A common instance of this is that your screen directions should be, “When you’ve completed the exercise, click the Next button.” If you write, “Click the Next button when you’ve completed the exercise,” at least some participants will click Next before they listen to the rest of the sentence.

<h2><em>eLearning, ESL, How-To-Video, Tutorial . . . </em></h2> <p>Much of this work is long-form and/or on-going work. Therefore clients in this category often pay less than other types of narration. Since recording times tend to be lengthy for this type of work, we encourage you to charge per hour.</p> <h3>"PER HOUR" RATES</h3> <ul class="square"> <li>$50 to $300</li> </ul> <h3>NOTES</h3> <ul class="square"> <li>Be sure to set a 1-hour minimum</li> <li>After the first hour charge in ¼-hour increments</li> <li>Consider offering a lower "bulk rate" If a client hires you for an on-going project (you're guaranteed a new script once a month, once a week, etc.).</li></ul>

An experienced studio with a proven, accurate/productive narrator and engineer will often charge about $200-350 for an hour of finished, edited, professional audio.

It varies according to the project itself, however I usually charge 250 USD for the first hour, 240USD for the second hour, counting down goes till the minimum charge 150USD/H, this is the pricing structure for Arabic voice over in a very professional studio, a professional presenter and voice engineer.

Depending on the length of the script..ie. 5 minutes vs. 1 hour...some narrators charge a flat fee for the first hour (about $250hr depending on your demographic area) with incremental fees for any time over the estimated amount. Of course a 1 hour long course script may take the narrator 2 hours to narrate into final form. I've been producing videos for years and you can easily spend a half hour on a 30 second script.

In the training/e-learning/corporate market you should pay your VO person at least $250 for the first hour, more if a special talent is required. That's just for voicing, mind you. I also have my own home studio (where I also do work for broadcast) and I don't think it's unreasonable for such VO folks to charge something for the post-production and file management activities. At that point you're asking for someone who can voice AND edit. Two services, two charges. Not everyone can do that.

Since this became a general discussion on rate structures, I thought I would chime in that another method exists. You can take a look at the Narrator Files (www.narratorfiles.com). The rate structure is based on a flat $20 per-page fee, the talent is professional and turnaround is 2-3 business days.

I've found it best to determine the finished number of minutes of narration by taking the number of words divided by 160, which is the average rate of narration words per minute.

To calculate finished minutes, I divide the script words by 170wpm. The rate per finished minute for the talents range from $10 to $50 depending on their skill and popularity. The session minimum is generally either $150 or $300 -- as requested by the talent to accommodate their studio and/or editing fees. Most have a home studio and are non-union.

<p>Here are the guidelines we have adopted as a result of this study:</p> <ol> <li> <p>[How much?] We will use audio only when instructionally necessary. </p> </li> <li> <p>[Control] We will make sure students have the ability to turn the sound on and off, and that they know how to do so.</p> </li> <li> <p>[Who?] We will continue to use in-house talent, but other than credits at the end, we will not identify the narrator unless his or her name or title is pertinent for the instruction, e.g., having the Compliance Officer introduce a compliance course. This will prevent having to re-narrate when someone changes position or leaves the company. We may audition to get more suitable voices.</p> </li> <li> <p>[Quality] We only need slightly a higher quality microphone along with a pop filter to raise our technical quality to the practical limit. We also identified a storage room that will double as our sound studio with the use of inexpensive draperies. This location should improve our ability to splice in updates without sounding noticeably different from the original.</p> </li> <li> <p>We will continue to have learners evaluate the use and quality of our narration and make adjustments accordingly.</p></li></ol>

Only 12% said they prefer professional voice talent. A full 85% said the voice only needs to sound good enough to get the point across without having to strain to understand it. Nearly 60% of our employees said “no preference” as long as the voice isn’t irritating to listen to. 40% prefer that the narrator be someone they recognize (i.e., a well-known manager, process owner, or <span class="glossaryTerm" id="/glossary/getGlossaryDefinition.cfm?id=131">SME</span>). A surprising 9% said the narration could be computer-generated as long as it didn’t sound too robot-like.

We wanted to know the preferences of our employees so we conducted a survey. They almost unanimously said that 1) they do not want the entire course to be narrated, 2) they do not want text on the screen read to them word for word, and 3) about two-thirds of the employees want to be able to turn the narration on or off.

35 psychological studies into the human reaction to media all point towards the simple proposition that people react towards media socially even though, at a conscious level, they believe it is not reasonable to do so. They can't help it. In short, people think that computers are people, which makes e-learning work.

As long as a media technology is consistent with social and physical rules, we will accept it. Read that last part again, 'as long as a media technology is consistent with social and physical rules'. If the media technology fails to conform to these human expectations - we will very much not accept it.