Brilliance Audio Narrators
Marquez Feliciano
When I was told Brilliance Audio was handling the audiobook narration for The Winter Over, I was thrilled: Brilliance is known for their clean, true-to-the-book recordings and meticulous detail. Then they sent me an audio sample of Karen Peakes, the voice actor they had in mind, and I was blown away.
I would DEFINITELY never get cast to play anything other than Caucasian characters onstage (nor should I) but, occasionally, those different ethnic characters come up in narration and I am suddenly trying my hardest to sound authentic and not offensive and stereotypical.
I just recently began to record at home, after having recorded at either Brilliance Audio, in Michigan, or Baker Sound Studios, in Philadelphia. I have to say, there are pros and cons to both. I love recording away from home for the fact that I can fully and completely concentrate on the narration alone, and I have hours set aside for just that. At home, I often have only an hour or two to squeeze in time, and I have to fix my own mistakes and focus on the recording as well as narrating.
12. Male narrators seem to get thriller and mystery roles by default, while women only get those books if the protagonist is female. Is this a simply because most protagonists in these genres are male? Should the gender of the protag in a novel matter when picking the narrator? Is the industry changing at all to give women more roles?
Basically, you divide a landscape sheet of paper into 4 boxes by drawing 2 perpendicular lines in the center of the sheet. You fill in each section with your assessment of how well you do the tasks involved with your business.
One of my pet peeves as an audiobook listener is mouth noise, particularly clicks. Since I am meticulous about removing those clicks, it was important for me to find an editor who also made it their mission to eliminate them.
I contacted several people and asked them to edit a 5-minute selection. In addition to the click removal, I listened for how they adjusted the pacing. If all of the spaces between sentences are the same length, it sounds robotic and loses any dramatic pauses I had intended in the read. I also paid attention to how they mastered it to assure that the finished product sounded really good to me.
Members of the Audio Publishers Association (APA) who are considering outsourcing their post-production can login to the APA site and view the April 2017webinar linked in the Resources section.
Once I established a routine with an editor, the next big group of items prime for delegation centered around administrative and promotional duties. I wanted help in publicizing my audiobooks, starting and maintaining a newsletter, finding and fixing bad links and formatting on my blog caused by 2 conversions, etc.
I wrote this Virtual Assistant Statement of Work and posted a note in my neighborhood email list with the hope of attracting a college student or stay-at-home mom to work with me for $15/hour. I thought it would be helpful for my assistant to be local so I could show them my processes in person rather than explaining everything on Skype. I received several responses from great candidates. I held interviews using these questions:
Although I was thrilled with the person I hired, our association was short-lived due to a change in her schedule. However, her departure turned out to be a blessing for me because my husband Drew volunteered to fulfill my audiobook giveaways and do all of the maintenance required on my web site! Sometimes a family member may be willing, able, and available to help you if you ask them.
Typing is definitely in my bottom right quadrant, so it was an easy decision to hire someone else to do that job! I posted an job listing on Upwork.com and was very pleased with the ease of use of the site and quality of applicants. Upwork has certification tests in various categories, including spelling and grammar. The freelancers on the site take the tests, and the scores become part of their profile, which aids in the selection process.
As you can tell from these examples, I enlist aid as much as possible in order to spend more time in my quadrant of brilliance! Do you outsource any parts of your business? Please leave your comments and questions on the blog.
I record pickups on a single track, which I send to the editor. This article explains the whole workflow and links to other resources, including my video showing me recording the pickups.
Nestled in the vibrant heart of Cincinnati, OH, the Thriving Narrators Retreat is a unique opportunity for audiobook narrators of all levels to learn and grow together, alongside producers, coaches, casting directors, and fellow narrators.
Hosted by award-winning narrator and creative entrepreneurship coach Jennifer Jill Araya, the Thriving Narrators Retreat provides four days packed with opportunities for honing your craft, expanding your business, and building relationships within the audiobook community.
After graduating from Full Sail University, Erick Black worked several gigs, including live sound reinforcement, operations at an independent TV Station, and as an audio engineer for a company that manufactures brass bells. Finally, his love of audio and passion for the written word led him to Dreamscape Media where he started recording and directing audiobooks. He has been casting and producing there since 2017 and absolutely loves the work and the audiobook community.
Jennifer Blom is a technical-minded broadway fan and self-proclaimed Reaper Queen. She is also an accomplished narrator, director, engineer, producer, and more. She has her own production company, Reaping Audiobooks. Wearing all of these hats gives her a unique view on the world of audiobooks and the process behind it. Jennifer loves breaking down technical issues into easily digestible nuggets and helping people learn new tricks, all in the name of efficiency and finding joy in tech. She is passionate about using tech to lessen pain points and to unlock creativity.
Neil Hellegers is an actor, narrator, and educator who lives in Brooklyn, NYC. He has narrated over 400 audiobooks for PRH, Brilliance, Audio Studios, Harper Audio, Hachette, Spoken Realms, and numerous independent authors, has performed Shakespeare internationally, and can be found playing various bearded professionals on a variety of on-screen projects. Neil was Lead Teaching Artist for the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival Education Program, co-creator of the University of Pennsylvania Summer Theater Institute, and has worked as a teacher and coach for numerous students in the NYC area, including audition monologue preparation and audiobook narration coaching. He has a BA in Theatre Arts & Psychology from UPenn, and an MFA in Acting from Trintity Rep Conservatory.
Award-winning actress Marni Penning has been onstage since age 8, and is also a playwright, children's book illustrator, acting coach, and founder of The Penning Method for the Panicked Actor. Marni lives with her husband, son, dog, fish, and chickens outside Washington, DC. She also co-founded Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (playing over 35 roles there, including Juliet, Kate, Rosalind, Beatrice, & Hamlet). She received the Best Young Adult Audiobook 2021 honor from the Independent Audiobook Awards, was a nominee for Best Female Narrator, won a SOVAS award in 2020, & was nominated in 2022. Her grandmother's blindness got her into recording audiobooks for the Library of Congress, and in addition to her 200 titles on Audible, she has recorded over 350 titles for GraphicAudio (for whom she is an accent and character voice specialist), and over 450 articles for the news app Curio. She now records commercial audiobooks in her broadcast-quality home studio, and posts daily to her thousands of followers on TikTok.
Audiobooks are a magical form of entertainment because of the narrators that read them. These men and women are legitimate actors that breath life into the stories they read with a variety of intricate character voices, accents and dialects. The right audiobook narrator can make a mediocre book good and a great book excellent.
Susie is upstairs engineering and directing, and whenever I stumble or miss a word, we stop, roll back to a likely spot, then do a punch edit. She plays back for me to hear a lead in, then does an on the spot edit and I come right in and do it right. Generally.
The Listen List Council of the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) has announced the 2020 selections of the Listen List: Outstanding Audiobook Narration. The final juried list of thirteen titles highlights extraordinary narrators and listening experiences that merit special attention by a general adult audience and the librarians who advise them.
Adhering to established criteria, the 2020 committee evaluated 294 titles with a total listening time of 2,936 hours. They narrowed the field to 53 nominated audiobooks, from which they selected thirteen winners that are benchmarks of excellence and are available for purchase by libraries. Committee members matched the thirteen titles on the list with three listen-alikes, which mirror the tone, theme, or production style of the winning audiobooks. The juried list, designed for both avid listeners and those new to the pleasures of stories read aloud, includes fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and graphic novels and features voices that enthrall, delight, and inspire.
The Vibrant Years is a standalone multigenerational story about three very different women. They stand by each other and try to lift one another up in the best ways they know how. Each of them is currently fighting for a dream of sorts and trying to make their way through this time of endless opportunities, if you just learn how to get out of your own way.
I loved all three women, but I especially adored Bindu. We get a glimpse into the story of her youth when she was free and wild and was the star of a Bollywood film that was way ahead of its time. In the beginning of every chapter, we get a snippet of information about how she bewitched the director and lead actor of that film to become the love of his life. When he died, he left her a million dollars and it has brought back old feelings and memories of the life she could have had if she had made different choices, or had different choices. She was a devoted wife and the best grandmother and everyone knows her larger than life personality. She lives like she is perfect in her own skin, but some of that is a lie and an act she has put on for the world. She is a very good actress.
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