always seems to be whether you want to pivot or not, you know, something that you have to consider too. Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (06:10)
Thank

Angela Haas (06:10)
So you mentioned you were narrators, but before that, tell us a little bit more about how you, how did you become a narrator? we had narrators on before and they were actors, that decided, hey, this is another way to supplement my income. This is like acting, but it's just voice acting, which is different, So how did you get here? How, what were the early careers?

like for both of you.

Cassie Newell (06:35)
Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (06:37)
⁓ So I actually won't go to college for opera. ⁓

Angela Haas (06:39)
Yes.

OOF

Cassie Newell (06:43)
Really?

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (06:44)
And I loved performing, but then I got so nervous doing it in front of people. ⁓ And then ⁓ one day my dad saw something about voiceover and I was like, that's an actual job. Like I realized, cause I always loved animation. And so I got into voiceover and I did that for several years. Back 2004, I've been doing behind the mic, just industry stuff.

And I did a lot of commercials and animation and corporate stuff. then Jeff was already doing audiobooks. were friends back then and he, I mean, we're friends now still, but.

Cassie Newell (07:16)
wow.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (07:23)
And he's like, oh, you're doing great in VO. And so I was like, oh, I want to try this. And then I booked my first audio book. And I was like, well, now what do I do? You make the audio book. And then I started doing more and more audio books and realized I loved it. Because what I loved about animation, I could be all the characters in audio books. And then from there, it just grew. And we love all the parts of the industry. And it just kind of evolved to.

Cassie Newell (07:34)
Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (07:50)
We got married and we were like, you know what, let's do this and just kind of took off.

Cassie Newell (07:56)
That's amazing. I love that. It's really interesting because when we talk to writers, either you've been writing since you're itty bitty, that would be Angela, or you came to it later in life, that would be me. There's usually some kind of different story behind how it all starts. Yeah, that's really great. So I have the question of, you ever, I'm kind of curious.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (07:57)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Thank you.

Cassie Newell (08:25)
since you've done so many audio books and with indie authors specifically, when is a good time do you think in advising indie authors to consider audio books? Because it's such a growing market, it's a big investment, depending on how they want to, you know, either buy it outright or try to profit share or whatever that is. Like, what do you, what advice do you give indie authors, you know, when they should consider audio books?

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (08:54)
You look at me.

No, she looked, she turned her head. I can't say this, but... Why don't talk to the authors? Well, no, I mean... I can answer that.

Cassie Newell (08:59)
I thought he wasn't allowed to talk to the authors. ⁓

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (09:06)
I mean, we didn't, we didn't really workshop this answer, but you know, this is where I come from the more pragmatic. I'm like, my thought is when you can afford it, or if you want to go the profit share when you're assuming that the narrator, the team, whoever it is you're hiring has a decent chance of making their money back as well. Right. So when your book is doing well, Right. When your book is selling well at a decent

Angela Haas (09:13)
Mm-hmm.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (09:34)
And you know for Somebody is going to make money doing this right either You as an author if you want the full rights to this or if you want to do a royalty share where you're Sharing in the good fortune of this success That's a choice you guys get to make right? The problem is when new authors Automatically jump in and either they get sticker shock or they're not ready to afford the production of it

Or, and this is kind of a problem, lack of a better word on the narration side, which is why a lot of narrators won't do royalty share. Cause new authors sort of maybe just sort of hop into it thinking that it's a free audio book, quote unquote. A lot of narrators kind of get burned on that and they don't go back.

Cassie Newell (10:21)
⁓

Angela Haas (10:25)
for listeners who don't understand the difference, can you speak really quick about what does it mean to do a royalty share And I, when I did my audio books through ACX, I just did it where I paid them outright. And I forgot what that piece is called, but I just paid them their fee, whatever that was. And then I, it's on me to do everything else. Can you speak to the difference? Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (10:49)
So,

yeah, so per finished hour is what you're talking about, what you did, where it's an agreed upon rate upfront, and then the author receives all of the profits from the sales of the audiobook. With royalty share, profit sharing, however you want to refer to it, you're going in 50-50 on the profits, and you're not paying anything upfront to the company or the narrator.

There's also something called royalty share plus, which is becoming more common as well, where the book for the company or the narrator looks like a good investment because it's the long-term game really. So, okay, this makes sense. will earn my money back and then some based on the time that they spend or the investment that they made. ⁓ But when you do royalty share plus, there is some money upfront to the narrator or the company, which can help offset

some of the overhead for an editor or whatever it looks like, and then you split. So sometimes if there's a book where it could be successful, but it's a bigger risk, maybe it's a longer title or it's just newer, that can help soften it a little bit to make it a little less risky. ⁓

Angela Haas (12:09)
Yeah. So what are the pros and

cons of doing each of those? I'm sorry, finish that statement, but like.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (12:15)
Well,

was going say is one of the challenges with new authors usually, or authors who have not done it, they hop into the royalty share and they don't realize that the narrator actually has costs to do the book. Not just their time. Not just their time. So they have their time plus usually about $75 per finished hour for an editor. Minimum. So a new narrator who's like, sweet, I got a book, I'm going to do this. And they outsource their editing.

You know, they could be out 500 bucks in money. And so they're in the red from the day the book is released. And for the right titles, you know, for a company or a narrator, that totally makes sense because it's a good investment. One other thing to speak to that is that as far as like when to do it, if you have a book that is, you know, even if it is your first book, but you know that it's going to do well.

Angela Haas (12:48)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (12:48)
now.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (13:13)
or you're an author that has done well and it's your second book or whatever, there will be authors that will time the release. So the audio comes out at the same time as the print in the Kindle because there's a whole community of readers that only read in audio. So by not having audio, you're missing out on all of those people. And then one last thing I wanted to mention on that same thing is for newer authors,

I really recommend being very cautious of this. ⁓ It's a very easy button that you can select for, you know, the virtual voice of your audio book. And we have seen authors get slammed in reviews and they think, ⁓ it doesn't cost anything. It ends up hurting more than helping. ⁓ So my biggest bit of advice is if you are not at a place where you can do an audio book yet,

Cassie Newell (14:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (14:11)
human narrator. because you only get that first impression once, especially in the audio community. So, once people listen and realize that's what it is, they... it's bad.

Cassie Newell (14:20)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and

you don't want to alienate potential readers like that. ⁓

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (14:32)
It's

weird as an audiobook company to say, maybe hold off on making your audiobook. It's kind of like, but I mean, would be ingenuous if we came on the show and said everybody should make an audiobook because there's going to be people who are not ready for audio given the costs. And I would hate to say that.

Angela Haas (14:37)
What?

Cassie Newell (14:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (14:51)
Well, the marketing is so

different, you know, the marketing when you release it separately.

Cassie Newell (14:56)
Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (14:59)
Right. oftentimes we'll see authors either, like I said, they'll do it as simultaneous or one helps the other, the sales. So the audio or they'll, they'll have a print come out for a different book and the audio, you know, like even if they're not the same book, they end up helping each other. So it's all about.

Cassie Newell (15:15)
Yeah, I noticed

that in Goodreads for myself, like, because they'll all versions get combined, you know, at a point. So all the reviews come under just the title, which is fabulous.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (15:19)
Hmm.

I'm certainly not an expert in all things marketing of books, but what I have seen authors do is they don't actually market the audio book per se any more than you'd market the Kobo version of your book, right? It's just a platform to read, right? So if you're just advertising your book, those people who want the audio book version, they'll find it on Amazon. It's right there. It's one of those squares.

Cassie Newell (15:53)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (15:54)
True.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (15:54)
I

just advertise your book and the evidence to support that when somebody gets a book bump. I have seen on some of the royalty share titles that I've done. When somebody gets a book, there'll be a spike in the audio book. Yep. Audio book people listen to audio books on the platform or their choice. I don't read books just because I don't have time. I listen to my books. So if I see a book and book, even if it's for free on Kindle, I'm not going to buy it.

Or, you know, I will absolutely go and burn a credit on it if it looks interesting. Right. So in book signings having authors that we have seen that have it in audio, but they don't have a way for a reader to buy it in audio at a book signing. You are code. You know, number of interesting.

Cassie Newell (16:30)
Right.

Angela Haas (16:44)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (16:45)
Yeah, I did. I did do that.

I brought QR codes of the codes given to me by audible as I was meeting people at a conference recently. And that was really fun just to be able to give a free book. And of course, I did my first book hoping I could hook them in to the next ones. But I also find, you know, there's a lot of discussion for more intermediate authors, if you will, that have started audio books to.

being in one platform versus multiple retailers. I find it interesting because speaking of Bookbub, that's Chirp right? You can't use Audible and Bookbub, but you know, I've contemplated and I've had those conversations and email with Heather, but I've contemplated like, do I stay in Audible exclusively, you know, trying to...

you know, get all the benefits of that. It is the largest retailer for audiobooks. I mean, that's quite clear. However, you know, they're also doing some interesting things and changing the royalty rates too, which isn't great either. So I'm curious when you're talking to new authors too, do you advise them of particular platforms at all? Because some of that is pretty new to a lot of authors too.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (18:07)
So it's a spreadsheet game, right? ⁓ Part of that might be, know. So luckily you can switch, right? So you can sort of A-B test it, right? What works, what doesn't. For example, your shorter books, I don't know that people will necessarily burn a credit on them, but they buy it all a cart. Right. You should be able to look in your stats. Are they buying it all?

Cassie Newell (18:26)
Yeah, but they do buy it.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (18:34)
art or the using a credit so that's something for you to know right and so then verses the listens on spotify whatever that translates to say is your book something that you think might sell in libraries doing a historical historical romance series and she wanted libraries because that's a different market

Cassie Newell (18:49)
Right.

Angela Haas (18:57)
Mm-hmm.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (18:57)
So, kind of depends on you.

Cassie Newell (18:59)
Yeah, really authors really need to consider the market for their genre. It sounds like, yeah, okay. Yeah, a lot of people I can just say from my experience, people do use credits, but it's interesting. I see them towards books three and four and not books one and two. I see them buying them because they're like six bucks. It's like a cup of coffee, a latte, a fancy latte.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (19:05)
Right. think so. Yeah.

Angela Haas (19:08)
Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (19:20)
No. ⁓

Thank you.

Cassie Newell (19:28)
And so then they're like, oh, I'm good. If they have them to burn, you can kind of see it coming in in the later books.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (19:36)
And they're like, they know that they love it, so they want more.

Cassie Newell (19:38)
Yeah, they've got the feel and

I get the read through, but definitely book one is the bestseller for sure. ⁓

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (19:46)
Is your plan later to bundle them? Because we see a lot of the value shoppers a lot of times. I mean, you don't have to announce it or anything, a lot of success comes from bundling once the, the initial skills have, have sort of plateaued. Um, so

Cassie Newell (19:54)
No.

Angela Haas (19:55)
The secret.

Cassie Newell (20:07)
Yeah, absolutely. think that's interesting because that's the same concept with eBooks, right? We bundle those in series. It's the same concept when you're trying to reach that market, whether you're in KU or not, depending again on your market. But yeah, it's something I'll definitely consider ⁓ how to do that. It might be a query question to Heather later.

because I don't know. But yeah, I think that's interesting because I'm seeing that more and more because we're big listeners of audiobooks too, me and my husband. And so he's in it in a lot of series where if they bundle sometimes he gets irritable because he's been listening the whole time. And then they'll just be like, ⁓ one credit for the first five books. And he's like, I did five credits. ⁓ So yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (20:55)
I mean, you

Cassie Newell (21:00)
Yeah, that's one of those where you're like, well, right. Wait. Yeah. So

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (21:01)
got to listen to it early. ⁓

Cassie Newell (21:06)
yeah, I think I think you have to weigh those things out too. That's really interesting, for sure.

Angela Haas (21:12)
So take us through the process of working with a production company, because I didn't know actually that production companies existed for audio books because the way I was coached, was like, you just go through Amazon, you find your narrators there, pick your level, and you listen to auditions in a certain way. then you, but you, it's all through ACX.

Or you can use find a way voices, but I found just based on reviews, people are going through ACX because then they can just post there and it's a little easier when you're using a production company. You still upload your book to ACX, but then you help with the behind the scenes of getting it ready. So tell me how working with a production company actually works a little bit more about that process.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (22:03)
⁓ So ⁓ most books we do through ACX as the platform, but there are many authors we work with that they don't, because they're going wide and they're not even going through that. So then we deliver files in a different way. So there's no requirement for us. It's whatever is best for the author. So when an author contacts us and they're interested in having their book in audio, ⁓ we have several forms that we

ask them to fill out just so that we can gather the information that they may not know we need. That helps to figure out, ⁓ you know, if they're looking for solo, dual, multi-narrator, duet, or duet-style multicast. ⁓ And, you know, how many narrators and how many POVs and ⁓ the specifics about the characters. Because we try to do authentic casting whenever possible.

So if it's an own character, like an underrepresented minority character, then we want to make sure that we're casting it accordingly with a narrator that identifies as such. And also getting the word count and understanding the breakdown. with that information, then we can also usually give kind of a ⁓ ballpark price range.

off the bat of what it would be to produce it in whatever style they're looking for. And often authors will say, I'm interested in like three different styles. Can we talk about price quotes for all of them? And then we can get into all the little details of that. And the range is often because every narrator we work with is exceptional, truly. The ones that are on our roster, they're very well vetted. So even when there is a price range, it's not like,

you know, a bargain based narrator you're going to get for like, it's just based on what the narrator, what their rate is. And it's important to us that we pay narrators what they're worth. So we ask that their rates are whenever we can. And we also always pay our narrators the same on a project. So if it's a four narrator cast and one narrator is significantly higher, everybody gets that higher rate in books that we've produced.

Cassie Newell (24:19)
that's

Angela Haas (24:20)
That's

Cassie Newell (24:20)
great.

Angela Haas (24:20)
great.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (24:21)
and so then

once I have all that information, and we've discussed everything that we offer, like all the different from the production to the marketing to, you know, everything that we do. and the author is like, yes, I'd like to move forward then depending upon how the author would like to receive the information. we either send out auditions to our roster, and depending upon

the specs, it's either, know, sometimes we just handpick certain people that we think are perfect for it, or sometimes we'll narrow it down and cast a wider net. It all depends. And we'll send, we review all the auditions that come in and narrow down and then send those to the author. Sometimes authors will prefer to cast directly from audible links. So we'll curate those based on again, the casting specs that we feel are the best fit.

and we'll go back and forth until the author is happy and has found their perfect team of narrators. it's a very collaborative process. we also have authors that come to us and say, we want these narrators and whether they're on a roster or not, we are happy to work with them as long as they're professional narrators. and yeah, so anybody that they want to work with, can happy to arrange that and cast them and.

Angela Haas (25:17)
you

Cassie Newell (25:38)
So really

you're the business side behind all that because as a production company, you're also doing all the editing as well, ⁓ which I'm like, yes, please don't ever want to do that. I hate doing the editing on my own books. yeah. So do you also upload for the ACX as well? cause I haven't, I haven't had to upload anything.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (25:46)
Yes.

Yes, all of it.

Cassie Newell (26:07)
And then I was just going to say as a production company, you've added on this nice service that I really enjoy, which is the ALC piece as well. I've tried to curate my own in addition, but I think too it's really helpful because if you don't have that directly in your newsletter to pull out that specific group, it's also grown for me, which has been fabulous. And I can't speak enough about.

ALCs, is advanced listening copies if you're not familiar with that. But we do the same thing, right, with print and ebooks with ARCs. And I think that piece is so important because it really starts to share voice when you do the book. So what else does a production company do in general? Did we hit all of those things? I just want to make sure.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (26:56)
So

one of the things we're doing more of is for select titles, entering them into various awards. The Audis, the Sultry Listener Awards, the Silvas. There's another one. The Grammys. Which, yeah. ⁓

which I don't know if there's any production companies who do that other than the big publishers, like Random House. So we're kind of cool in that way.

Cassie Newell (27:24)
Yeah.

And for listeners,

my book, Buttercream and Second Beginnings was submitted for consideration for a Grammy. That's why I'm cheesily laughing and very excited about it. That was such a surprise. I have to admit, I was just like, wait, what? Is this real? Is this not April 1st? Hold on.

Angela Haas (27:35)
So great, yeah.

Well...

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (27:45)
⁓

I celebrating authors that we work with, authors in general, the industry in general. We love celebrating authors and narrators and ⁓ that is through ALC and other social media we make reels and so outside of that, that would be other things that we do. We do a lot of marketing promotion on social media to celebrate the narrators and the authors ⁓ and

when we go to different book events, signings and conferences. It's all about the authors and the narrators. Yes, is. And we have them on banners and our step and repeat and postcards, narrators that come with us. Every narrator gets postcards of books that they've done with us to celebrate those. We do little chocolate book covers. Yeah, so at any point when...

Cassie Newell (28:29)
Right. I love it.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (28:35)
we do a book, it's not like a one and done for us ever. It's kind of like once you're in, part of our High Gravity family, you're kind of always part of it.

Cassie Newell (28:45)
Well, I have to admit, I feel very honored that the words were chosen, but definitely the narrators and yourself for the editing deserve all the credit if we get anywhere further in the process. yeah, it's been a great experience on my side. So thank you for that.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (29:02)
Thank for listening.

Angela Haas (29:05)
Yeah, I wanted to highlight some of the differences then, my experience just going with through ACX on my own and then Cassie's going with High Gravity And I think that's what people might not understand is, I think the investment is a little higher working with a production company, especially depending on I'm writing, 90 K, a hundred K novels. That's, that's a good investment. However,

The differences are how you're curating the narrators because I got like 85 auditions for my sci-fi novel. And that was so overwhelming for me to go through each one because out of that, there were really only 10 that were even possible. I had just some that, either males that could not.

do the female voice and vice versa. You know, I had this really amazing man who had such a like huge acting resume in like Westerns in Hollywood, but he was trying to do the female and he was like in his eighties. An amazing resume, not right for my book, but just going through all those additions, I was getting so fried because it was just like, God, this isn't going to work.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (30:07)
You

Angela Haas (30:22)
And that's why I decided when I opened it up to a duet, I finally found my people, but that was a huge part of my time. And then, so that's a huge benefit is having you narrowing it down to knowing that this isn't right for this project. And then really, it probably makes the choice of the author easier when they don't have 85 to go through. have maybe five that you've said these will fit or something. Um, so I think that's a huge benefit.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (30:45)
All right. Yeah.

Angela Haas (30:50)
And then you're doing helping with marketing, helping with promotion, the advanced listening copies, all that stuff does not come to help you when you're going just through Amazon. And that's why I just kind of, I tabled all the promotion for my sci-fi series because I need to circle back and relaunch it and finish it. But the romance is outselling those for me and.

So I'm focusing on romance, but I had already started my audio book for the superhero sci-fi. And I even got overwhelmed with like trying to figure out what to do with 50 codes that are different and trying to get those reviews. And I was just like, I, I mean, I will go back to it. It's out there, but it just, the marketing piece without having any help was so overwhelming. And there's some people who enjoy all that and they can, they have time to do it.

Cassie Newell (31:29)
You

Angela Haas (31:46)
But I think when you're stuck with like trying to do other things, it's helpful to have a production company behind you, helping you with checking all those boxes. So listeners, that's like some of the, the pros was working with like a High Gravity Productions because you're really part of, like, I love how you said that they're part of the family forever. You know, it doesn't just like one and done and it's like, yeah. So that.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (32:10)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (32:15)
That's what I feel is such a difference.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (32:17)
You had me, superhero sci-fi.

Cassie Newell (32:17)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (32:20)
Yes.

Yeah, I mean, I might. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's like Avengers meets Star Wars, but all the Avengers are older women. Like I really wanted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like sort of picturing Angela Bassett out there as a superhero with like powers as she aged and like using

Cassie Newell (32:21)
And Jeffrey's like, I'm gonna getcha, Angela.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (32:23)
I am a

majority of my narration in science fiction and I love screen-rollings.

Cassie Newell (32:36)
older women who kick butt.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (32:38)
Lunch is ready.

That is.

Angela Haas (32:49)
What we hate about aging as females, like turning hot flashes into fireballs and that's a superpower, you know, but also really exploring women truly collaborating and not having just a 20 something superhero. It's like, you know, a 40 to 60 year old out there with 40 to 60 year old female problems. So trying to save the day. So yes,

I'm hopeful that if I get these romances out that I'd love for you all to finish that series with like the narration that would be, I mean, absolutely so fun to hear that, you know, so.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (33:30)
So the other challenge that a lot of authors have going on just straight through ACX is they may fall in love with the voice, but they don't know necessarily what the author's process afterward is in terms of editing and proofing. With a production company like us, we have ⁓ a team of editors and proofers whom we have worked with. They follow our...

Process which is a unified process everybody works exactly the same way and They all follow our process and they've got a lot of experience and they're doing the work in a way that we trust if you hire some Sorry random narrator on ACX who's you're like great. They'll do it for $200 a finished hour Well, okay. So at that rate, how are they hiring a pro for an editor and an editor? Probably not chances are they're doing it themselves

Well, that opens up a problem. You don't edit your own books by yourselves for the most part, right? You need fresh eyes on it, right? I can't tell you how many times as a narrator I've gotten pickups back where the proofer says you said this wrong. And I listen, I'm like, no, didn't. I listen again. I said it right. On the third time I listened, I'm like, ⁓ geez, I did say it wrong. Because you're, as a narrator, you

Cassie Newell (34:36)
Yeah, that's correct.

Angela Haas (34:55)
you

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (34:58)
When you're proofing your own narration, tend to just, you're, you're, think you said it right. So you gloss over it, right? You miss things, right? Or you use some, they use some automated, you know, AI garbage to do it and it doesn't work as well as it, as it should either. And stuff gets missed is my point. Right? So the, hiring a narrator in ACX, you kind of have to babysit and ask the right questions.

Cassie Newell (35:18)
Come

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (35:28)
Are you going to use a third party editor? you going to prove this yourself? What is your process? And some do. And some do, of course. But that's the thing with ACX It's the Wild West. You just don't know what you get or the price unless you know to ask exactly the right questions.

Cassie Newell (35:44)
Right, that's great. I think too prepping authors for audio books, because I have to admit, I was surprised at all the work to go into it on the author side. Because I call it the manuscript, but the script that you prep, right? For my particular romance, I have ⁓ dual point of view. So one whole chapter is done by the male.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (36:03)
you

Cassie Newell (36:13)
and one whole chapter is done by the female, but we have areas I have to highlight for male to do those character voices and so forth. And then thinking about the types of character voices too, all those things that you may not think of so much outside of when you're creating your book that you have to break it all down. And that takes a

quite a bit of time, I've gotten pretty good at it now. But I can imagine though, you know, with my novel, like that's gonna take me a little bit longer to like really go through it. But I found, wow, this is a lot more work. I remember thinking, I love the freedom of creativity to give to the narrators Like I don't wanna stifle. like, like sometimes when I would hear back,

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (36:44)
you

Cassie Newell (37:07)
what my narrators were doing. was like, that's so much better than what I was thinking in my head. Like maybe they should act this way or that way. Like I also think allowing them to do their jobs and have that creativity is really great. But I'm kind of curious, like, are there things you would recommend for authors to really consider before they jump in? Because I know that for me, that was a bit of work and I was like, I'm unprepared.

Angela Haas (37:33)
Yeah, I've even heard that your names like for fantasy authors, like thinking of how the name looks on paper, pronouncing it a hundred times, like as the listener might be like, okay, hello. So yeah, how can authors better think about things and prepare when they're writing?

Cassie Newell (37:41)
and pronouncing them.

Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (37:55)
So

depending, we have authors that will provide pages and pages of very detailed because they have envisioned the sound, the pronunciations, everything a specific way. And that is great. We are happy to take all of that, share it with the narrators. We have other authors that are, they just check a box that says, pronunciations decided by the narrators. So in a fantasy, for example, they're like, I just hear how they do it. Or they just give very, very simple information.

So it really depends on how involved you want to be upfront in the creative part. Because once the narrators start working, they take whatever has been provided and then now it's up to them to make the creative choices. That can't be edited really after, after they've done a 10 hour book to be like, actually that character that you did the whole book should have had, you know, this accent. Like that's something we need to know upfront. But you know, some authors will provide detail and,

And if you ever don't want to highlight your scripts, is something we provide. We can talk.

Cassie Newell (38:57)
haha

Angela Haas (38:58)
Okay, so is it like a screenplay script? that what you had to do, Cassie? Like change it? Or just, you're just highlighting?

Cassie Newell (39:02)
No, no, no, no. It's taking

your book and I was just highlighting, you know, OK, so this is the male character. So during his chapter, anything that's female, I would go in and highlight. That's all you're doing. And the same thing. And I have to admit, it's kind of helpful, especially if you're doing like me, where I'm launching them all at the same time. This is also where I go through my last read of edits to make sure.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (39:15)
Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Cassie Newell (39:30)
things are right, because I'm like, that's not the one manuscript I want wrong, you know, is them. So it's kind of helpful to do that process. You know, and I also think, it helps to when I'm looking and I'm going, I could add, she said, if it looks like it's something that that wouldn't, you wouldn't know otherwise, who it was coming from. So I have done those things, but not

egregiously.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (40:00)
Yes,

that's a very good point. So with dual narration, the only thing we need to know from the author is who's POV chapter or if there is a scene break, if it changes POV. With Duet, whether it's the author or we ⁓ highlight, because when we deliver the manuscript to the narrators in a Duet, like Cassie was saying, it needs to be ⁓ like the male in her

chapter, any dialogue for him, he needs to be able to look at that and just read his lines so that it can be recorded and then spliced together. Some narrators, like when we do duet, we actually record together in the booth all on one line. ⁓ Which is really fun to play off of each other, but a lot of duet and multicast performances are not done that way and that's the beauty of the mastering and the editing ⁓ which we handle.

⁓ So if it's a multicast, for example, and we have several titles that are seven, eight, nine, ten narrator books, we handle the highlighting in different colors, but we would need from the author as far as prep to answer your question there, just a key, like the key of which narrator for which character and which narrator, if they have a preference, to do any secondary characters. In a duet,

any secondary like side, like there's a waitress. Well, that obviously is going to be done by the narrator who's doing the female POV. In a multicast with 10 narrators, we need to know, hey, who do you want this bus driver to be narrated by? ⁓ And oftentimes in a multicast, let's say there's two POVs and the other, you know, in a 10 narrator and two POVs and the other eight are secondary characters.

Usually any incidental on top of that is divided among them. And we keep the POV narrators as just those characters to have even more differentiation. And then that's where we cast narrators that can really differentiate between characters. So they may be doing, you know, Jim as a secondary character, but then when the bus driver comes in, that bus driver sounds so different from Jim, nobody would even know.

Cassie Newell (42:16)
that it's the same actor or narrator doing it.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (42:20)
So

for those situations, we cast narrators that we know have a really wide palette, wide variety, wide range. And also we really get to know our narrator's voices. So oftentimes when an author comes to us, we already have ideas in our mind of who's for it before we even send out auditions. Just because we really learn their voices and how they do their male and female characters and how they do their accents and their pacing and

Cassie Newell (42:48)
Right

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (42:48)
Because sometimes authors will be like, this is the sound that I'm looking for, but they don't quite necessarily understand or emulate it in words, which I totally get. So we'll take those cues and kind of cast from there.

Cassie Newell (42:54)
Right.

Angela Haas (42:59)
one of my last questions is there's been this surge of. Audiobooks with sound effects and like, and when Cassie and I went to what was 20 books to 50 K now author nation, when I remember when we were walking around the vendor day booths, was one and they had lots of great marketing. was drawn to their booth, but it was an a sci-fi audio book with all the wind and

spaceship and all kinds of things. is that an option? But I've heard that some readers love it and some, or some listeners love it. Some listeners find it so distracting. Like they just can't like focus in on the heart, which is the voices and the story. But is that an option with your production company is like the sound effects, like the full movie. Stuff.

Cassie Newell (43:28)
Choo!

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (43:51)
Well, so I mean, it depends how much they want. Right. really is again, collaborative process. Yeah. It depends how much they want. We have a team who does, who, who adds sound effects. did it for a couple of children's books actually, and they were subtle. And some other books. The author wanted, subtle, you know, and I guess the overall.

Angela Haas (44:07)
Hmm, that would be cool.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (44:17)
kind of a personal preference. And then others will have two versions. They'll have like a graphic audio version of it. Right. And then so that, ⁓ you know, if they're looking to do both where they want one done one way and one done another. And we've, we've done where there's, know, like, like he was saying, more subtle and we've done bigger ones where it's just like little accents. And then there's what others that could be more of a total full production, like more of like a movie, like you're talking about more of like a radio play.

Angela Haas (44:19)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (44:20)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (44:23)
⁓ okay. Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (44:47)
So it really depends on what the author is looking for, but those are all things that we absolutely can provide.

Angela Haas (44:54)
I just, can't like escape into it because I just picture someone in the booth with like the horse clops, like something going ch and like a bell. And like, I, I can't like escape into the sound effects because I seen too many behind the scenes and I'm picturing like, someone crunching a bottle? What is that? You know, I, I, my brain doesn't work that way, but I know a lot of people, especially in thriller, sci-fi people love

Cassie Newell (45:13)
You

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (45:20)
So one that I listened to, we did not produce this, but I listened to it's audible. It's called Lock and Key And that one is sort of the standard by which I judge other ones. the reason, well, the reason for that is because what you're talking about is they did it through binaural recording. What that means is they have a styrofoam head in a room.

Angela Haas (45:35)
Mm.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (45:47)
And they would actually like, this scene takes place in a cabin. So they would take this microphone and the entire cast would be in there. And they would have the microphone in the center and them walking around that would be recorded them banging on stuff, whatever. And they would add some sci-fi, but it was all recorded with them in a room around this microphone. And it sounds incredible because you know, it's that's

Angela Haas (46:02)
How?

That's, would

Cassie Newell (46:11)
That's way

Angela Haas (46:12)
be amazing.

Cassie Newell (46:12)
more theatrical.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (46:12)
That's

another way. That's not done in post-production. That's done actually in the studio, done that way.

Cassie Newell (46:17)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (46:18)
So

Cassie, yours could be like in a kitchen, a bakery or like baking and like oven slamming. Yeah. Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (46:23)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (46:26)
Yeah, smell of vision through audio. That's what I would need.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (46:31)
We charge extra for smelly.

Cassie Newell (46:33)
Yeah, I do!

Angela Haas (46:33)
Thank you.

Cassie Newell (46:37)
Hmm. I love it. I love it.

So great. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. This has been great. I think too, we've got a lot of authors that are, you know, either in the beginning or middle and further on in their career that have kind of dipped their toes in. So this is really great. Thank you so much. So I think it's time for Tales. I couldn't remember. It was like table topics. Tales.

Angela Haas (47:02)
Yeah, we were doing table topics.

We went through those. Now it's Tales but these are just fun questions. This pertains because there was a pet in the pre-production meeting of this podcast. Tell me about any pets you had as a kid.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (47:19)
I had a terrier poodle mix that was an absolute spawn of Satan. My mother loved that dog and I'm like, mom, the dog terrorizes me. It was mean and nasty and liked nobody but mom. So I've been.

Angela Haas (47:37)
my gosh.

Cassie Newell (47:38)
I wonder what that says about your mom thinking of you if

she's like, no, the dog stays.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (47:44)
Pretty much, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're gonna be watching a the channel watching this on. So yeah, that was my...

Angela Haas (47:46)
I mean dogs kids, you know, I could say it. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Obviously.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (47:56)
I probably should have landed this on a more positive note, but she's been a hatter at this stuff a little bit.

Angela Haas (47:57)
Okay. We have a good dog now. Okay. So we'll, mean, I think

the next podcast episode is exploring your childhood trauma with pets and we can just get into that.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (48:08)
Yeah, I'll Heather get second up a little bit.

My mom had a bird when I was an infant, apparently, and it would sit on the back of my baby seat. Whenever I would start to stir, the bird would then start flying around to tell her that I was awake. A sweet little. ⁓ that's so nice. That's so much better than mine.

Cassie Newell (48:28)
That is sweet.

Angela Haas (48:31)
Cassie. ⁓

Cassie Newell (48:33)
my gosh.

I've had so many pets, but I'm going to go with the most exotic and the most crazy story. So I'm an Air Force brat and we were living in Oklahoma. My father rolled off onto the side of the road. We're all in the truck and we're like, what's going on? And he grabs a paper bag and puts something in the paper bag, puts it in the back of the truck with me. And I'm going.

what is in that bag? It's moving. It was a tarantula. So we had a tarantula. We called him creepy crawly. And yeah, I had it from middle school. And we'd let it out and kind of let it walk around. And yeah, so I'm not really afraid of spiders at all. But yeah, we had a pet tarantula of all things.

Angela Haas (49:05)
Mm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (49:24)
How

do you bond with a tarantula? You don't. Let it walk.

Cassie Newell (49:29)
You don't. mean, no,

it's just something to look at. And my dad was just kind of amazed with it. It ate a lot of crickets. That's about all I can tell you there. And my mom was just like, it's in a terrarium. Like, you know, we're not, we're not hanging out all the time with it. So yeah.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (49:40)
a lot of creative work.

Angela Haas (49:48)
we had all kinds of things. Cause my dad, when he was growing up, like he even had a caiman in that his father brought home and it lived in the bathtub. thing. ⁓ a caiman in an alligator, a little came in one of those little. Yeah. So yeah. So they didn't have a cat at that time. because that didn't mix.

Cassie Newell (49:58)
A what?

⁓

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (50:03)
You had a dinosaur. Wow.

Angela Haas (50:10)
But so my dad would bring home, like we had rabbits, had finches and chickadees and all kinds of things. But what I remember the most is have you, do you remember Fraggle Rock? Please say yes. Obviously. Um, so the dog Sprocket on there, we had a dog that looked exactly like Sprocket and we named it Sprocket. And so yeah, like the whiskers and the beard, like it was a

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (50:22)
I am.

Cassie Newell (50:31)
with the little hair that was like...

Angela Haas (50:43)
So it was called Friday, really creative, but yeah, so lots of it.

Heather Costa & Jeffrey Kafer (50:52)
cool.

Cassie Newell (50:54)
I love it. I love it.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Don't forget to give us a review and rating wherever you listen to the podcast. really helps with visibility. Next week, we're doing a special writer beware episode where we discuss scams that are there and how to avoid them until then keep writing, keep doing. Bye.

Angela Haas (51:17)
Bye.