Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Karen Commins

My Recommended Classes, Audition Criteria and Other Advice

Being interviewed makes me feel like a celebrity on the red carpet!


Earlier this week, audiobook narrator Wendy Pitts interviewed me on her blog A Girl and Her Microphone.

She asked 10 engaging questions, such as #7: Are there any books, webinars, classes, or conventions you have found particularly helpful and informative?

I responded with a mini resource list of links in the following categories:

  • Narration
  • Pro Tools
  • Voiceover books
  • The best marketing book
  • Time Management
  • Making a Fast Decision
  • How to Use a Journal
  • How to Become BETTER at Anything
  • Conferences

In other answers, I offered my advice and links on selecting books for audition and narration (question 4), as well as a FREE and fabulous book to help you figure out what’s important to you and get it into your life (question 8). I hope you’ll check out the interview and let me know whether you found the links to be helpful.

Do you have a question you’d like to ask me? If so, please leave a comment!
 

Interview with Audiobook Blogger Rebecca M. Douglass

Authors and narrators greatly appreciate the people who take the time to listen to our audiobooks and then write thoughtful reviews. In this second installment of the series, I’m excited to interview audiobook blogger Rebecca M. Douglass from The Ninja Librarian to find out about her review interests and process.

Rebecca’s Bio:

Rebecca M. Douglass is an author and blogger with eclectic tastes, from children’s books to murder mysteries and non-fiction examinations of the natural world. She writes middle-grade fiction and adult murder mysteries and promotes her own work and that of other writers on her blog, largely in the form of reviews of anything and (nearly) everything she reads. Her own work maintains a humorous touch, whether it is the tall tales of the Ninja Librarian books or the absurdities of life on Pismawallops Island in Death By Ice Cream, or the wide variety of short stories published on her blog. Ms. Douglass writes from her home near San Francisco, which she shares with her husband and two teenaged sons, which is enough to drive anyone to invent new worlds to inhabit.

10 Questions For Rebecca

 

1. When did you start listening to audiobooks?

I have been listening to audiobooks for a long time, and don’t recall just when I started. I’m sure it’s been at least a dozen years. I listen when exercising, or when doing housework, which I detest but will do for the sake of continuing to listen to a good story. I began listening back in the days of cassette tapes and then CDs. My itty bitty MP3 player is a huge improvement!

2. What prompted you to start writing audiobook reviews?

I’ve been writing reviews for a couple of years now, and it never occurred to me to make a distinction between books I read and books I listened to, so I just naturally reviewed audiobooks. But I soon realized that I did need to comment, at least, when I’d used the audiobook, and that a mention of the quality of the audio and narration would be helpful to listeners. So I have gradually begun making two-pronged audio reviews.

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!

I do almost all my writing at home, and all I will say about my desk is that I share it with my 15-year-old son…and he nags me to clean up my side of it. We have a somewhat chaotic little den (less chaotic since the teen cleaned it up recently), which contains a huge partner desk and a bunch of bookcases, full of classics, my favorite children’s books, and books on writing. I have a lot of inspirational quotes from author Chuck Wendig on my wall, because even though they tend to be profane, they are also profound. But I’m not sharing a picture of my chaos. No way.

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

I usually pick my audiobooks from whatever I stumble on in the library catalog, though sometimes I will select something because I love the narrator or because it’s the only copy available at the moment when I want it. I do often listen to and read the same book, though not at the same time—I might choose to listen to something I have enjoyed in the past, just to get a different take on it, or I might find and read a book I’ve listened to because I want to pick up what I might have missed when distracted while listening. I find that books are very different when read or heard.

5. Do you have a go-to genre?

Cozy mysteries form a large part of what I listen to, and I also do a lot of middle-grade books, though they can be hard to find.

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

I do accept review requests, but I probably turn down more than I accept. I need to actually want to read the book, as I am foremost a writer of fiction, and my reading is for pleasure, when it’s not for research or to improve my craft. So I try to be sure that my reviewing and blogging don’t become either a burden or the focus of my work. I do not accept payment for reviews (I do accept review copies of books), and I do not do “review exchanges.” A lot of what I think about reviewing is covered in a blog post from October 2013: http://www.ninjalibrarian.com/2013/10/reviews-and-review-policy.html.

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

I try to review with both an honest appraisal of how I liked the work and a more objective assessment of strengths and weaknesses, and a final recommendation for who might like the work. I hold all works to a high standard of writing, but I do consider genre. I don’t expect profundity from a children’s book full of goofy humor and silly situations, but I do expect things to make sense in their own goofy way. I have been gradually developing my format, but I try to always include a cover image, the author (and narrator or illustrator if appropriate) info, publication info, and a summary of the story, either my own or the publisher’s summary. Then I review, and end with a recommendation. I have stopped assigning “stars” unless I am publishing a review somewhere like Amazon that requires it, because I’d rather just talk about the book, the good, bad and indifferent, and let the reader judge from that.

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?

As I mentioned above, I like to listen to books while working out or doing housework (or yard work)—anything that requires the use of my body but not much of my brain. I can’t just sit and listen to a book, so if I’m totally caught up in a book and don’t want to quit, I will invent tasks, do handwork, etc., to keep listening! I have been known to stop short while running because something I’m listening to has made me laugh too hard to keep going, so I guess you could say that listening to book can affect what I’m doing!

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.

These are more about books that I particularly like, than reviews that I love. But I include here a range of review styles, to show what I may do.

Dana Stabenow, Restless in the Grave http://www.ninjalibrarian.com/2014/08/mystery-monday-restless-in-grave-by.html

This review handles a book well into a series, and talks about my issues with the series as well as why I like it and keep reading, and what a new reader might do.

Ivan Doig, Dancing at the Rascal Fair http://www.ninjalibrarian.com/2014/12/audiobook-review-dancing-at-rascal-fair.html

This is a fairly brief review, but one of my favorite books. I was delighted to find many of Doig’s books on audio only recently, and to find that his fantastic writing is enhanced by the excellent narrators.

And a less conventional review, of Brian Jacques’ Redwall books in general, and on audio in particular: http://www.ninjalibrarian.com/2014/11/redwall-audio.html

This review in part sprang from a discussion of kids’ audio books, and an issue I’d had listening to these long ago in the car.

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?

I’d probably have to be Jo March or Anne Shirley! I’d like to believe I’m the Ninja Librarian, but the fact is that he is far wiser than I am. It is funny—when I think about that, I always end up going back to the classics from my childhood.

Connect with Rebecca on these sites:

Blog: www.ninjalibrarian.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ninja-Librarian/305808032816136
Twitter: I Tweet as Douglass_RM, when the spirit moves me, which it mostly doesn’t.

Thanks, Rebecca, for spending some time with us in this great interview! Do you have a question or comment for Rebecca? Please leave a comment on the blog!
 

Dual Gender Narrations in Audiobooks

An audiobook listener on Goodreads wrote recently:

“I’m hoping the powers-that-be realize this (and care) and we’ll see more audiobooks being narrated by dual-gender narrators.

And I don’t mean simply dividing up the chapters between a male and female narrator to read…I like the dialogue narrated by the relevant gender.”

I can tell you why most books have a solo narrator: COST.

I produced and co-narrated the 4-book Blue Suede Memphis mystery series (fun, cozy mysteries with romantic elements) where I voiced the narrative and all of the female parts, and a male actor (my husband Drew!) voiced all of the male parts — a narration style known as DUET.

A DUAL narration occurs where 2 actors narrate all the characters’ lines in the chapters associated with their main characters’ points of view.

While I love the sound of the finished product and agree that having both genders makes the production so much more interesting, it’s a very time-consuming and tedious process to create an audiobook this way.

First, you have to have production rights to even be able to do a multi-voice production. One mid-size publisher told me that we couldn’t use 2 voices on a particular book because they didn’t have the production rights for it. I guess the production rights allow you to make a play or movie from the book’s text and are somehow different than audio rights.

Next, you cast the 2 actors and must coordinate their recording schedules. If I weren’t married to my co-star, the scheduling step alone could have derailed the production. The schedule is less of a consideration when the narrators are reading whole chapters instead of performing dialogue.

Once the schedule is worked out, you turn to the cost of studio time, both for the recording and the editing/mastering. The Big 5 publishers can afford real-time studio hours in big cities for their high-profile, bestselling titles. Everyone else — small and mid-size publishers and indie authors — usually looks to control costs by casting narrators with home studios. Depending on the project, the editing might be done by the publisher, the narrator, or an editor sub-contracted by the narrator.

Normally, my rule of thumb is that it takes 2 hours in real time to record 1 finished hour and 3 hours in real time to proof/edit/master for 1 finished hour. With the books in this series, we spent at least an additional hour on both phases. A book that runs 10 hours with 1 narrator (or 2 or more narrators who read different chapters) therefore might require 50 hours in real time to record and edit. The same book with 2 narrators and interspersed dialogue might require 70 hours of production time.

Studio time isn’t the only cost consideration. I also have the opportunity cost of other projects or promotion that I can’t do when an audiobook requires more time than usual to complete.

In this series, I did all of the narrative portions and the female voices. I left airtime in the dialogue where male characters spoke. As Drew directed me, he mouthed his lines and cued me in for my next sentence.

Then, we switched places; I directed him as we recorded his parts:

  • I cued him by playing my audio in his headphones.
  • I pressed Record in the software.
  • He delivered his lines. Everything true of solo narration is true here, too, as far as re-recording to fix inflection, accent, flubs, etc. In fact, it may be harder to be the 2nd person because you’re kind of coming into the dialogue cold. I think that person has to work harder to connect to the text because they weren’t immersed in the story to that point.
  • I stopped recording before he spoke over my next line.
  • Sometimes we originally left too much time for his parts, sometimes not enough. Sometimes his delivery caused me go back to my part and re-do it to change some nuance.

As a result, editing the dialogue is EXTREMELY time-consuming. When I am narrating all voices, as is customary, I naturally leave the appropriate amount of time between characters. The editor is not constantly adjusting the timing to make the conversations flow smoothly and naturally. In these productions with true M/F dialogue, the editor’s job was even tougher given the timing issues.

Due to the considerable amount of time needed for this kind of production, I’m not too eager to produce another one. Instead, I’m looking for dual narration projects with 2-3 1st person POVs (romance or mystery) where each narrator is responsible for entire chapters.

Do you like hearing books with 2 narrators? Do you know of a book for which you’d like to hear a dual narration in the audiobook? Please leave a note in the comments!

Audiobook Releases Fall 2014

What would you do if you received a $20 bill on which someone had written “For a good time, call Kit” and a phone number?

Sherry Spencer decides that she’ll call Kit and let her know that her phone number was being circulated along with the currency. Any woman would want to know that, right?

Only…to Sherry’s shock, Kit isn’t a woman, but a man. And he’s not exactly thrilled to hear her news or anxious to retrieve the bill from her.

The next day, she’s not exactly thrilled to see Kit again. I won’t say how or where they re-establish their acquaintance because I don’t want to give too much away!

For A Good Time, Call by Trish Jensen is a sweet romance that runs 5 hours and 38 minutes. It read like all of my favorite RomCom movies and left me smiling at the perfect HEA ending! I hope you’ll enjoy it, too!


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes

Here’s a different scenario:  What would you do if you were the last person left on Earth following a nuclear war?

For 19-year-old Lita Day, the choice is simple: continue singing to the TV camera every night in the empty Copa.

Her husband Bill had said a man might hear her and would come to her. However, Lita was shocked by the visitors who actually showed up.

Eddie For Short is a 41-minute short story by prolific American science fiction writer Wallace West that is sure to give you something to think about!


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes

In October, I released a couple of cozy mysteries. The first was Return To Fender by Virginia Brown.

This fun book is the 4th in the Blue Suede Memphis Mysteries and is set in the week or so approaching Halloween. In fact, one of the biggest scenes in the book occurs at a Halloween party.

One of the leading drag queens in Memphis asks our heroine Harley Davidson (yep, that’s her name!) to find out who is trying to kill him. Harley isn’t a detective. She’s a tour guide at Memphis Tour Tyme.

Her friend and co-worker Thomas “Tootsie” Rowell is adept with computers and helps her get information. Her former boyfriend Bobby and current boyfriend Mike — both police officers — try in vain to convince her that she should leave the investigations to them.

Whoever it is thinks Harley is getting a little to close to the action and tells her to back off — or else.

As with the first 3 books in this series, Drew Commins, the hero of my life story, voices all of the male parts in this book, which runs 9 hours and 44 minutes.


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes 

Next came Yip/Tuck , book #4 in the Pampered Pets fun, cozy mystery series written by Sparkle Abbey. Each book in this series alternates between the POVs of 2 cousins, pet therapist Carolina LaMont and pet boutique owner Melinda Langston. This time, it’s Mel’s turn to tell the story.

She and her best friend Darby find Dr. Jack O’Doggle, one of Laguna’s best known plastic surgeons, dead outside of her Bow Wow Boutique. In trying to unravel the mystery of his bizarre death and find his killer, they learn most interesting secrets about several people in town.

Meanwhile, in a sub-plot, Mel and Caro are fighting over a brooch left by their grandmother to her “favorite granddaughter”. Naturally, each thinks she is the granddaughter in question, so they keep stealing the brooch from each other. We’re in on the fun as Mel plots and schemes about getting the brooch back in her possession!

The story has a lot of charm and humor. I especially enjoyed narrating Betty Foxx’s lines because Betty White seems to have been the model for this character.

Yip/Tuck is set at Christmastime and runs 5 hours 15 minutes, making this a perfect companion on holiday trips to see friends and family!


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes

December saw 2 releases: one of mine, and one for my husband Drew, which I directed.

Dead In Boca by Miriam Auerbach is audiobook #3 in the Dirty Harriet cozy mysteries.

In Boca Raton, Florida, Junior Castellano, a big-time land developer, hires PI Harriet Horowitz to find the silver-haired gigolo who broke Mama Castellano’s heart.

Simple enough, until the Boca police find Junior bulldozed at one of his construction sites. Was Junior killed by his mother’s con man? Or by a bitter ex-wife or spurned ex-girlfriend? Maybe by his estranged sons got the old man out of the picture for good.

The book has lots of laughs during its 6 hours and 49 minutes. I particularly enjoyed Harriet’s HELP test — the Horowitz Ersatz Lovers Profile — in which Harriet asked funny questions to determine whether Junior’s mama, Miss Lil, was getting scammed.


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes

After the success of Plague, a story about a terrorist unleashing the Ebola virus in Atlanta, Drew was excited to narrate H. W. “Buzz” Bernard’s latest suspenseful offering.

In this stand-alone story, Chuck Rittenburg is a washed-up, former tornado chaser/tour guide. A film director offers him $1 million to find the biggest, baddest F5 tornado within a 2-week window. Chuck hopes to not only find the tornado, but to regain the respect of his estranged son Tyler, who decides to help Chuck in this venture.

At the same time, an FBI agent wants to tag along on the quest. She isn’t tracking storms. Instead, she’s chasing the criminals who follow them and pretend to be emergency workers. The only help these so-called EMTs offer is to help themselves to the victims’ valuable possessions.

Bernard is a former weather forecaster, and he sprinkles his immense knowledge of and love for weather phenomena in unique metaphors throughout the book. His writing style really adds to the drama.

This is a great listen on a trip (especially in sunny weather!) as it runs 9 hours and 45 minutes.


 
Buy on Audible  iTunes
 

10 Comments About Fabienne Frederickson’s Mindset Retreat

At the end of September, I attended Fabienne Frederickson’s 3-day Mindset Retreat in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Fabienne, a highly successful entrepreneur and business coach, is the founder of Boldheart.com (formerly ClientAttraction.com). Anyone who reviews and implements one of the many free ideas on her site or in her YouTube videos is sure to improve their business.

Before I go further, let me say that I like Fabienne. I like her approach, and I like the results I’ve achieved with her methods. She always gives me some new way to think about things in my business.

I spoke with her briefly at the conclusion of the Mindset Retreat. She asked whether I would feel comfortable speaking on camera about the event. At first, I declined, but, after thinking about it a few minutes, I decided I would leave a video testimonial.

However, I didn’t speak on camera for her. I did it for ME. Speaking before a camera was a way to move out of my comfort zone and do something new. I also considered that experience as preparation for my October presentation at the Georgia Romance Writers Conference. I said something like this:

Hi, I’m Karen Commins, and I’m a professional audiobook narrator. You can find my audiobooks on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

I have studied the Law of Attraction, but I have not heard it taught the way Fabienne teaches it. She brings together concepts from a wide variety of sources.

If you’re thinking about attending the Mindset Retreat, I encourage you to give it a try.

As a performer, I’m already successful in my business. I’m just not at the level where I want to be. The concepts that Fabienne teaches work for all types of businesses.

I don’t know whether Fabienne will use my video in her marketing. However, I wanted to write a balanced review about the event so that people can make a more informed decision about its value.

4 Aspects That Made the Event Totally Worthwhile

1) Fabienne lives the Law of Attraction, pulls from a variety of sources, and teaches these principles in a unique and compelling way.

Much of the material covered during the 3 days was already known to me. While it’s always great to get reminders of these ideas, I did have several “Aha!” moments where I heard some things I hadn’t heard or read previously. Per my notes, here is one big revelation:

When you ask, it is given 100% of the time.

Most people ask for results and expect the result to show up.

We get confused because we wait for the result to show up.

The opportunity for you to get that thing is what shows up.

Opportunities don’t come from a person but through them.

 

2) The structure of the event forced me and gave me time to deeply reflect on how I want my life to be and how my life is going at the moment.

Fabienne would speak for a bit before giving us journaling prompts and 5-15 minutes of quiet time for writing. For instance, one of the first prompts was the Ideal Day Exercise. Basically, if money were no object and you could do, have, or be anything you wanted, what would your ideal day be like? You have to write as much detail as possible to visualize where you are, who you’re with, what you do each day, where and how you live, etc.

I first did this exercise in 1992 while reading Barbara Sher’s life-changing book I COULD DO ANYTHING IF I ONLY KNEW WHAT IT WAS. I’ve just about achieved the ideal day I wrote back then! It was helpful to write down a new ideal day vision because I hadn’t really taken that step and needed to do so. I’ve previously written about why it’s extremely important to WRITE DOWN your goals.

I originally was concerned because the chairs were set up in long rows without tables. I never like sitting so close to people that we touch shoulders or any other body part. I always chose an aisle seat so that I could move my chair slightly away from the one next to it.

In addition, being in such close proximity is a fast way to catch colds. Since my job is dependent on my voice, the risk of a cold is an even greater concern for me.

The room is set up without tables in order to accommodate the many times that we were also instructed to share what we wrote with other attendees. Fabienne encouraged us to talk with people we didn’t know. This tactic had the side effect of helping some people to gain much-needed confidence that they need to be an entrepreneur.

3) Through the exercises, I identified opportunities and subsequent concrete actions I could take to increase my business.

The subtitle of the event should be: You can’t get results from your opportunities if you don’t take action on them. This theme was often repeated over the course of the 3 days.

If I only learned and did 1 particular exercise, the entire trip was worthwhile:  

50 Ways to Make Money Right Now.

The point of the 50 Ways exercise is to change your mindset from “I can’t afford it” to “How can I afford it?”. You have to write down 50 ways you could make money. They could be either in your personal life or business life. You can’t stop until you list 50 ways.

I tried to make most of my ideas business-related, but I also listed ways I could utilize assets that I already have. I listed ideas I had already considered, like directing other narrators, and some I’d never even thought about, like renting out my pool.

Somewhere around idea #26, some really inspired and exciting business-related ideas came to me! 

I ended up with 57 ideas, with 9 of them using some of Drew’s talents and skills. I have already taken action on a half dozen of the things I wrote on my list and am quite pleased with the results! I wrote in my journal on Day 2:

Those 3 ideas [particular ones on my list] are brilliant! Maybe I wouldn’t have had them if I hadn’t come, so I will hereby declare the trip an amazing success!

I am really getting the importance of taking action on my opportunities. I [took 2 steps] before going downstairs at 7:40am. It felt good to take actions before breakfast.

 

4) I spent time analyzing my emotions and belief systems and re-learned ways to improve them.

Fabienne gave us laminated copies of the list of 22 Emotions found in Abraham-Hicks’ landmark book Ask and It Is Given, along with copies of several powerful affirmations. While I had read these materials in the past, I realized that I need to work with the Emotions list every day in order to maintain a true positive mindset.

6 Aspects That I Didn’t Like

1)  Many of the phrases,  pictures, and segments throughout Fabienne’s presentation are highly manipulative to lead you toward a decision to join her Client Attraction Business School (CABS). In fact, the whole Mindset Retreat is a “sell” for CABS. The slides are almost subliminal advertising.

Without a doubt, Fabienne is a brilliant marketer. She encourages everyone to market themselves “with authenticity, integrity, and love.” I’m just not sure that she always uses her expertise in this way.

During the sessions, she talked about joining a “tribe” and being part of a “loving, supportive community”. On day #2, the late afternoon session was devoted to an Internet live stream of 8 (count ’em, 8!) of her CABS students gushing about their successes after joining the program. The session was supposed to be “inspirational”, but I considered it more in the category of “self-promotional.”

I checked out mentally while listening to the first of the 8 people. I wasn’t feeling well, so I checked out of the room altogether.

I wasn’t in the room when the cost of CABS was finally revealed. However, another attendee told me it was $8000 a year.

According to that person, Fabienne said that you would pay $40,000 for the same education at a traditional business school. Like I said, Fabienne is a brilliant marketer, and the “comparative value” is a tried and true marketing technique. A logical person could evaluate the statement and reach the conclusion that you could take that same $8000 and get a college degree that would actually mean something in the work place.

That attendee was torn about whether to commit to that much expense. I told her that she could get the necessary marketing tactics and increase the number and quality of her clients just by spending 15 bucks to get C. J. Hayden’s fantastic book on marketing, GET CLIENTS NOW! (I was wrong. The book only costs 10 bucks.)

2) The 50 Ways to Make Money exercise, while extremely valuable (pardon the pun), was scheduled for maximum manipulative advantage.

The evening session on Day 1 was labeled as a “Bonus Session: Juicy Stuff”. Over the course of 46 slides, Fabienne talked about how the company you keep and your environment directly affect your income level and success.

She stated that we must study the people at the level we want to be and learn everything we can from them. I wrote in my notes:

If someone in your industry is doing better than you, stop resenting them and start looking at what they’re doing. Whoever you want to be like, be with them.

On the surface, that point is sound advice. However, it followed numerous comments about taking action on opportunities. Looking back in the context of the session and those to come, it seems a bit like brainwashing people as they join a cult.

She led us down a path toward agreement that we need to invest in ourselves and our business. Then, we were told that people use many excuses, starting with “I can’t afford it”.

We were given the 50 Ways exercise at 9:45pm as we concluded the evening session. Fabienne said we needed to have it done by 8am the next day. Even though I was worn out, I stayed up past midnight working on that exercise. I listed 32 options before I just had to quit and finally get some sleep.

With this exercise, Fabienne proved to everyone that they COULD find a way to afford anything, just in time for the next day’s opportunity to sign-up for CABS.

3) The 30 to 60 minutes we spent on the first day in the fund-raising drive to support a village in Africa was inappropriate.

It’s Fabienne’s personal cause, and I didn’t appreciate her using time I paid for to have this pitch be a part of the content. It’s not like we were at a fund-raising dinner where everyone knew the appeal was coming. It was in a section called “Unstoppable Giving” that meandered and morphed into this unexpected request for funds.

I have my own philanthropy goals and avenues, so I didn’t contribute to this campaign. I was astonished that the Retreat participants pledged a staggering $115,000!

Those committing money signed a Client Attraction banner. Fabienne showed a video of her taking such a banner to Africa. The banner makes it look like Fabienne’s business is actually donating the funding (and potentially taking the charitable deductions on taxes) rather than the many individual contributors.

Not only was I flabbergasted by the large amount, but that outcome was totally incongruent with the next point.

4)  The event is billed as “Mastering the Inner Game of Abundance” yet is managed as a conference for penny-pinchers.

Prior to the event, attendees could access a Facebook group. Most of the messages I saw in the group were from people looking for roommates at the hotel and shared rides to/from the airport. The rooms had double beds, and many attendees were staying in a room and potentially sleeping in a bed with people they didn’t know.

The sessions extended well into the evening each day. Day 1 had a session from 7:00-9:00pm and then HOMEWORK. Day 2 had a session from 7:30pm-9:30pm.  The last session on Day 3 was from 4:00-600pm, but many people had already checked out of the hotel and left the meeting by that point.

Why have a conference at a luxury hotel on beautiful Ft. Lauderdale beach if the attendees will never have the time to enjoy the beach except at sunrise and lunch? This question deserves a close look.

Ft. Lauderdale beach is a definite draw. Many attendees flew in from other countries. Presumably, they would have been less inclined to attend if the event were held somewhere less beautiful, luxurious, and exotic.

Once the people are there, though, Fabienne obviously has learned through the years of hosting this event that a large percentage of her audience will not pay the hotel bill for more than 3 nights. Therefore, she has to cram the most material into 2 very long days. If she dropped the fund-raising pitch and the self-promotional live stream from Days 1 and 2, both days could have ended at normal conference times, like 5pm.

One person told me that she didn’t have enough open credit on her card to pay the hotel. She felt hassled because the hotel staff demanded a security deposit of $300 because she had to pay part of her bill with cash. Not to be unkind, but I wondered why she was attending this event if she was maxed out on credit. Perhaps she would say that it was a leap of faith to be there so she could get in an abundance mentality and start earning income to erase her debt.

The attendees were charged differently depending on when they signed up. You paid more for the event as it drew closer. I would have preferred that all attendees were charged the same price.

5) The constant up-sell spiels for VIP Access were as frequent and annoying as Florida palmetto bugs.

Attendees could pay an additional $199 above the event fees for early entrance to the meeting room, reserved seat cards, a bonus Q&A session one day with Fabienne and her husband Derek, and lunch each day. Every communication about the Retreat included a “reminder” about the VIP Access.

When I registered and picked up my badge, the girls manning the registration table told me it still wasn’t too late to upgrade to the VIP experience. I said, “That’s okay. I’m a VIP as I stand here.” I don’t think they were too amused.

 6) If I never hear Katy Perry’s song Roar again, it will be too soon.

That song is Fabienne’s theme song. Don’t get me wrong — theme songs are great. I have used them myself. I didn’t even have anything against this particular song.

My issue was that it was PLAYED SO **LOUDLY**  that it could be heard in the next county! We had to hear this song — in its entirety — BLASTED at the beginning of each session, 4 times a day, so that Fabienne and the CABS students could sing and dance to it. It also was played during the breaks. Enough!