Every little bit I can learn from Andi is a win! She is not kidding about consistency. Narrating an audiobook is a marathon and takes a special kind of person with exquisite stamina and attention to detail in addition to the obvious assets of advanced reading and comprehension ability and a pleasant-sounding voice. It’s a long road to learning the art and technical aspects and so rewarding to see improvement from project to project.
Tag: narration
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Back in the Studio
Phase two of my audiobook narration and production journey is well underway. I had a long pause as we moved from Virginia Beach, VA back to Las Vegas, NV. Now that I feel settled in, I’m ready to roll with audiobooks again. Of course, I’ve continued learning the skill set and the industry while I was on hiatus. I set up my studio in my new home. I’ve re-designed my website. I’ve completed an official audiobook production and narration training course or two, and I’ve continued to keep up with ACX University, all while listening to several excellent audiobooks such as this one. All good and fine but nothing compares with getting back in the studio!
Yesterday, I connected a couple of my newest additions: a Shure high pass filter and a new-to-me but used microphone. The high pass filter is an idea I picked up from George the Tech. He strongly recommends this for all Neuman microphones. That caught my eye because I picked up a Neumann TLM 102 in 2018. It’s a sweet little mic but for my voice, it isn’t the best for audiobook narration. It’s too bright on me. The high pass filter does improve my ability to work with it in my home studio but doesn’t fix the brightness issue. I plan to keep the mic anyway and use it as a backup mic and maybe for commercial spots that could come up or maybe even for visitors to my studio.
The used microphone I purchased is an MXL 89. I did a short comparison test yesterday and the difference was subtle to those I asked for their opinion so far. It is subtle to me, too, but it makes a big difference in listening to audiobook narration for hours on end. Here is the little side-by-side test where I read a line or two from Steven Forrest’s book The Inner Sky (my favorite book of all time at the moment). It is unedited and unprocessed so that you can just hear the two mics plainly. The only thing in play is the high-pass filter.
What do you think? Do you appreciate any difference or like one better than the other?
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This Narrating Thing
I began narrating books as a result of publishing my humble little personal development book in 2016. During the process of making it into an audiobook (which I had to have because I love, love, love audiobooks), I felt inspired to create a narrator profile on ACX. It was something I had been pondering for a while so I took the leap. Since then I’ve had fortunate experiences, studied the craft, and consulted with coaches to accelerate my progress.
When I first decided to give narrating a try, I thought it would be so easy, especially if I just focused on nonfiction. I figured there was too much competition for narrators who wanted to read fiction, plus I thought nonfiction suited my personality and voice better. I’ve been known to take everything seriously and I also choose to mostly read nonfiction on my own so nonfiction narration seemed like a good match in many ways.
Then, out of the blue just a couple months into narrating, I received an invitation to audition for a fiction title. The invitation was from Warren Adler’s team. He is a prolific and well-established writer. They were looking for ladies to narrate his Fiona Fitzgerald Mystery Series. There were 9 books in the series at the time and some past inklings of it being turned into a TV series. Oh my stars, that all sent me reeling! I followed up on the invitation with an explanation of how I hadn’t narrated fiction before and received encouragement back to give it a go. So I figured, “What the heck?” I did the audition and received an offer back along with more encouragement.
As it turns out, I do have a friend in acting, so I gave him a call. He had some advice to get me started, and he tapped into his network to help me find a voice acting coach.
Boy did I luck out! Coach Nokes brought me along quickly. After a few coaching sessions not only did I notice a big improvement in my understanding of narration and what my voice can do but also my confidence grew. Coach Nokes can interpret a script and nail character traits and how to reflect that in the voice in seconds. He also had numerous dialects at the tip of his tongue. It’s more than a little impressive.
From there, I kept plugging along. I posted new samples to my ACX profile. Nearly weekly I was invited to audition for projects or just given royalty deal offers straight out the gate. I researched each opportunity by looking for books that had already done well in paperback or ebook formats. I checked reviews and looked up the web presence of the authors who contacted me. I searched open auditions on ACX periodically and submitted when I found something that I thought would be a good fit.
I learned very quickly to choose carefully because completing an 8-10 hour audiobook project is a marathon that requires many hours and great attention to detail. It’s also risky when agreeing to royalty share deals since you may or may not earn back what you put into it. Maybe I’m a gambler at heart but royalty share deals still appeal to me.
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Wild Oats Audiobook is Live
I’m so pleased to announce that the audiobook Wild Oats by Pamela Morsi has launched! It went live on Audible*, Amazon, and iTunes (search by title) around June 1 and almost 30 copies have sold to date. It’s off to a good start!
This project was such a fun one for me. I appreciate Pamela’s writing and story weaving. Plus I get to use my own dialect for a change! The characters are down to earth yet interesting. This story drew me in quickly. I’m not usually a historical romance fan necessarily but this one caught my attention because the setting is my old stomping grounds, Oklahoma, just before statehood.
The background story Pam talked about in her launch day newsletter added a whole other layer of interest too. I always love to hear about an author’s story inspiration. Turns out that for Wild Oats she was trying to break the romance genre by creating a story with the anti-romance-book-hero as the hero. LOL! That plan makes for some not-so-suave moments that are endearing and funny.
Listen in and be sure to pick it up soon if you like it. Enjoy!
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June is Audiobook Month
June is audiobook month! This is a great time to try out an audiobook if you haven’t already. Of course, many of you have as Audio Publisher’s Association annual report highlighted another year of amazing growth in audiobook sales for 2016, up another 33%.
You may find audiobooks featured in your local library this month and there are lots of activities online, of course. There is an audiobook blog tour going on throughout June. By visiting the links to the blogs featured in the blog tour, you’re sure to find some great listens!
Audiobook narrators are being featured a lot this month too. Warren Adler is doing a narrator feature for audiobook month and I was lucky enough to get interviewed there as the narrator of two books in his Fiona Fitzgerald Mystery Series. As luck would have it, this is also the month I was featured in Pamela Morsi’s newsletter for the release of her new audiobook, Wild Oats.
As for myself, boy do I love audiobooks! I have almost 300 audiobooks in my collection and I’ve been listening for years before I started narrating. I savor the times of the day when I get to listen, like when I’m doing laundry or cleaning or exercising or driving.
The number of awesome audiobooks out there to enjoy can be overwhelming for sure. Especially when you may be learning to listen from your phone at the same time. Let me tell you an easy way to get started. The good news is you can try Audible and get two free audiobooks (affiliate link). Then download the Audible App to easily listen on your phone, tablet, or computer.
Maybe you will like one of my top five recommendations below and maybe one that I narrated?
#1 Dark Desires After Dusk by Kresley Cole
#2 The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin
#3 The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes
#4 Karma by JC Andrijeski
#5 How to Bake Pi
