Greetings and salutations friends, family, and fans alike. As you know I have been doing a couple of audiobook narrations and I have to say it is something I am definitely enjoying thoroughly. I can’t help but get exhilarated every time I listen to a sample of my newest work and compare it to where I started only months ago and realize the vast improvements I have made since I started this long forgotten childhood dream of mine. So the question I hear a lot is how does one do this. How can you go from a computer Technician to someone who does voice over work, mainly audiobook narration but I can see that expanding as time progresses. I thought I would outline my personal story and hopefully you may find the inspiration and drive needed to go out and do something you thought wasn’t possible.

I guess for me it all started years ago, when I was just a young wide eyed impressionable child barely able to talk for himself because I had an older brother who talked for me. See Brian was always a very creative individual and was inspired at a young age to be an actor. He made me watch the taped off of PBS copy of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods starring Bernadette Peters, Chip Zien, and Joanna Gleason and we watched it over and over and over again. Being the younger brother I of course looked up to my brother greatly and so I too found a love of this musical over time and I do believe it was the gateway that started me down the path of life I am currently journeying on. My brother was super passionate about this sort of thing and forced me to perform a version of Into the Woods with us and our cousins that was documented on film and as far as I know still exists somewhere. Don’t get me wrong I was barely performing in it, I just pretended to milk my cousin Samantha who was playing the cow I didn’t really act, perform, or sing, it was just a thing to do. My brother however wore his best Bernadette Peters cape and performed the last midnight fairly well for a 6 year old boy.

Flash forward and I am now in 5th grade and Appleby Elementary School is putting on a performance of The Wizard of Oz. I am sure just like myself, so many kids our age grew up watching this classic movie and I loved the Tin Man. Following my brother’s example I decided to audition for the part. Of course I was young, naive, and this was my first experience at an actual audition, but in my mind I had to get the part of the Tin Man because I had sat there for hours in front of that TV practicing the Tin Man dance and song, which was also filmed by my parents of course, so there was no doubt in my mind I was prepared to crush the opposition and that my brother would get the part of Dorthy, since he was so good at singing The Jitterbug from the special features that were available on our VHS tape after the movie. I didn’t know that boys couldn’t play girls, or that every other kid in that room also spent hours in front of the TV learning the Tin Man song and dance on their equally warn out VHS tape. Needless to say I didn’t get the part I wanted and I was all set to quit. My brother tried to talk me out of it, of course I saw red being that he had the audacity to be cast as the Tin Man knowing full well how much I wanted it.

I mean did he not see me covering a plastic funnel in duct tape and placing it on my hide while decking myself out in cardboard tubes also clad in duct tape for Halloween only a few short years prior? Brian gave me an important lesson, he told me that there are going to be other people auditioning for the parts I want, and there is always a high chance I will lose to one of them, but that doesn’t mean I should give up. What I should do is take whatever part I was given and really own it, make it my own, prove to them I am better than all of them and have a much larger range then any of those other probably-got-the-parts-because-their-parents-were-on-the-board-of-education students. I took it in stride. I would take whatever part they gave me and own the crap out of it. So naturally I was cast as Nikko, the head of the Flying Monkey’s. But by God, did I act the crap out of that part, I studied books about monkey’s, watched videos on nature programs to learn their mannerisms, and I was the closest thing to a monkey as I could possibly be. Perhaps the similar DNA helped tremendously but I did this, and I was only 10 years old. I got a lot of praise at how realistic my portrayal was, and any scene I was in you know for damn sure I was overacting and even potentially stealing scenes from the background and played him to perfect comedic effect, and I didn’t even have any lines, just monkey noises. From that point on I would always throw myself 100% into the role no matter what it was.

The next year, when I was in 6th grade we were doing a performance of Annie. Though I really wanted to be Rooster, I didn’t get that part, but I will tell you what parts I did get, tons of other parts. Fred the head bum of Hooverville, Jimmy Johnson, Radio’s only masked announcer, Judge Brandis, Harold Ickes of the presidential cabinet, and many other extras in other scenes. So this time I was given all these different roles and found my true calling, I wasn’t really leading man material. I was a character actor, I loved playing over the top characters, even downright cartoony. I would play the crap out of those parts, and every portrayal was different from the last I had four very different and very distinctive characters all with different voices and personalities and I got a lot of praise for my ability to do this while I was only the age of 11.

To make a long story short I kept acting and with every new show I got bigger and better parts and every time I threw myself into them, really became the characters, got in their heads, understood their motivations. While I was studying to be a computer technician I also pursued acting and singing in my spare time and that is where I learned a lot about acting which is a very important aspect of audiobook narration. See as a voice actor it is even harder because we do not have our facial expressions and gestures to help convey how we feel or sound, we have to do it all in the voice. Without some kind of practical experience, whether it be years of theatre like me, or actually studying and majoring in theatre in college, like my brother did, you are going to need to be able to convey those subtle emotions with just your voice, your cadence, your personalities. This is where years of me being a character actor really paid off as I have learned how to adjust my voice to convey everything I need to.

Sometimes you might have natural talent, but even then eventually you are going to want to take some kind of class or have some sessions with a vocal coach. Even I have plans to do that in the very near future myself. But for now the experience I garnered in life is enough to land me jobs and praise from the various author’s who have hired me.

All I am saying, to be completely honest, is if you want to be an audiobook narrator go and be one. A good place to start and see if it is actually something you want to pursue a great site to start out on is Librivox.org. All you have to do is record a 1 minute test clip and let the experts on the site analyze your equipment and setup, and once that is complete all you have to do is navigate the forums, find a book or poem you want to try out and volunteer. It works on a first come first serve basis, so if you volunteer for a part, and you are the first to do it, you get that part. It is as simple as that. Though this will not really get you used to the audition process, it is a good way to practice reading an audiobook to see if you have the patience and stamina to do this. Another good thing about Librivox is that you can volunteer for very small parts of a bigger book to get your feet wet. I do not recommend jumping in and saying you want to record a whole book, take it one small clip at a time and gradually work your way up to the longer clips. I was doing just this for several months before I felt comfortable enough to even attempt a full length book by myself.

The other part that is important to note is that in the independent audiobook industry the majority of us all record and edit things from a studio we have set up at home. What this essentially means though is that not only are you responsible for the performance of the audiobook, but you a