TJ Richards is an audiobook narrator with a love for diverse LGBT+ fiction and damned fine stories!  She is also an LGBT+ activist, National Co-Chair of the LGBT+ Embrace Network, a Trustee for Q:Alliance and on the founding committee for RoundabOUT; Milton Keynes' Inter Company LGBT+ Network.  A busy woman indeed!

Audiobooks

When I was a kid, there wasn’t much easily available fiction that featured people like me - so as an adult I feel it’s vital to ensure that there’s more LGBTQ+ fiction available in the audio realm than ever before. That’s why I only produce LGBTQ+ fiction titles - with the exception of some of the great authors I’ve already worked with in the past. But even in these cases, it’s important that the fiction is centered on strong female leads who serve as role models for how to kick ass and get stuff done.

You can contract my services via ACX (and now also under Findaway Voices) under one of three sets of terms:

Per Finished Hour (PFH) Projects

  • A fee of £200 GBP per hour of finished audio is paid prior to submission of the audio files (1/3 deposit up front)

  • Editing and mastering is subcontracted out to an experienced and professional audiobook engineer for a high quality finish and a quicker turn around.

    • Per finished hour is calculated by taking the total words in your manuscript and dividing them by 9000 (the average number of words a narrator can read aloud in an hour) and then rounding up to the nearest whole hour. So an 80,000 word manuscript would work out to 8.8, and be rounded up to 9 finished hours.

Hybrid Projects

  • A fee of £60 GBP per finished hour is paid in two instalments (half up front and half on delivery of completed audio), and used to cover expenses for sending the raw audio to a professional studio for editing.

    • This is paid outside of the ACX system as it isn’t currently set up to handle Hybrid arrangements. See above for how to work out the PFH length of your manuscript.

  • We also split the royalties of the sales as per the standard ACX Royalty Share terms

  • Mastering of the audio files is done by myself, via a professionally set up suite of software plugins.

Royalty Share (RS) Projects

  • There is no fee for these projects, however we will share the royalties of the sale of each book 50/50 for the next 7 years.

  • Calculation and payment of the royalties is managed by Audible / ACX and paid directly into my account

  • Because there is no payment up front, these projects take considerably longer. This is because all editing, proofing, and mastering is done by myself and I can’t pay to outsource it. There is a risk here, as you know that when editing / proofing your own work you are bound to miss things. I will do my best to make sure that I don’t, but small mistakes are likely to slip through.

  • Also because there is no payment up front, if I do take on a Hybrid or PFH project (one that pays me up front), these projects will go to the front of the queue, and may add a delay on to any Royalty Share projects I am currently working on. This is because I have bills to pay and need to be realistic, and it’s important that we are all clear on that.