Category: Working

Guest: Author Barbara Venkataraman - Audiobooks 'R' Us!

12/7/2014

This is the last post of my Audiobook Blog Series. I launched the series by telling you about how I got my start in narrating audiobooks. Then I gave you practical advice and tips on how to begin your career as an audiobook narrator. Now here to conclude the series, and talk about her experiences of finding an audiobook narrator, is none other than the author of the books that I've been narrating. A huge warm welcome to my first Guest Blogger: Barbara Venkataraman!

Audiobooks 'R' Us!

Making an audiobook with a narrator is like marrying a total stranger and hoping it all works out. As in a marriage, the participants start out starry-eyed, but soon discover each other's idiosyncrasies and quirks, realizing with a sense of dread that they are now stuck with each other--at least until the project is finished. That's why it makes sense to choose a narrator with experience and a stellar reputation, one who has completed at least one project and done it well. Or you could fly by the seat of your pants like I did. Boy, did I get lucky! After hearing other authors' horror stories and seeing reviews of badly done audiobooks, I realize just how lucky I was/am.

Unlike many authors, I write in two unrelated genres, humor and mystery, specifically, cozy mystery. Ideally, I wanted to find a narrator with the talent and skill to handle both genres. It needed to be a woman (my mysteries are told in first person by a female protagonist) with a sense of humor, someone who "got" my jokes. She had to be able to do a range of voices to cover all the characters in my mysteries and, one more thing, she needed to work for free! Now, when I say free, I don't really mean free; I just mean that I couldn't afford to pay her anything. I figured I'd have to be the greatest saleswoman in the world to convince a total stranger to spend hundreds of hours recording my self-published, unproven books as unpaid labor, OR, I could find a narrator through ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) who was willing to royalty-share (spend hundreds of hours recording my self-published, unproven books as unpaid labor AND split any future profits, assuming there were any).

I started on my quest to find the perfect Jamie Quinn (the star of my Jamie Quinn mystery series). I stumbled through the labyrinth known as ACX and, throwing caution to the wind, posted two projects simultaneously: a book of humorous essays and my first Jamie Quinn mystery. I listed both as royalty-share projects and put them out for audition. I must add here that ACX allows you to choose the qualifications of your ideal narrator and it's enough to make your head explode! First, you chose the gender and the language. Easy enough. Then, you choose the accent, which can range from British to American to Boston, Irish, to Southern drawl to…well, you get the picture. Now come the hard choices. Do you want a voice that's warm? Scientific? Authoritative? Matter-of-fact? Sexy? And so on and so on…I hate to admit it, but I hadn't given any of that much thought, nor did I want to. I hoped I could pick the right one. But what if I couldn't?

I got exactly three auditions, all of them very nice women, none of them Jamie Quinn material. I felt so bad rejecting them. The only thing I'd gotten out of this project so far was a truckload of guilt. Then I realized that I didn't have to wait around, I could listen to the demo recordings posted on the site. There were only a bazillion of them, no problem at all. I realized that many of the demos were repeats as in the same narrator putting herself up for different projects: here's me narrating a romance, here's me narrating a thriller, etc. I listened to many women reading many different passages until I started questioning the whole project and wondering why I always had to do everything the hard way. Sigh. Finally, I heard a "maybe" voice which gave me a little hope, enough hope to keep trying. I kept slogging through until the heavens suddenly parted and I heard an angel sing, only she wasn't an angel, she was Carrie Lee Martz, an actress who did voiceover. Her demo wasn't of her reading a book; it was a voiceover demo in which she showed off her range of voices. She was perfect! Hallelujah! I made her an offer for both books and she accepted them both. Oh, happy day! Then, I had a sobering thought, what if she didn't like the books? I told her to look them over first and then decide. She decided yes. Then we had an e-mail exchange in which I confessed that I'd never done this before. She confessed that she hadn't either. We said we were both game and we jumped right in. We are now recording our fourth book together (when I say "we", I mean the "royal we"--Carrie is doing all of the recording) and I'm not going to say that it hasn't taken a lot of effort, or that we didn’t hit a few bumps along the way--like when I sent her the wrong version of the second Jamie Quinn mystery and she had to re-record the last 5 chapters! But I am thrilled to report that we are very happy with our arranged marriage and we've even started making some money! So, if you’re thinking of making an audiobook, I hope you find the right narrator and that it’s love at first listen.

Award-winning author, Barbara Venkataraman, is an attorney and mediator specializing in family law and debt collection.
She is the author of The Jamie Quinn mysteries; "The Fight for Magicallus," a children's fantasy; a humorous short story entitled, "If You'd Just Listened to Me in the First Place"; and two books of humorous essays: "I'm Not Talking about You, Of Course" and "A Trip to the Hardware Store & Other Calamities," which are part of the "Quirky Essays for Quirky People" series. Both books of humorous essays won the prestigious "Indie Book of the Day" award.
Coming soon, "Engaged in Danger"--the next Jamie Quinn mystery!

Barbara's Blog: www.barbaravenkataraman.blogspot.com

Barbara's Current Audiobook Selections
Click on the cover to Purchase

I hope you enjoyed hearing Barbara's perspective. If you'd like to leave a comment or question for her below, please do so.

I wish you all the best in your audiobook endeavors and remember to come back and re-read these blog posts anytime you're in need of a little guidance. If you find them to be a handy resource, please share them with others as well.

Next Week: Actors: Why You Need a Website

Audiobook Recipe - Serves 1 (Part III)

12/1/2014

Continued from the previous two weeks...

Record the First 15 Minutes
Now it’s finally time to start recording. There are different ways to go about recording an audiobook and you’ll need to figure out what works best for you. (Lucky for you, that’s where that practice that I told you about comes in – if you’ve practiced ahead of time, you should have experimented a bit with different ways to record.) First there is a Straight Record vs a Punch Record. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. Figure out which works best for you. If you find the process of stopping to fix mistakes as you go to be a bit tedious, then you may want to use the Straight Record method. If however you do your own editing and mastering, you may realize that fixing mistakes in the booth saves you time in the long run. There is also the matter of when and how to record characters. You can do them as you go in a Straight Record, which means you may need to switch back and forth between characters rapidly and often. Or you can add them in later with the Punch Record method. This will allow you to hear the audio that comes before so that you can make sure that your characters’ responses are genuine. Lastly, you may want to do all of the characters lines at once on a separate track to be added in later. This method will help you to really maintain the character’s voice and ensure that you are fully committed to that character.

Edit & Master the First 15 Minutes
Once you have finished recording, it is time to edit and master your audio. If you are just starting out, I suggest that you to learn how to do this yourself. There are a few reasons for this. Understanding the process of editing and mastering is a great way to learn how to best record your audio. It will teach you about how the pieces all fit together. It will teach you about pacing and prompt you to learn the best methods for recording to eliminate things like mouth noises and extraneous breaths. It will help you to be ready for the time when you can afford to hire someone else to step in and do the editing and mastering for you – it will ultimately make their job easier and they will likely be more willing to work with you. Also, when you further your career to include doing audiobooks for the bigger companies (which almost always do the editing and mastering for you), you will be ready to turn over raw files that are easier to edit and master. Your sound engineer will thank for this. The point of editing is to make sure that your book is well-paced, to proofread it for mistakes, and to remove any sounds that will be distracting to the listener (mouth noises, breaths, etc.). Editing is a skill and and an art form which takes time to master, so I won’t go into the whole process here. Study up on it as much as you can, play around in your DAW with your own voice files, and ask experienced friends and professionals for help and advice. Take the time to really practice – you will need an additional tool in editing – a really good ear. Learn to really listen to the audio (in an unbiased way), as it will tell you what needs to be done. If you find after some time that you just can’t handle the editing process, it is possible to hire someone to do it for you. Just remember that this expense comes out of your pocket, not the author's, so make sure that it is worth it.
Next you need to master the audio. The point of mastering is to lower your background noise if necessary, bring all of your files to the same level volume-wise (you should try your best to maintain the same volume when recording), compress the files and convert them to the appropriate format, and to sweeten your sound. You should learn to do this yourself as well, for the very same reasons mentioned above. If nothing else, you need to understand what the mastering process can and can’t do for your voice. This too is an art form and will take some time to learn, so I won't go into the whole mastering process either. Again, you need to have a good ear. You should study up and ask for help in mastering. Mastering is a much quicker process than editing, but it is also a more difficult process to learn and do well. Just like with editing, you can hire someone to do it for you.

Upload the First 15 Minutes for Author Approval
Now that you’ve finished the first 15 minutes of the book, you will need to upload it to ACX for Author Approval. Before you do this, I suggest you listen to the whole file on your computer as a final proofread. Uploading is easy. Simply go to the “Produce Audiobook” page that I described earlier and where it says Upload First 15 Minutes, click to upload the file. When you are done, you will confirm that you are ready to send the file to the author. Once you hit the confirm button you can’t go back, so make sure that you have uploaded the correct file. The file will be available for play on the website now, so I suggest that you listen to it in its entirety to be sure that it's ready to send. Then click on confirm. The file will be sent to the author and now it is up to them to either approve it or request changes. If they request changes, you will need to make those changes, upload the new file, and again send it to them for approval. Once it's approved, you are free to begin recording the rest of the book.

Record, Edit, and Master the Rest of the Book
You will now record, edit, and master the rest of the book from start to finish, including the copyright sections. Each chapter will need to be a separate audio file, you will need separate files for each of the copyrights, and you will also need to pick out a section of the book to use for a sample file (this file will be on the Audible website so that potential listeners can hear you before purchasing your book). Don’t forget to record the chapter names or numbers to include at the beginning of each chapter file. Once you have finished recording, editing, and mastering all of these files (this could take a few days or several weeks depending on the length of the book), you will need to upload them for Approval.

Upload the Finished Files for Author Approval
You should do a final listen on your computer to proofread each file before uploading. Then go to the same page on ACX where you uploaded the First 15 Minutes and upload each file accordingly. You will again be given the option to listen to each file on the ACX site – you may want to do so to make sure they are the right files. Then you will be asked to confirm that the files are ready as well as what name should be used when referencing you as the narrator. When you click confirm, the files will be sent to the author and it will be up to them to approve or disapprove them. Just as you did with the First 15 Minutes, if they request changes, you will need to make those changes, upload the new files, and again send them for approval. The author will get one more chance to have you make changes, so if they request additional changes, you will need to complete this process once more. When they approve the files, your work is almost done.

ACX Quality Control
Your book will now go through one more step – ACX Quality Control. This step ensures that you meet all of the requirements and guidelines set forth by ACX to meet their standards of quality. If ACX does not approve the book, you will need to work with them on getting your book quality up to snuff. If ACX does approve the book, it will be deemed ready for market.

This Little Audiobook Goes to Market
Your book will now be released for sale on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. Congratulations! You did it. You created an audiobook. Your work is done. (Well, except that you now have to market the book, but that’s a whole other post.)

You should now have a feel for the fact that creating an audiobook is a long and arduous task, but it doesn’t have to be intimidating. You can do it and it will likely be very rewarding. Aimed with this information, you should be able to make a more informed decision about whether audiobooks are the right next step for you. And if you decide that they are, then let this post serve as a handy little guide to help you through the process.

Next Week: Guest: Author Barbara Venkataraman - Audiobooks 'R' Us!

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Audiobook Recipe - Serves 1 (Part II)

11/24/2014

Continued from last week...

Audition
Finally, it’s time to audition. The first thing you should do is sort the possible titles by Gender, Project Rate, and Genre (You need to know your voice type so that you can choose the genre in which you are most likely to have success). Next you’ll want to choose between Fiction and Non-Fiction (depending on your genre, this choice may already be made for you). If you can do lots of character voices and/or have a lot of variation in your vocal tone, speed, and inflection, you will likely be great at narrating Fiction. If you have a narrow vocal range, you aren’t able to easily adjust your speed and/or inflection, or you just prefer to read entirely in your own voice then Non-Fiction is probably best for you. Next you’ll want to narrow the results further by choosing Language, Accent, Voice Age, and Vocal Style. I can’t stress enough that you really need to know what qualities your voice possesses to get this right. If you aren’t sure, ask around. As far as language and accent go, if you are bi-lingual or you can do multiple accents, then you may want to do multiple searches for each attribute. Last but not least, you may or may not want to sort by Project Length. If this is your first time narrating a book, choosing shorter books under royalty share deals is a great way to go and will be far less daunting once you book the job. Practicing ahead of time will help you to estimate your time requirements. You may realize that you have the stamina it takes to produce a full-length book. Choose whichever is best for you. One of the pictures below is an example of a very detailed search that I did. (To maintain security and privacy, I will be showing you screenshots that are publicly available. They will not contain all the information that I’m describing to you. Once you get your first audiobook booking, you will see better what I’m talking about.)

Now you can click on titles and see the details about each potential book. I have chosen the first result to walk you through with pictures. This page will have tabs for navigating and tell you details about the book. The first tab is the “About This Title” tab (see below). It will give you a summary of the book, details about the type of narrator needed, and publication information as well as Amazon rank and number of reviews. Pay attention to these details, they will tell you how successful the book has been in print or ebook format and will give you clues as to how successful it may be as an audiobook.

The second tab is the “Audition” tab (see below). This tab will often include notes from the author or right’s holder about how you should audition and a portion of the book to download to be used for auditioning. It is also where you will upload your audition when it’s complete along with a message box, so you can communicate with the author about your audition and any necessary information such as your availability and time frame.

The third tab is the “Produce Audiobook” tab (see below). This tab will change to allow the upload of files once you have booked the job. It is where the author can upload their manuscript to send to you or confirm that they have sent it to you through other means. This is also where you will upload the First 15 Minutes of the book as well as all of the finished files and where the author will approve or disapprove them. Also included here is the copyright information that you will need to record – it will be added to the beginning and the end of the book.

The fourth and final tab is the “Audiobook Sales” tab (see below). This tab will change to show you sales data for your book once it goes live on Audible. Here you can monitor the total number of sales and the types of sales made.

ACX Title Search

About This Title Tab

Audition Tab

Produce Audiobook Tab

Audiobook Sales Tab

Right now your focus will be on the “About This Title” page and the “Audition” page. Once you have selected your book, go to the audition page and download the provided “script.” Now you need to record the script and submit it on this page. You can submit raw (unedited & unmastered) files, but unlike submissions for other voiceover work, I recommend that you edit & master your audiobook auditions for ACX. The reason for this is that you are likely to be working with an author who will not understand the post-production process, so you need to submit your best “market ready” work to be competitive. It is not just your voice they will hear – you don’t want them to hear distracting breaths and mouth noises and assume that the finished book will also contain these distractions. You will likely audition for many titles before getting your first book.

Sign a Contract
The day has arrived! An author has contacted you and has chosen you to do their book. They will now make you an “Offer” through ACX to produce their book. The offer will contain the terms of the agreement or contract such as payment terms and due dates for both the first 15 minutes and the final completion of the book. If the terms are not satisfactory to you, feel free to communicate with the author until you come to an agreement that satisfies you both – they can then amend the offer or send you a new one with the agreed upon terms. All you have to do is accept this offer and you are now both bound by the ACX contract. Once you accept the agreement, your author will need to send you the manuscript. When you get it, you are ready to begin. Time to create your audiobook.

Read the book
The very first thing you should do is read the book. Read it in as close to one sitting as possible and with no expectations. You should read through the entire book from start to finish as a spectator. Read it as though it were any other book that you’d read. (Hopefully you like it – if you were careful when selecting books to audition for, it will likely be a book you enjoy. Keep this in mind when choosing your book because the more you like a book, the better you’ll do at narrating it.)

Read the book
Now read the book again. This time you want to really pay attention to what you read, really try to absorb the book and take in as many details as you can. You should also pay particular attention to the tone and the personalities of any characters in the book. Try to imagine yourself in the world of the book. This second read should still be enjoyable, but it will also start to give you an idea of the direction that your narration should take.

Underline Words That You Don’t Understand or Know How to Pronounce
Now you need to skim back through the entire book and underline words and phrases and/or make notes about anything that is unclear, any words that you don’t know the meaning of and any words that you are unsure of pronunciation wise.

Look Up the Words You’ve Underlined and Make Notes About Them in the Margins
After you’ve identified any potential problem words in the book, you should go and look-up all of these words in the dictionary. Use auditory dictionaries whenever possible for pronunciation concerns. (howjsay is a great one.) Make notes on these words in the margins so that when you begin narrating you will have everything you need in front of you. You want to make the most of your recording sessions, so get all of this done and out of the way to avoid having to stop your narration to look up words. If you have done all of this and you still have questions, contact your author. They should be able to clarify anything that you haven’t found answers to in your own research, such as how to pronounce any unusual character names or the meaning of unfamiliar colloquialisms.

Highlight the Characters
It’s time for you to grab those throngs of highlighters you bought. (This is mostly for fiction books – if you’re recording a non-fiction book, you should be reading in only one voice and will not need to differentiate between characters.) You should have a different color for every single character. You may even need to employ different means of highlighting if you have more characters than colors – i.e. using a filled in red highlight for one character and drawing a box around the words with red for another character. However you decide to do it, you should be able to clearly tell each character apart by their highlight. When doing this, take the time to also create a spreadsheet for yourself with each character’s name and then highlight the name on your spreadsheet in the same way it will be highlighted in the manuscript. That way you have an easy key to refer back to at any point. Preparing in this way is an invaluable time-saver and it helps you to easily keep everyone straight and make sure that you’re always doing the right voice. (Extra tip – when doing both male and female voices, use traditionally feminine colors for the ladies and vice-versa for the men to maintain further organization.)

Read the Book
No, I’m not kidding. Read the book again. Now that you’ve gotten all of your characters highlighted, you will be able to pay closer attention to each character as an individual. This time through, you are really getting to know the characters on a deeper level and you are going to pick up little details and nuances that you may have missed the first couple of times you read the book. These things are important, they are what will truly breathe life into your characters. The more familiar you are with the book and the characters, the easier things will be once you get in the booth. And trust me when I tell you that you can never be over-prepared. While I recommend that you read the whole book a minimum of three times, don’t hesitate to read through it more than that if you feel you need to.

Develop the Characters – Attitudes, Accents, Speech Patterns, Vocal Tone, etc.
Now take out the spreadsheet that you created when you did all of your highlighting. You’re going to add a few more columns to it. In one column write down all of the words that describe that character’s personality. In another column write down all of the physical attributes included in the book for that character. In a third column write down what accent the character has if any. And in the last column write down any speech patterns or tones you may want to use for them. Another way to help you create your characters is to visualize them. You may be able to do this by simply creating the characters in your head – really see them and know what they look like. Another way you can do this is by going to Google Images, typing in words to describe the characters, and looking for pictures that you think represent those characters. You can then create a file with all the characters’ pictures and their names that you can refer to at any point in the book creation process.

Suss Out Your Character's Voices
Before you start recording the book itself, you should sit down in the booth and figure out a different voice for each character. You should do this now, so you can be sure that you are differentiating enough between each character. You should also make sure that any characters that are related to one another have a distinct but similar sound. While you are figuring out the characters, you should be doing so by using their words from the book. You should also record each voice to a separate track and label it with the character’s name. That way once you start the book, much like your spreadsheet, you will have a reference anytime you need to check to make sure you’re doing the right voice for a character. If you end up recording the same character on different days, it's great to be able to refer back to these files to make sure that the character’s voice is consistent.

Next Week: Audiobook Recipe - Serves 1 (Part III)

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Audiobook Recipe - Serves 1 (Part I)

11/17/2014

As I was writing this post, it became quickly apparent that this would be an information packed post. To make it more manageable, I’m splitting it into three posts. There are some areas that may require further explanation, so I’ve done my best to include links where appropriate to help you.

In my last post I told you about how I got started in audiobooks and voiceover. There are lots of people out there who want to do audiobooks, but are daunted by the process. Believe me, it IS a process and it takes some time to grasp, but it’s not impossible. As with all voiceover work, the very first thing you need to do is get some training. Just because you are an actor and just because you can read doesn’t mean that you can jump right into audiobooks. You don’t want to wind up booking your first job and have no idea what you’re doing. That said, that’s kind of how I got started, but I did have quite a bit of vocal training first. Please do yourself, your potential author, and the audiobook community a favor and take some voiceover classes before you attempt an audiobook. Ok, now let’s assume you’ve gotten training. I’m going to walk you through the process from start to finish.

Specifically I want to teach you this process by using the ACX website. We all need to start somewhere and ACX provides the perfect platform to do so. ACX makes the process of creating an audiobook accessible, which means that it’s equally great for people starting out and those continuing a career as an audiobook narrator. It gives noobs the opportunity they need to get their feet wet so that they can start building a resume, a following, and make strides towards taking their career to the next level. And where else in your acting career would you ever be given the chance to compete in one of the main marketplaces on your first try. There is no way that your first film is going to make it to the Big Screen or that the first play you will get cast in will be performing on Broadway. Your first audiobook however, will be sold on Audible. It’s a rare and wonderful opportunity and who knows how long it will remain open to everyone. If you’re thinking about getting into audiobooks, do it now. That said, this is also why training should be your number one priority. You only get one chance to make a first impression – so make it a good one! Once that first book is out there, you can’t take it back. It doesn’t have to be a bestseller, but the narration does need to be good enough that people will want to hear you narrate again. Without further ado – here’s how to narrate an audiobook on ACX.

AUDIOBOOK RECIPE*
This recipe assumes that you have already gathered the necessary ingredients ahead of time.

INGREDIENTS:
1 Trained Voice
1 Strong Imagination
1 Recording Studio – Sound proof area, Microphone with Pop Filter (USB mics have greatly improved and are great for starting out), Computer, DAW (you can use the same DAW for editing & mastering or choose different ones for each task), Copy Stand or Tablet, Good Lighting, Mixer (optional)
1 or more VO Demos – preferably a Narration Demo, but a general Broadcast (or Commercial) Demo will suffice
1 Resume
10 or more Highlighters
1 Complete ACX Profile (View Mine Here)

DIRECTIONS:
Join ACX
Audition
Sign a Contract
Read the Book
Read the Book
Underline words that you don’t understand or know how to pronounce
Look up the words you’ve underlined & make notes about them in the margins
Highlight the Characters
Read the Book
Develop the Characters – Attitudes, Accents, Speech Patterns, Vocal Tone, etc.
Suss out your character's voices
Record the First 15 Minutes
Edit & Master the First 15 Minutes
Upload the First 15 Minutes for Author Approval
Record, Edit, and Master the rest of the book
Upload the Finished Files for Author Approval
ACX Quality Control
This little Audiobook Goes to Market

Notes:
Prep is important. The more time you spend on your preparation, the less time you’ll spend cooking your book.
Before you start recording, be sure to check all of your audio levels and settings to make sure they are appropriate for the work you are doing and your voice.
Don’t expect immediate cash flow, well-seasoned experience will result.
Marketing is the key to success. (You will need to market your book as much as you can. ACX will help you do this by issuing you free codes that you can send out to friends and reviewers – they will get to download your book for free and will hopefully write you a great review. Also keep this in mind when choosing an author to work with, because they should be willing to do as much marketing for the book as humanly possible.)

*Before You Can Begin Your Audiobook
In order to hit the ground running there are a few things you should do before signing up for ACX.
First you should read every single page of the ACX website so that you fully understand the process, the contracts, and any other details. There is a TON to read, but later you’ll realize it was time well spent. If you have any questions call ACX. Their customer service is excellent and they will get you the answers you need. The one place that ACX customer service is lacking is in the technical support department with regards to recording, editing, and mastering – if you need help with these things, you’re better off asking a professional or experienced friend. ACX can explain to you all the technical specs that you need to meet, but they cannot help you with how to get there.
Next you should choose a few short books or pamphlets that you own and practice the entire audiobook creation process from start to finish several times. If you read my last blog, then you know that I booked my first job without even auditioning and that I had to teach myself everything about this process on the fly. Now, I wouldn’t change a thing because it’s all worked out well for me, but if I knew then what I know now, I would have practiced creating an audiobook before creating an ACX profile.

Join ACX
Now, you can set up your ACX profile, just follow the step by step directions on the site. Be sure to enter your tax information so that you can receive any payments and/or royalties. And also upload your demo and tag it appropriately. If this is your first book, under the “How would you like to be paid?” category, you should choose Royalty Share and/or Unspecified Hourly Rate. This will give you the best shot at getting an author to take a chance on you. It’s been quite some time since I set up my profile, but I know there may be other areas where you need some guidance. Feel free to comment with any questions or shoot me an email.

As I finished writing this post, I just received an offer to produce my next audiobook. So it’s back to work for me!

Next Week: Audiobook Recipe - Serves 1 (Part II)

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Paver Patio Final Photos

Top 10 Email Submission Tips

10/28/2014

1 Comment

Hey folks! I’m back to writing the blog. My break lasted a little bit longer than intended, but it was much needed. I got my patio almost finished (pictures below), worked some VO jobs, filmed a short for the 48 Hr. Horror Film project (film below), did some auditioning, and worked as a principal in a haunted house. Ha, what break? While I ended up spending a lot more time working on this break than I usually do, I did get a chance to relax and take a time-out from social media. Now as soon as I get this patio finished, it’s back to work full-force. And one of the first things that I need to do is send out some emails to agents, studios, cd’s, etc. in the hopes of finding more work, establishing new relationships, and getting the ball rolling again.

As actors, we're always sending out emails. It takes a lot of time and energy to keep up all that communication, so here's 10 important tips to help you maximize your emailing efforts.

1. Keep It Short & Sweet
Keep your emails short and to the point. People don’t have a lot of time these days and they aren’t interested in reading a novel in email form. The people you’re sending to potentially get hundreds of emails a day, so when they open an email and it’s really long, they may just delete it. They may feel like it’s going to be a waste of their time, that is doesn’t respect their time (which they view as incredibly valuable), or it could even give them a sense that you are difficult to work with and will be bugging them constantly with way too much information.

2. Include Headshots
You should always include at least one and sometimes a few headshots with every email you send out. You want people to like and remember you, so one of the easiest ways to get them to do this is to include your headshot. They will be able to put a face to your name and will be more likely to remember you when you meet or email them in the future.

3. Attach Your Resume
I suggest you always include links to your website, reels, and any pertinent info (usually in the email signature), but you should always attach your resume. This allows them to get to it quickly if they need to find you again. If you attach it, they can simply do a search for the email you sent them.

4. Target Your Audience
Make sure that you are sending emails only to those people who may take an interest in you. For example – if you are a voiceover actor who specializes in character voices, you should be targeting studios that produce audiobooks, video games, animation, etc. Don’t waste your time or theirs by sending your demo to every studio out there. By randomly throwing these emails to the wind and praying that some will stick, you’re doing yourself, your voice, and the studios a disservice. How’s that?
            a. Wasting Your Time
            You are wasting your time sending emails to people who can’t or won’t help you (If they aren’t                 interested in your type of voice, they aren’t going to hire you. – Yes it may happen once, but it’s             unlikely to happen again. And even if it does, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. – Why             spend time on someone you may be able to talk into being interested, when you can spend                     time on people who are already likely to be interested?)
            b. Wasting Their Time
            You are telling them that their time is not valuable (You didn’t bother to check if your voice was             their type, but sent them an email anyway. Reading it will take up their valuable time and result             in no pay-off for them.)
            c. Making Enemies, Not Friends
            You are making enemies (When people feel that someone is wasting their time, they’re quick to             write you off. – If this happens, the next time you send them an email that is targeted to them,                 they may not even bother to open it. – And it’s a small world, you can bet that these people talk             to each other, regardless of their niche. Making just one person feel devalued or                                         inconsequential can lead to them saying something negative about you and get you black-listed             from a whole host of others.)
            d. Appearing Desperate
            You may be implying that you’re desperate (By sending emails to every single studio on the                     planet, you’re suggesting that your voice is not valuable and that you’re so desperate for a job                 that you’ll work for anyone – This may be true at times, since it can be hard to get jobs as an                     actor, but you can’t let other people know that – It diminishes the value of you and your voice. –             No one is attracted to a desperate person. We are attracted to people who are confident                         enough in their abilities that they won’t offer them to just anyone.)

5. Distinguish Between Specialties
Distinguish commercial agents from theatrical agents from cd’s from director’s, etc. Do a little research into them – it won’t take long. Let’s say they’re a theatrical agent. Don’t ask them to look at your commercial reel. For 2 reasons: One, they’re unlikely to truly know anything about commercials and thus will be uneducated as to whether you have what to takes. Two, they are incredibly educated at representing people for theatre and film and would likely do a great job reviewing your film reel or monologue and possibly representing you in those areas. Ask the commercial agents to review your commercial reel, ask the theatrical agents to review your film reel and/or monologue, ask the sound studios to review your VO Demo, ask the cd’s and directors to review the material that is appropriate to their specialties, and for those who work within all these areas, simply let them know that you work in commercials, theatre, film, and voiceover. Then maybe send them everything or better yet, just the materials they seem to be most proficient at.

6. Write Short Paragraphs
Remember to break things up into small paragraphs. These are much easier to read, appear to be shorter and more manageable (especially when being read on a smartphone), and can lead you to make sure that each paragraph directly addresses whatever you have to say. This will also help you to stick to a shorter, better email length.

7. Compliment and Personalize
Compliment them before asking for something and tailor the email to each individual. It can be as simple as starting with Hi (their name) and then a sentence such as “I really enjoy seeing your actors on the screen.” or “I’ve spoken with several friends who have worked with you and they all highly recommend you.” Make sure that whatever you say is true, honest, and specific, in case they start a discussion. You don’t want to tell them you love their commercials, then have them ask you what you thought about their XYZ commerical, only to realize you’ve never seen the XYZ commercial.

8. Forget TMI
Don’t give any more information than is necessary. It makes the email longer and less manageable. They don’t need to know every single thing about you upfront – your sizes, your food preferences, whatever. Think about it like dating, leave a little to be desired. If they want/need any additional info from you, they will ask. The only time to include additional info is if they specifically ask for it either in a post that you’re responding to or in a reply email.

9. Be Plain & Simple
Don’t send emails composed in fancy or elaborate fonts and colors. Use either Arial, Times New Roman, or Verdana and make your default color black. You may think you are being cute and creative and showing off your fun personality, but what you’re really doing is aggravating the person you’re emailing. Other fonts and colors can be difficult to read which translates to wasting peoples’ time. It will take them more time and effort to read and they may delete it rather than waste that valuable time.

10. Sign It
Include an email signature at the bottom, they are easy to create and make it easier for people to find and contact you, plus you just set it and forget it. This also allows you to close an email informally with something like:

Thank you,
Carrie

And yet to include your full name.

Your email signature should look something like this:

At the very least your full name, title, and email address in some configuration. This is an area of the email where you can get a little creative by changing the font type, size, or color, and/or adding your logo gif to let your personality shine.

I hope this helps you the next time you need to send out that all important email. Remember – everyone’s time is precious, including your own, so don’t waste it. If you show someone that you can value their time, they may just be willing to use that time to help you out.

Next Week: How I Started in Audiobooks & Voiceover

photo credit: BramstonePhotography via photopin cc /Added Border