Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Karen Commins

10 Takeaways From Johnny Heller’s All Star Narrator Workshop

Some people go to fantasy sports camps where they learn from their favorite All Star players. Last week, I did something similar….except the members of my fantasy All Star team are all award-winning audiobook narrators!

On 26 May 2015, the day before the annual Audio Publishers Association Conference, veteran narrator Johnny Heller hosted a Narrator Workshop in NYC. In addition to Johnny, the All Star presenters were Scott Brick, Simon Vance, Karen White, Jeffrey Kafer, Robert Fass, PJ Ochlan, Carol Monda, and Peter Berkrot. The NY Mets and Yankees could only dream about fielding 9 such talented people at the same time!

Each presenter first shared some thoughts about their work in audiobooks. We then heard terrific discussions on these topics:

  • Web sites and social media (panel with Scott Brick, Jeffrey Kafer, and Karen White)
  • ACX (Mike Stover from ACX and Jeffrey Kafer)
  • Accents and dialects (PJ Ochlan)
  • Romance (perfectly planned topic following lunch! panel with Karen White, Carol Monda, and Jeffrey Kafer)
  • Non-ficion (panel with Robert Fass, Simon Vance, Scott Brick, and Peter Berkrot)
  • Young adult (Carol Monda and Peter Berkrot)

The day ended with a number of personal coaching sessions observed by the entire audience.


I couldn’t possibly do justice to the entire event in this post. Also, in all honesty, I felt that the presenters shared some things that were intended only for the people who were in the room. In fact, Jeffrey Kafer said one particular thing that made the cost of my trip worthwhile. It wouldn’t be fair or right to repeat everything I heard that day. Instead, I will offer 10 of my takeaways from the workshop.

1)  From Scott Brick: “In every line of text that I read, I’m looking for the teachable moment. The teachable moment is when you can reach the one who is disconnected, the one who isn’t paying attention. There’s going to be somebody in the audience who doesn’t care about audiobooks. They’ve never heard one, and they think it’s weird that someone is reading them a story. There will come a moment, somewhere in the text, where you’re going to be able to reach them. For somebody, it’s going to be their very first listen. Unless you do the very best job you possibly can…they may not come back for a second listen. ” Scott doesn’t pay attention to the genre as it tells him nothing. He approaches fiction and non-fiction the same way.

2)  From Robert Fass:  “You’re there to serve the text. Being aware of the difference between serving yourself or something in your spirit other than the text is something that needs to be cultivated. Cultivate your intelligence because you don’t know what kind of book you’re going to get. Every character in even the worst book has to have a full life. Go to museums. Read outside of your assigned book. Do something totally different to expose yourself to different facets [of life]. When you get in there, you’ll say you know what this is about.”

3)  From Carol Monda:  “I’ve been taught that good is the enemy of great. I could spend 15 hours doing an hour of recorded time! I’ve learned you can’t; you have to let it go. If you are mindful, if you are in the moment, if you are connected — that’s the most you can do. [You can make characters more interesting sounding and other technical improvements.] Ultimately, is your gut in it? Your heart in it? Are you earnest about it? That’s the work.”

4)  From Scott Brick:  Every successful actor creates work for themselves. Have something that you can sell through your web site, and use affiliate links.

5)  From PJ Ochlan:  When doing accents and dialects, phonetics only make up 50% of the language. Placement is everything. Practice mimicry and notice how your vocal placement moves.

6)  From Peter Berkrot:  “The inexplicable moment of truth and beauty comes from spontaneity…Sometimes the material isn’t good and you have to find a way to enter that imaginary world and bring it to life….There’s a legacy. The gifts that you receive come through the gifts you give.”

7)  From Karen White:  If you don’t take romance seriously, don’t do it. Let go of the judgment. To play the opposite gender, some adjective can describe the character. Think of that adjective when that character speaks.

8)  From Simon Vance:  Check in with yourself before you start to see how you are feeling. Acknowledge how you’re feeling and let it go because you have to be with the book when you start recording.

9)  From Michael Stover:  ACX has published over 35,000 audiobooks, and around 1000 auditions are uploaded every week. Audible is showing 30% growth each year and now has about 700 employees.

10) From Johnny Heller:   You need to see who you’re talking to in order to pull out the emotion. We can’t speak through a horrible moment. We must live it.


The Johnny Heller All Star Narrator Workshop was a grand slam! I extend my deep gratitude to Johnny for organizing the event (complete with a wonderful catered lunch), the fabulous presenters who were simultaneously entertaining and informative, the narrators with me in the audience who asked such useful and interesting questions, and the narrators who courageously had a coaching session in front of their peers.

If Johnny or someone else organizes a similar event next year in Chicago, I hope to be there!

Do you have any questions or comments about my takeaways from the workshop? Please leave a response on my blog.

Photos: Sincere thanks go to Graeme Spicer, voice talent and managing director of Edge Studios, for graciously sharing his fantastic pictures taken throughout the workshop.
 

TDIMH — Identify With Excellence


This Date In My History is an ongoing series of blog posts taken directly from my private journal entries and are intended to help others along their path. I usually use an entry that is at least 10 years old. However, today is the 4th anniversary of a significant change for me. Perhaps after reading it, you’ll want to make the same change.

Friday 27 May 2011 9:08pm

I received a Joyfully Jobless newsletter from Barbara Winter today. I just signed up for her newsletter recently although I’ve known about her for years.

Today’s was titled “The Company You Keep”. She wrote that John Tesh had received a letter from a 15-year-old boy who wanted to know how to make it in the music business. Tesh

said his best advice to was to listen to great music every day and study what other musicians do.

She also gave the example of Simon Cowell, who said that in his early days,

he was a sponge soaking up the advice of those around him who were more experienced.

She continued:

I’m surprised to discover that everyone isn’t an enthusiastic student of success…Would-be writer is not an active reader. Would-be entrepreneurs have never had a conversation with someone who is successfully self-employed about how they got started…

So where do you want to succeed? Study those who have done what you want to do. Absorb the lessons of success, not failure.

With that in mind, I realize I need and want to be an active audiobook listener. I think the last one I heard was in Hawaii last year [a year before this writing].

I downloaded Anne Frank Remembered narrated by the audiobook master herself, Barbara Rosenblat…I’ll be listening to the phrasing and pauses as much or more than the accent.

I will listen to an audiobook every day on my day job. It’s another good way to prepare for the audiobook success and constant work that is coming to me. I’m also thinking it would be great to listen to a book while swimming. I’ll have to give it a try.

Today’s Take-aways:

1) To quote the fabulous and wise Barbara Winter one more time:  Be a keen observer. Identify with excellence at every turn. It will make a huge difference in your ultimate results.

2) If you want to narrate books, you need to listen to books. If you’re an author who is considering making an audiobook from your text, you need to listen to books.

For the past 4 years, I have listened to an audiobook every day. I have listened to an average of 20 books in each of those years. Since audiobooks are a multitasker’s dream come true, you can listen while doing some other activity. This thread on Goodreads will give you some ideas of how to include audiobooks in your schedule.

3) I do listen to books while swimming, and I highly recommend the Waterfi waterproof Shuffle for that purpose. Since I don’t swim every day, I’ve found that it helps if I already know the story. Gone With the Wind accompanied me in the pool last summer, and I’m determined to finish it this summer! 🙂
 

Setting Sail In Audiobooks: A Video For Authors

In writing a response on author Elizabeth Spann Craig’s blog about tips for success on ACX.com, I realized I had been remiss in adding my latest video to my own blog!

Last fall, I spoke at the Georgia Romance Writers annual conference to help authors get started with creating audiobooks. I recently created a 41-minute video from that presentation which:

  • explores the audiobook landscape (beginning at 2:43)
  • explains reasons every author should produce audiobooks of their books (beginning at 7:23)
  • demonstrates Amazon Whispersync capability between an audiobook and Kindle ebook (beginning at 10:19)
  • offers specific tips about ways to write with audio in mind (beginning at 12:09)
  • advises the viewer about the audiobook production process and gives concrete information about using ACX.com to create an audiobook, including payment for production costs and distribution options (beginning at 22:04)

If you have questions or comments about the video or the audiobook production process, please leave a note for me on the blog!
 

National Tell A Story Day 2015 — DIXIE DIVAS

Today is National Tell A Story Day! In honor of this special day, I want to share the back story about one of my favorite books to narrate.

Like a lot of people, I often download free Kindle books so I can try a new author or genre. My Amazon order history shows me that I downloaded DIXIE DIVAS by Virginia Brown on 15 October 2010.

On Friday, 16 September 2011, I wrote in my journal that I had recorded 3 auditions on ACX.com, one of which was for DIXIE DIVAS. I wrote:

When I read this book, it was a freebie on Kindle. It’s set in Mississippi, and I remember thinking of the character voices for audio when I read the book. I was excited to see this title pop up today. I think it was a new listing and hope I was one of the first in line to audition. I feel I did well.

Two days later, I wrote:

WOOO-HOOO!!!! I was chosen to narrate DIXIE DIVAS from Friday’s audition on ACX!!!

I was (and still am!) so thrilled to see the message! It’s a royalties-only deal, but I’m okay with that. It relaunches my audiobook career in a big way!…I have a message from my book’s rights holder, which says:

Karen! Hello! Author Virginia Brown loves your voice, and we do too! She says your “Bitty” is perfect.

I’ve always said there’s no better praise in this job than when the author loves your interpretation. 🙂

Narrating this book has truly been a life-changing experience!

First, I had not narrated a commercial audiobook for several years, and my soul was yearning to return to audiobook narration. As I wrote in my journal, this book relaunched my audiobook career.

Perhaps even more significantly, I was returning to audiobook narration with a book that I had wanted to narrate even as I read it for pleasure! The story is interesting and funny, and the characters are very real people to me who have become dear friends!

In the intervening 3.5 years since that fateful audition, I’ve voiced 5 books in the DIXIE DIVAS series and eagerly await the next book! One reviewer commented about book 4 that I have:

“…expanded and fleshed out Bitty and Trinket way beyond what even the author had in mind. To read the text of the Divas would only be a shallow and two dimensional personification of Bitty and Trinket, whereas listening to Ms. Commins, they explode into your mind and come to life. Each book in the series is very long with a great deal of detail, again, to read the text could pall and become dull and lengthy but Karen Commins is such an extraordinary reader with true storytelling talent that time flies and you’re totally engrossed listening and visualizing.”

My narration of DIXIE DIVAS and then the other 4 books in this best-selling series has led to a wonderful, ongoing relationship with the publisher, for which I’ve narrated at least a dozen other great books.

The DIXIE DIVAS series also prompted me to have a fun trip last year to Holly Springs, MS for the annual Pilgrimage.

When I first announced the audiobook here on my blog, I wrote:  What could be more fun and intriguing than a murder mystery that starts with a pot of chicken and dumplings?

What happens at a Divas meeting stays at a Divas meeting….unless you pick up one of the audiobooks in this series, starting with book 1, DIXIE DIVAS!


 
DIXIE DIVAS is available for immediate purchase, download, and enjoyment from Amazon and iTunes, or get it for FREE when you start a trial subscription at Audible!
 

Interview with Audiobook Blogger Jennie Mortarotti

Authors and narrators greatly appreciate the people who take the time to listen to our audiobooks and then write thoughtful reviews. In this third installment of the series, I’m excited to interview audiobook blogger Jennie Mortarotti from Narrator Reviews to find out about her review interests and process.

Jennie’s bio:

I live alone with two cats, one cranky and one snooty and two outdoor cats I rescued. I teach photoshop and do computer repairs. I spend some time doing crafts and making costume jewelry. Repurposing things is a fun way to use leftovers and throwaways, so I spend time doing that. I love browsing around in antique and collectible stores.

10 Questions For Jennie

 

1. When did you start listening to audiobooks?

Several years ago I was driving for a delivery company and started listening to audiobooks. Night driving was especially boring and I was thinking of quitting the job, but once I got onto audiobooks, I lasted about 3 more years.

2. What prompted you to start writing audiobook reviews?

I was keeping a Wordpad list of the bad narrators and my thoughts about them, mainly to not waste time or money on books they narrated. I found many readers that were really great so expanded my notes to include them. Information about some of the narrators was pretty scarce, and I wondered if others looked for the same information. So I thought I’d start a blog about them. At first it was mind numbing to figure out how to use the Google Blogger so decided to try WordPress. I googled a narrator, and the blog I didn’t finish came up on the first page of Google. I was surprised to say the least, so, of course I put my mind to figuring it out.

3. Where do you write your reviews? If it’s a public place, why did you choose it? If it’s at home, describe the room and/or stuff on your desk. A picture would be fabulous!

Sometimes I do it in the dining room on the table and most often I am in the bedroom. When the weather is nice I do it outside. I could be anywhere as I have more than one device and use Dropbox so I take notes as I’m listening.

4. How do you decide whether to read a book or listen to it? Do you ever do both for the same book?

If it’s something I’m interested in reading and it’s not on audio I sometimes write the author and ask when they expect to have an audio edition. I have no plans on doing both. I do collect old books, mostly history, and I do read those.

I decide by authors I know, titles that are interesting, book covers that are catchy and also by narrator.

I rely on Audible’s very good book blurbs and excellent samples. I’ve found some new authors and narrators on Audible that I adore.

5. Do you have a go-to genre?

I love cozy mysteries and I like humor, getting both in one book is a bonus. I like silly books like the talking chihuahua Pepe in Waverly Curtis’ Barking Detective Series or Sid the skeleton in Leigh Perry’s Family Skeleton Mysteries. I love Lee Goldberg’s Mr Monk books. For really cozy, cozies I listen to M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth or Agatha Raisin Mysteries.

6. What is your review policy? Do you accept review requests from narrators?

I do accept from narrators, authors and audiobook producers. I like to first listen to the narrator if I don’t know their work, usually by going to Audible or Soundcloud. I don’t listen to books with a lot of erotica in them. I know it’s popular today but I just don’t like listening to details of someone else’s sex life. I don’t care for a lot of swearing that’s overused. I like the Evanovich books, but the gratuitous swearing is hard to listen to. There are some genres I don’t listen to much, but I am open to new things. I’ve found I like steampunk just from accepting a review request. So I’m open to new things.

7. Describe how you approach your reviews. Do you have different criteria for different genres?

I am fair about the reviews. There is no difference as far as criteria goes. If I didn’t like a book I may try two or even three times to listen to it again. It may just be I’m not in the mood right then for that type of book or it might be the narration is off. When I listen, I jot down any particular thoughts I have about the narration and other things of interest.

8. Do you multitask when listening to books? If yes, what else do you do while you listen, and how does listening to books affect the other activity?

That’s the wonderful thing about audiobooks you can do anything while listening. I could be playing games or chatting on facebook, or mopping the floor or combing the cat. I’m always doing something. It can only interfere in other tasks when I can’t hear the book, so it’s other things may interfere in my hearing the book.

9. Looking back through the reviews you’ve written, please share the link(s) of 1-3 that were favorites of yours and explain why they are special to you.

1. Tell Me Where it Hurts By Dr. Nick Trout

http://narratorreviews.blogspot.com/2011/05/simone-vance-narrating-tell-me-where-it.html
I especially love animals and found this a heartwarming and beautiful book.

2. Anne of Green Gables By: L.M. Montgomery

http://narratorreviews.blogspot.com/2014/08/anne-of-green-gables-by-lm-montgomery.html
The Anne books have been favorites of mine since I read my first one when I was about twelve. They are classics in every sense of the word.

3. Snobs By Julian Fellowes
http://narratorreviews.blogspot.com/2012/07/snobs-julian-fellowes-narrator-richard.html
It’s intriguing how society changes over time, and Snobs is wonderful at showing the way people thought and conducted themselves in the past.

10. As a narrator, I sometimes feel I have a spiritual connection to some of the characters in the books. If you were a character in a novel, who would you be, and why?

Muriel Wylie Blanchet in A Curve in Time, as she had a sense of adventure, was daring, and at the same time, sensible. To spend summers with 5 children and a dog sailing in many uncharted waters took skill, and courage. I felt very connected to her as she detailed her adventures. Life did not happen to her, she happened to life.
http://narratorreviews.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-curve-of-time-by-m-wylie-blanchet.html

Connect with Jennie on these sites:

Blog:  http://www.narratorreviews.blogspot.com/ or http://www.narratorreviews.org/
Twitter: @Audiobookguru
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Narrator-Reviews/210535265649857

Thanks, Jennie, for spending some time with me and giving readers a peak inside your world! One thing I’ve discovered through this series is that the highlighted reviews make me want to add books to my queue. For instance, I’m sure I’m not the only Downton Abbey fan to notice a Julian Fellowes book among Jennie’s favorite reviews!

Do you have a question for Jennie? Please leave a comment!