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December 2012 Audiobook Releases

By Karen on 6 January 2013 Comments(0)

Two of my audiobooks released in December.

Lowcountry Bribe by C. Hope Clark (Book 1 in the Carolina Slade Mysteries)

Threats, a missing boss, a very dead co-worker, a high-level investigation, and a sinister hog farmer... Someone wants to make sure she buys the farm.

In Lowcountry Bribe, Carolina Slade is a by-the-book manager for the Dept. of Agriculture. A farmer offers her a bribe, and she decides to do the right thing -- report it. Soon, her life and those of her children are in danger.

As a former career federal employee, I wanted to narrate this book from the moment I saw it. I had great empathy with the main character, and I was surprised by the strong emotions that I felt in many of the scenes.

I also thought the rural setting was a refreshing change from books about city-dwellers. In fact, the author discussed the country setting in an article titled "We Murder in the Country, Too", which you may find interesting reading. With over 13 hours of listening, this book would be an ideal companion on dreary winter days! :)

Harley Rushes In by Virginia Brown (Book 2 in the Blue Suede Memphis series)

Part-time tour guide and part-time amateur sleuth Harley Jean Davidson is back with another crime to solve. Her Aunt Darcy owns a furniture store and is convinced her partner is smuggling priceless artifacts...until Harley finds him hanging from elk antlers in the shop. It's a light-hearted, fun, cozy mystery.

As with the first book, Hound Dog Blues, the hero of my life story Drew Commins joins me in the booth and performs all the male parts. We enjoy recording this series and laugh at the interplay in the dialogue. Should I feel concerned that Drew sounds a little too good as the gay transvestite receptionist? :)

Summer/Fall 2012 Audiobook Releases

By Karen on 16 October 2012 Comments(0)

My audiobook work has continued steadily all year, and I'm blessed and grateful to report that more are coming!

In addition to the narration, I did the complete production of each of these books in my stunning soundproof studio. I am so fortunate that Drew directs me on my audiobooks. He is exceedingly good at catching mis-reads, and he also offers guidance about saying lines with different emotion or inflection.

Drop Dead Divas by Virginia Brown (Book 2 in the Dixie Divas mystery series)

No sooner has Bitty Hollandale been cleared of the murder of her ex-husband than townspeople suspect she may have killed his lover, town bad girl Naomi Spencer. In addition, Naomi's fiancé Race Champion is also found dead. Talk about a fly in the martini!

Dixie Diva Blues by Virginia Brown (Book 3 in the Dixie Divas mystery series)

Trinket Truevine and her cousin Bitty Hollandale are once again up to their eyebrows in murder and mayhem. This time, the husband of one of the Divas has been arrested for murder. The Divas will stop at nothing to clear him...but what happens at a Divas meeting stays at a Divas meeting!

Irreparable Harm by Melissa F. Miller (Book 1 in the Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller series)

A smartphone app is capable of crashing a commercial jet. And it's for sale to the highest bidder. A plane slams into the side of a mountain, killing everyone aboard. But, as attorney Sasha McCandless digs into the case, she learns the crash was no accident. She joins forces with federal air marshal Leo Connelly, and they race to prevent another crash.

Hound Dog Blues by Virginia Brown (Book 1 in the Blue Suede Memphis series)

With a heroine named Harley Davidson, you know this cozy mystery will be fun! Harley sets out to find out who dognapped family dog King (named after Elvis, of course) and quickly finds herself in the midst of a band of jewel thieves!

I'm also excited about it because my co-narrator who did all of the male parts is also the hero of my life story -- Drew Commins! It was quite a challenge to record both of our parts and then edit it to make it sound seamless. We also gained greater appreciation for each others' usual roles.

Inadvertent Disclosure by Melissa F. Miller (Book 2 in the Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller series)

In this book, tiny but fierce lawyer Sasha McCandless finds a town divided by the practice of hydrofracking. The town's only judge is killed just as he is about to decide a major issue about the mineral leases. Sasha races to find the murderer and save the town before it's too late.

Subsequent books in each of these 3 series are on tap for the coming months. I'm currently finishing Lowcountry Bribe by C. Hope Clark. This mystery thriller is set in South Carolina, and the protagonist works for the US Department of Agriculture. It should be released in early November.

Creating promo videos with public domain components part 1

By Karen on 5 June 2011 Comments(0)

Recently, I had a wonderful e-mail exchange with up-and-coming voice artist Linda Velwest about creating a promotional video. Linda kindly gave me permission to repost her messages here on the blog so that others can benefit from this discussion.

Hi Karen,

I've been following your blog and I've been voluteering at librivox. My name there is lindavw. I just finished recording my first solo project and I'm waiting for it to be PL'd. I saw the trailer you made for your Alaska book and it inspired me to think about doing one for the book I just did! I hope you don't mind me stealing your idea! It's a good one.

The book I read is a short YA book from the 1930's about these girls who are in college and their adventures during their sophomore year. I was going to make a video with me talking about the book, maybe taking some lines from the book, and having a slideshow of colleges and college students from that time as the visual on the video.

I looked up on the internet and found a bunch of pictures of college students from that era. I found some great pictures from a variety of sources - some college handbooks that have pictures of their history, some pictures of movie starts of the time, some cool old pictures I also looked up the legality of using pictures in a video. And I'm kind of confused so I was hoping you could answer my questions or point me in the direction of sources that can.

I am not a voice actress at this time. I'm taking classes, getting coaching and practicing all the time. But I've never actually been paid for anything. If I do make this video, I'll post it around and use it as a way to promote myself and get my name out there. But I have no intention of getting paid anything for the book or the video.

I think of it like a school project where I'm preparing to enter the workforce by dong things as similar to how a professional would do it as possible. I don't want to do anything illegal or unethical and I don't know what the boundaries are.

Thanks for your inspiration and any help you can give me.

Linda Velwest

Here's my response, with some formatting and highlighting added for readability.

Greetings, Linda! Thanks so much for the nice note; you made my day! I love the line in your last paragraph about preparing to enter the workforce. So many people dash off the question to me "I have been told I have a nice voice. How do I get started in voiceover?" without any thought or perusal of the wealth of info on my web site. It's so refreshing to hear from someone who is working at building her skills and taking a methodical -- and wise -- approach to starting a new career. Bravo!

I'm delighted that you liked my book trailer and want to create one of your own. Not only do I not mind that you are using this idea, I expected and encouraged people to do so in this blog post.

As you'll read in the comments, one voice talent used the idea to create a trailer for a local art exhibit and landed inquiries about creating a similar one for pay. Video is a very effective marketing technique!

Also, take some cues from that article about ways to spread the video, as well as publicize your book. My book has been in the catalog for 1 week and has already been downloaded more than 500 times because I have been promoting it.

Think of the target audience for the book or how it might relate to a group of people, and you can figure out some places where those people hang out on-line. For instance, I posted the info and link to my book in the Alaska forum on CruiseCritic.com because it's Alaska cruise season, and many people like to take audiobooks on a trip, particularly if it relates to their destination.

I really don't have a lot of specific info I can share about picture copyrights. Generally, pictures on the Internet or in magazines, books, and papers are protected by copyright. You wouldn't be able to use them or a derivative of them legally without permission of the owner. In gaining permission, you might have to pay a usage fee or royalties.

The same is true of music. You couldn't use something from your own CD collection or off the web. I'll come back to the music in a minute.

Most of the pictures in my video were from the public domain book I narrated, along with 1-2 that my husband took on our Alaskan cruise. As the photographer, he owns the copyright to those pictures and kindly granted me usage of them.

However, I also used some images from iStockPhoto.com, which is one of many on-line sites of stock images that you CAN use in your own work. Photographers and videographers upload their work to these sites. You purchase a picture or video clip, and a usage license comes with it. I've also bought and used these pictures in my blog.

The music in my video was from a royalty-free collection of CDs that I have purchased. You can buy royalty-free music on-line by song, CD, or collection. As with the images, it may take some time to hunt down just the right thing.

Since you've found images that you like, you can always write to those people and request their permission to use it. They may say yes or no, or they may ignore you completely.

Sometimes the copyright owner will surprise and thrill you with their response. In chapter 12 of my book, the author included the chorus lyrics from a Stephen Foster song "Old Black Joe", and she described the setting for it. I first planned to sing the song in the narration (I did that with another Victorian song in the book), but I didn't know the melody.

In researching it, I found a rendition on iTunes that captured the scene to perfection. While the song is in the public domain, and therefore free of copyright restrictions, the performance of it is NOT public domain. The artist has the copyright on the performance. It was so perfect, and I really wanted to use it in my book.

I found the artist on Facebook and sent a message to him. Not only did he immediately grant me permission to use the snippet, but he offered to help me promote it with Facebook ads! He quite clearly told me that he didn't care of someone lifted the song out of the book and used it for something else. His purpose in recording it was to reawaken interest in these old songs.

[Important note: Since LibriVox dedicates all recordings to the public domain, anyone could lift your free book and sell it without sharing the revenue with you. See the excellent discussion on Some Audio Guy's blog about this potential downside to volunteering on this or any other site that leaves your recordings in the public domain.]

[I uploaded the pertinent 1:08 section of the chapter with music if you'd like to hear it.] I am proud of the way it turned out!

I hope these thoughts are helpful. Send me the link to your video when you finish it; I'd love to see it! Best wishes for your health, success, and prosperity!

Linda responded with a great list of sites where you can obtain images and music that are in the public domain for use in your own creative pursuits. She also shared her very cool audiobook trailer. All of these goodies will be in part 2 of this topic, which I'll post tomorrow. Hope to see you here!

Reasons to Create Your Own Stuff -- Part 2

By Karen on 25 May 2011 Comments(0)

Earlier this year, I wrote a popular article titled Reasons to Create Your Own Stuff. In it, I described the audiobook that I narrated for LibriVox and included a link to the book trailer I created to promote the audiobook. I also listed some of the marketing plans I had for the audiobook and trailer among my reasons to create my work in this way.

Two bonus reasons to create your own stuff prompted me to circle back to this topic today:

1) My FREE, 10.5-hour audiobook of A Woman Who Went to Alaska is now available for download from LibriVox or through iTunes as shown on this page.

Bonus reason #1 to create your own stuff:

Copywriters have known for years that the word FREE is one of the most powerful and compelling words in the English language. If you can give away something valuable for free, you can get the widest range of potential buyers to sample your products, which in this case, includes my voice and interpretation, my audiobook production skills, my ability to write an effective script for a video, and my creativity in video production.

2) Rajkumari from Mumbai, India, left a comment on my post 10 ways to get work in audiobook narration, noting that an audiobook culture is not prevalent in India. When I responded, I said, "If the audiobook culture doesn't exist there, perhaps it's up to you to create it!"

As I wrote that sentence, I was reminded of the important passage quoted below from Eckhart Tolle's incredible and highly-recommended book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose:

Bonus reason #2 to create your own stuff:

If the thought of lack -- whether it be money, recognition, or love -- has become part of who you think you are, you will always experience lack.

Rather than acknowledge the good that is already in your life, all you see is lack. Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance.

The fact is: Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world. You are withholding it because deep-down you think you are small and that you have nothing to give.

Try this for a couple of weeks and see how it changes your reality: Whatever you think people are withholding from you -- praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on -- give it to them. You don't have it? Just act as if you had it, and it will come.

Then, soon after you start giving, you will start receiving. You cannot receive what you don't give. Outflow determines inflow.

Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you already have, but unless you allow it to flow out, you won't even know that you have it.

I have found this passage to be true of past voiceover jobs. In fact, Tolle's message was an underlying reason I decided to spend time narrating an audiobook as a service project. You see, I hadn't narrated an audiobook in a while. So, rather than feeling like an audiobook gig was being withheld from me, I gave this one to the world.

It feels great to be able to give!

What do you think of Tolle's assertion that you should give that which you think is withheld from you? Does it apply to your voiceover career or any other part of your life? I'd love to get your comments on the blog!

"Perils of Pauline" Audiobook is Available

By Karen on 30 April 2011 Comments(0)

One reason that I am performing some audiobook work on Librivox as a service project is because it allows me to practice some acting techniques needed for effective storytelling in audiobooks.

A project that was recently completed and is now available for free download is a multi-cast drama of The Perils of Pauline. I voiced the role of the heroine Pauline for two-thirds of the book.

I only read the lines for my character. Much like an audition for a radio dialogue spot, I didn't have the benefit of hearing and playing off the other voice actors in the scene. I had to imagine that I had heard the other characters speak and then react with an appropriate emotional response.

This particular project lasted over 2.5 years due in part to lots of casting changes. Editing all of the hundreds of character reads into the narration was a herculean task undertaken by David Lawrence. I enjoyed hearing the finished product.

LibriVox is a great way to hone your narration and editing skills, but you can also volunteer in other ways such as being a proof listener on projects. I am proud to be part of this active, thriving community.

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