Do people tell you that you have a pleasant voice? Well, you don’t need talent in music to use your voice to make money. Every day, authors are looking for people to record a voice-over version of their book to produce an audiobook.
What’s required
With the advent of the internet, however, people can self-publish their own books. A lot of people want someone else to record the voice over for their book. That’s where you come in. You can do this from your home with some minimal equipment, and make a decent side income. That’s why we chose this for our Side Hustle Master List.
Concept | |
category | Media/Publishing |
Takeaways | Requires licenses prior to recording, audio equipment. |
complexity lowhigh  | Capital Required lowhigh |
skill required lowhigh | time required lowhigh |
return potential lowhigh |
 | learn more |
Audiobook recording setup
What do you need to get going? Well, it’s pretty straight forward. Get a good microphone, recording software and access to a quiet room to record in. That’s it. People like listening to audiobooks that don’t have a lot of background noise, so it might not work if your apartment is right next to the train tracks. Your set up is go to go. Now what? How do you find work? There are actually a few websites that hire freelance voice actors, and one of the websites that specialize in this area is ACX.com.
This site will post voice over jobs by authors or publishers for you to record. You can make money with a royalty share or on a per-finished-hour basis. Payment by per-finished-hour means you get paid an hourly rate that you set for each hour of the finished audiobook. Payment by royalty share means you get a cut of the profits each time the audiobook is sold. There’s a lot to research with this side hustle, so be sure to check out the links below.