corey_m_snow

Also, you never actually see the monster. It's very Lovecraftian in its execution.

And there was light-

I love that story.

Hi, thanks for the question!

I wanted to be a VO since I was about ten or twelve years old; playing with my record player in my bedroom as a kid, I'd announce the tracks and pretend to be a DJ- that's what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Life didn't quite work out that way- I did look into it as a teenager but the only schools I could find for voice work were quite dodgy. I ended up going into IT and did a couple decades in software.

I then started working slowly and on the side to establish a voiceover career- at first working in commercials, but that didn't pan out (commercial VO is a very competitive business)- however, I found that I had a facility for narration, and started doing it more and more. About the time I was getting burned out on my former career, I was pulling in enough work to make it a viable, if challenging, change.

As to how I land gigs, with audiobooks it's about auditioning, establishing a reputation and being good at what you do. The part about talent vs connections isn't quite right- talent only gets you so far, talent and training gets you farther. Connections are great but to be honest it's not that important.

The pay is variable. It's getting better- I've had a lot of challenges in my time as a full-time VO. With luck and knocking some wood I'm able to support my family with it, but I will be the first to tell you that my story isn't necessarily typical.

If you want to get into the business of narration, it's a lot of work. Start with coaching and training. Take improv classes and acting courses, and get very comfortable with exposition and owning a character. Then start taking some coaching or courses focused on audiobook narration (if that's what you want to get into).

Pat Fraley and Paul Ruben both offer great coaching courses for people interested in narration. They're not cheap, but they're also not prohibitive. A word to the wise- avoid at all costs any course or coach that offers a block of training followed by production of a demo. You should never make a demo until you're ready.

Absolutely! Nothing worse than getting to the last chapter and have a character you've been voicing as having a southern accent have something like this:

"Oh really?" he said in his thick Scottish brogue.

Total time varies but a good rule of thumb is about four to six work hours per hour of finished audio. It can be higher.

Recording an audiobook starts with the script prep. I'll read the book before I record it, take notes on pronunciations and so forth, then do my research (or pay someone to do it, depending on my schedule).

Next I'll record the book using a technique called "punch and roll", which means that when I make an error, I stop, roll back to a pause and hit record, the software plays a few seconds of what I recorded, then I "punch in" as it changes to record mode. The other way is called "rolling record" and means you just keep going and edit out the errors later.

The former takes longer to record, and less time to edit, the latter, the reverse. Most publishers prefer punch recording these days.

After the punched audio is done I send it to the publisher for proofing, or I send it to my proofer (she's absolutely brilliant), who then listens to the book and sends me a list of errors, which I re-record. The editor takes that along with a list of stuff that needs to be fixed like clothing noise, mouth clicks or excess breaths, and does their magic by fixing all of that, then the mastering engineer produces the masters.

These roles can be separate people, a team or sometimes all in one. I've done all of them, but I prefer to just focus on narration these days.