Career Advice

As you work on growing your audiobook narration business, you may be tempted to try to narrate every possible genre and sub-genre. And for some audiobook narrators that works well. They enjoy switching between non-fiction and fiction, from romances to history to self-help to science fiction and so on.

What I’ve found works best for me is exactly the opposite approach. While I like (for my own personal enjoyment) reading well written books in just about every genre, I have specifically chosen to limit my narration work to just non-fiction titles. (Of course that still allows for lots of variety. Biography. History. Self-help. Inspiration. Medical. Science. And loads more sub-genres.)

Now you might think this is a poor decision on my part. After all, there are far more fiction titles published as audiobooks every year than non-fiction. So, why do intentionally I limit my options to 20 percent or less of all the audiobooks published?

For me at least, by limiting my narration focus to a smaller target, I have been able to steadily book work for multiple publishers. Because I’m only willing and available to narrate a limited sub-set of the titles being published, I can occupy a unique spot in the minds of the casting directors of those publishing companies. When a non-fiction title comes along that needs a male narrator with a US English voice and a bass-baritone range, quite a bit of the time I’m going to come to mind, because that’s the only spot I occupy.

Honestly, missing out on all of the other work doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I have chosen to sharpen my focus on exactly what I love to narrate, so I know that pretty much every title that I’m offered is going to be something I will love working on. And I know from experience that I don’t enjoy working on fiction near as much as I do non-fiction.

This plan may or may work equally well (or even better?) for you; because some of how well things will go depends on being able to deliver the performance the publisher is looking for. You also need to do some basic things like meet deadlines, deliver clean unprocessed audio and follow directions. Stuff that you need to do for any publisher in any genre.

I hope you find the path you’re taking in the audiobook world is one you enjoy as much as I enjoy the one I’m on!

When I need to make sure that my voiceover performances stay at the top of their game, one of the most important places I turn is to spend time with the one and only Marice Tobias. She is a wonderfully insightful coach and if you’re an established voiceover performer, she might be the right option for you. Here is her schedule for 2019.

The number of paths to success that are available to you are more wide-ranging than ever. Whatever category of voiceover you fancy, just focus your efforts in that direction each day and you’ll get closer and closer to what you want to accomplish.

But there’s one critical element that you can’t leave out.

If you want to be successful eventually, you can’t quit. (This is true in any area of life, not just voiceover.)

The old saying (at least as I was taught it) goes: you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Not that I’m all that interested in catching flies. Still, the idea is worth thinking about. Being grumpy or unpleasant is rarely a good way to grow your business. Of course, you don’t actually need me to tell you that.

I starting thinking about that old saying when I read Seth Godin’s blog post No one is unreasonable the other day. He makes a really important point. No one gets up in the morning thinking “Today is a great day to be a jerk.” We all have our internal story that justifies or excuses our rude behavior. Because to us, it’s not rude. At least not in the moment. We’re not trying to be rude or unreasonable. But without careful effort, it happens.

In at least one very real sense, it’s hard work being nice; at least being nice consistently. We know that treating our clients well is important. And for that matter not just our clients, but every person with whom we interact both in real life and online. It’s hard work, because it’s very easy to let your guard down for a few minutes. Or to be overwhelmed with the stuff of life. And, indulge in a bit of rudeness or grumpiness or “jerkiness.” Being a consistently nice person means paying attention to how other people are feeling all of the time.

But the payoff for that vigilance and consistently nice behavior can be huge.

I have said for years that “the goose that lays the golden eggs” is repeat business from clients. When you have several clients, each of whom is sending you work regularly, you are well on your way to making a real go of this voiceover business. Keep building that list of repeat clients. Replace those who fall away through the years (it will happen) with new, regular, clients and adding to the list each time you can. Things will work out well for you.

And at least from where I’m standing, a critical component to building such a list of regular clients is being nice. Being someone with whom it is a pleasure to work. I even use the word “love” when I talk about my clients and my relationships with them. I love my clients. By that I mean, I actively look out for their best interests and not just my own. I treat each one with kindness, courtesy and a profound desire to solve their problems and help each one to prosper in her or his own right. That’s what I mean when I talk about being nice.

Everyone is going to have an off day from time to time. Including me. But, be vigilant about being truly nice to every person with whom you come in contact and the world is your oyster.
Oh and one last thing. What I’m talking about here is how to keep yourself from being a dick.

When you learn the answer to a question you have puzzled over for some time, the thing to do is to take action on the answer. Yes, you can always investigate further. (Indeed I would strongly recommend you never just take my word for something. Did into things yourself.) But if you really did find the answer to your question, then it’s time to take action.

If you have watched even just one of the three videos I have shared with you over the last several days, you’ve learned at least some of what you’ve been searching for about how to get started working as an audiobook narrator. There are lots of people who will give you lots of conflicting advice, but Dan O’Day and David H. Lawrence XVII do have a program that works.

As the title of this post makes clear, the time to act is now. Click through to ACXMasterClass.com and sign up to take the class. Or don’t. You get to decide. But if you do sign up, you’re taking positive action in the direction you all ready want to go. (Of course, if you have never wanted to be an audiobook narrator, then please feel free to ignore this post completely.)

You’re also going to learn a way to edit audiobooks that works uniquely well. I know it does because one of my very best friends took this class a year ago and all I have heard since is how this editing method was transformative.

Registration is now open at ACXMasterClass.com. And if you decide to sign up for the ACX MasterClass, Dan and David are offering $1000 worth of person consulting “early action bonuses.” And if you sign up today, you’ll get an extra bonus worth $500. But that’s only if you actually take action. Today.
Again, all of the details are here.

By the way, there’s a comments field near the end of the registration process, I think you’ll find it when you’re at Step 4. If you decide to put my name in that box, Dan and David will pay me a most commission for sending you their way. If you don’t want me to get a commission, then don’t tell them I helped you decide to talk the class. It’s a simple as that.

The third and last of the three videos that Dan O’Day and David H. Lawrence XVII have done in anticipation of their ACX Masterclass for 2016 is now released. It kicks off with a self-assessment quiz for you to take that will help you determine whether or not you should pursue being an audiobook narrator. You can watch this video on Dan’s site by clicking here.

As I said several days ago, my first audiobook narration job was recording the entire Bible, in other words I jumped into the deep end of the pool and had to ‘learn to swim in the audiobook world” the hardest way possible. That is not the right way to get into audiobook narration. Please trust me on this. You do not want to follow in my footsteps.

As you’ll see when you watch Dan and David’s video, there is a much better way. It’s not the only way, but for sure it’s a good way. You’ll see what I mean when you watch.
One more time, I want to mention that if you tell Dan and/or David that you signed up for the ACX Masterclass because of coming through my blog, they will pay me a modest commission. If you don’t want me to get that commission, then don’t mention me or my blog.

Meanwhile, I wish you all the best as you pursue your dream of being an audiobook narrator.

I might be the world’s worst golfer. If not, I’m certainly in the bottom 10 of all time. Don’t believe me? I once 20 putted a green. Yes, my friends with whom I was playing at the time, were very patient with me.

None of this has anything to do with voiceover, of course; but my friend Jeffrey Tobin draws a very interesting analogy between the business world and the world of golf in his recent post Practice Makes Par-fect. The translation to our world of voiceover should be pretty clear.

I warmly commend Jeff’s post to you as a good place to kick off your thinking, while we’re still in the first month of this new year of 2016, about moving forward in your voiceover business. After all, staying in the same place is most certainly not making progress. It’s at best, staying in one place; more probably while everyone else is making progress, you are losing ground.

What are the specific, measurable goals you have or need to set for yourself? Who do you know with whom you can establish an accountability relationship? (She or he doesn’t need to be in the same city as you. This can be done over Skype or the phone.) Once you’ve set up that relationship, and established a pattern to when and where you are going to meet, it’s just a matter of (returning to a theme here) doing the thing.

Think about it. Plan for it. I would even encourage you to pray about it. But then, put it in practice.

By the way, this accountability relationship doesn’t have to be limited to one person. Both Faffcon and WoVO provide means to join a group who will help you report on and evaluate your progress.

Star Wars fans will recognize the title of this post as a partial quote from a line Yoda says to Luke Skywalker. It’s relevant to what I’m writing today because you can spend all the time you want thinking about the idea of narrating audiobooks, but until you actually take steps to be a narrator, to actually do the thing, you’re going to stay stuck and frustrated and “trying.”

You’ll find all kinds of advice from many different sources about how best to pursue your goal of being an audiobook narrator. But, if you’ll take the time to watch the second video from Dan O’Day introducing the ACX Masterclass he and David H. Lawrence XVII are teaching again this year, and then follow through on what you learn in this video, you’ll be much closer to your goal that you were when you started reading this post.

By the way, in this video Dan offers some very good news for narrators in the UK along with a bunch of other helpful information and a whole bunch of testimonials from people who have taken Dan and David’s ACX Masterclass.

Now, as I mentioned when I wrote about Dan’s first video this year, he’s going to pay me a modest commission if you watch this new video on the ACX Masterclass, and then end up joining this year’s class. So, if you don’t want me to get a commission, don’t mention that you learned about it from me.

Meanwhile, I wish you well as you go from “trying” to “doing.”

(edited to fix broken URL links)

Resilience might be the single most important thing that has to be true about you if you are going to succeed in voiceover. This post, by the way, was prompted by a Seth Godin blog post from a few days ago, and my thoughts have been percolating on the back burner ever since.

I was once asked by an interviewer what I thought was the single biggest key to success in voiceover. My answer?

Don’t quit.

If you are going to be successful in pursuing your goal of working full-time in voiceover, the one thing you cannot do is quit. You have to keep driving toward that goal. And past it. That’s not a guarantee of success. No one can give you that. You might get there eventually (it took me 26 years!) or you might not. But you for sure will not get there if you quit.

Which is where resilience comes in. Your journey will have its  ups and downs. Lots of downs. For a long time. And if you can’t shake off the disappointment and bounce back and get right back on the road to your goal, you will end up quitting. If you are not resilient, if you are no good at bouncing back from disappointment, then do quit. Now. Save yourself a world of heartache. Find something else you enjoy doing and pursue that.

But, if you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get right back on the road to your goal of working full-time in voiceover … then you just might make it. And very likely it will take you a lot less than the 26 years it took me.

I don’t recommend starting your audiobook journey the way I did. While I have now narrated somewhat over 100 audiobooks, my first narration job was for Thomas Nelson Publishers. If you have never heard of them, they are the world’s largest publisher of English language Bibles. And yes, I narrated the Bible for them. The whole thing. All 774,000 words. In other words, I jumped into the deep end of the pool and learned to swim (as it were) the hard way.

With half of the first month of 2016 almost completed, where are you in your quest to become an audiobook narrator? If this is something you’re thinking about, then you might want to take a few minutes to check out a video from Dan O’Day called The 3 Biggest Roadblocks to having a successful audiobook career. If you watch Dan’s video you’re going to get advice that will guide you on a journey that will be much more appealing and beneficial for you than the path I took.

In fact, I will tell you honestly that I wish the kind of information Dan is providing in his video was available to me back when I was starting. I’m pretty sure I could have avoided a bunch of mistakes.

Now, it’s important for you to know that if you mention to Dan that you have decided to watch his video on The 3 Biggest Roadblocks to audiobook narrator success because you read about it here, I may receive a modest commission. I mention this because it’s vitally important to me that I am always transparent about anything that happens on this blog that could result in income to me. I didn’t start this blog over 10 years ago as a way to troll for money from you, my readers and I won’t let it go that way now.
On the other hand, I do want to pass along information I think is valuable and worthwhile. Thus this post and a few others you’ll see in the coming days. Meanwhile, I wish you all the best and you continue to pursue your goals.

Do you ever take a moment to think about how fragile is the thread on which your (my) voiceover business hangs? By using that metaphor I am not trying to imply that everything is about to collapse on you, but here’s reality. Any one of us could wake up tomorrow unable to speak. We could be involved in an accident that takes away our ability to see. Or walk. Thousands upon thousands of people, some of whom we know personally, are fighting cancer or heart disease or a myriad of other challenges.

I don’t mean for this post to be such a downer. I simply want to encourage you to take a moment to feel the fear as Seth Godin reminds us in his post this morning.

By taking a moment to feel that fear, we can turn our attention to the important matters that are buried in the everyday flurry of our lives.

Here’s an example, I was thinking over the weekend about a former client. Someone with whom I worked on a regular basis for several years. I did a search in my email archives and discovered to my shame that I haven’t connected with this guy in 3 years. So, I reached out to him with an email this weekend. Just checking to see if all is well with him.

Staying in touch with clients you value and who value you, this is one of the most important things we do. Yet, in the hustle of daily activity it’s easy to let something like that slip. For 3 years!

Now, is this fellow going to become a client again? I have no idea. But, what’s important is to stay in touch unless and until we’re told to “go away and don’t bother me again.”
As I’m writing this post, I’m also remembering another potential client who asked me to touch base with him once a month because he’s confident he’ll have something for me, but needs a reminder so when that opportunity is ready he’ll remember to reach out to me.

Take a few minutes to feel the fear that is holding you back, the fear that is buried in the busyness of life. And then turn your attention to the important matters that come to mind as a result. And have a great week!

It’s been just under 2 months since my last post. I have no excuse for my neglect, but today is a new day so here we go.
I was reading a blog post a few days ago written by my friend Amy Dallis called The Secret of Micro Movements. (Amy, her daughter Carissa and her husband Tom write a blog called Creative Crosswalk that’s well worth your time.)

Amy’s comments in that blog post reminded me of a Monday Morning Memo by Roy H. Williams from over 10 years ago. It’s called Exponential Little Bits.
Both of these point out one simple fact. If you take even a tiny step toward the goal you are trying to reach, every day, you will be amazed at the kind of progress you make. Not tomorrow. Not even next week. But stick with it, making those little steps day after day and before long you’ll look back and realize you’re much further along toward your goal than you thought you ever could be.

I am taking this advice to heart. Starting today.

No matter how well things are going right now, change happens. Things that are hot as can be, eventually cool. Clients leave. Or go out of business. Or get bought out by some company with whom you don’t have a relationship. The landscape of the voiceover world continues to shift. Which means that if you stop making progress toward your goals, stop cultivating new clients, just coast for a little while … things can get very tough, very quickly.
But they don’t have to. With the power of micro movements, or if you prefer, exponential little bits, coupled with persistence progress is closer than you think.

I’ve written many times over the last few years about what a transformative experience Faffcon has been and continues to be. As the unconference for working pro voiceover talent, it’s a gathering of people who are serious about their work in voiceover, but who also understand how to have fun. I’ve been to every one and will be there in Tucson, AZ in September for number 7.

The thing is, Faffcon is hard to get in to. There’s a limit of 100 who are allowed to register each time. You have to be working pro voice talent and pass the vetting process. It sells out lightning fast. (Faffcon 7 was full before the pre-registration for those who had all ready reserved their hotel rooms was done.)

About a year and a half ago, the first Faff Camp was held in Charlotte, NC. Unlike Faffcon, Faff Camp has no limit on the number of people who can attend and while working pro voices are encouraged to attend, you can be as new to voiceover as can be and still attend Faff Camp. In fact, there’s a track specifically for those just getting started.

I was there in Charlotte and I will tell you honestly I wasn’t sure beforehand if I would like it. I love the Faffcon experience so much, I wasn’t sure if Faff Camp would reflect the experience I had grown to love so much. But it did. Wonderfully. My expectations were blown away.

However, Faff Camp, as fun as it was, represented a huge risk. Faff Camp needed to have a certain number of people attend the event in order to just break even. It was great fun, an excellent learning experience, but for those in charge it was a significant challenge. So, no one knew if there would ever be a second Faff Camp.

The good news is (as you may have all ready heard) there is going to be a Faff Camp II, this time in San Antonio, TX, March 20 – 22, 2015. The initial Kickstarter-style registration is going on now. If enough people register by Friday of this week (yes, that’s just a couple of days away) then Faff Camp II will happen. If enough don’t register, then everyone gets a refund and Faff Camp II doesn’t happen.

So, here’s the deal. If you would like to get a $25 discount off the initial registration price of $375, use this promo code: VT9071887

When you do, you’ll get $25 off your registration and I will receive a $25 rebate off of mine. Just go to the Faff Camp II site and click the orange “Register!” button. I hope to see you in San Antonio next March!

By the way, as an additional incentive, while this initial registration is $375, that fee will rise to $449 on July 12, 2014. So, click one of the Faff Camp II links above, put in that promo code and I look forward to seeing you there!

Whether you have seen the news somewhere else your not, I want to be sure to let you know that Faffcon 7 is coming September 18-21, 2014 in Tucson, AZ. All the details are on the Faffcon site. See you in Tucson in September!