Away From the Mic

Thoughts About Advice in Narrator Groups

11 March 2021

You don’t have to be a student of American history to know about the Donner party.

In the 1840s, this group of around 90 people had heard about the wonders of California and decided to travel west to seek their fortune.

Rather than following the rutted road of the hundreds of settlers before them, they took an unproven shortcut given by a person who had not actually made the trip he proposed and therefore had no business in directing others to go that way. None of the Donner party had traveled the route before, either, so they had no experience or knowledge to measure the shortcut against.

As a direct result of taking the disastrous advice about the shortcut, most of the party didn’t live to tell the tale. Those who did live endured unimaginable and grisly hardships in camp.

People today have heard about the gold rush in audiobooks, leading many to decide to become a narrator. While mistakes in audiobook narration don’t carry such severe consequences, they do have repercussions. Therefore, narrators participating in online forums need to be careful about the advice they give and take.

5 Things I Learned From Margaret Mitchell’s Letters

20 February 2021

I always wondered why Margaret Mitchell didn’t write another novel after Gone with the Wind. I thought she could have feared the critics’ comments as they compared a second book to the epic, monumental achievement of her first. Nothing could ever live up to the reputation of her Great American novel.

However, when I narrated Road to Tara: The Life of Margaret Mitchell by Anne Edwards, I learned one big reason for Mitchell’s later absence from the bookshelves of new releases: she was too busy responding to correspondence about her book to write another book!

Embed from Getty Images

I’ve read the 2 books of her letters linked below. I’ve also been collecting the pictures of her letters posted by eBay sellers.

Mitchell published GWTW in June 1936, and it instantly became a runaway bestseller. David O. Selznick then paid the highest price to that date for the movie rights, causing Mitchell’s celebrity to rise even higher.

Suddenly, all the newspapers and magazines wanted to do interviews with the reluctantly-famous author. In numerous letters, she described fans as jumping out of the bushes at her home to get her autograph.

She was so besieged by people who wanted her to sign their books that she stopped signing them after a couple of months. However, she replied to hundreds or maybe thousands of letters requesting an autographed book to explain why she wouldn’t do it — and then signed the letter!

Maybe Mitchell felt compelled to respond to almost everyone due to her inborn sense of graciousness and Southern hospitality. Maybe she secretly thrilled at being a celebrity and sought to keep more recognition coming to her.

Whatever her reasons, she spent all day, every day, immersed in and often overwhelmed by her mail. For instance, she fielded fans’ questions, as well as requests for speaking engagements and material mementos.

Although Mitchell vowed not have any part in making the movie, she answered and wrote a barrage of letters about it. She also kept eagle eyes and a tight rein on the foreign rights and translations of her book, initiating and participating in countless exchanges about those aspects of publishing.

I think of Margaret Mitchell often when I’m reading, replying to, and writing my email and communicating in online forums. I learned a few things from the way she dealt with her voluminous correspondence that I want to share with you.

Use templates, and then liberally copy and paste.

Margaret only had her trusty typewriter and reams of paper at her disposal. What might she have achieved and how productive might she have been with a computer? Rather than re-typing the same info to multiple people like she did, we have the luxury of copying and pasting from one message to another.

If you find yourself sending the same message on a recurring basis, create a template for that type of correspondence. For instance, I have a folder in Evernote containing my templates for numerous situations, including:

prospecting emails to publishers and authors (they ARE different!)
messages to authors who chose a different narrator from an ACX audition
requests for reviews
inquiries about licensing rights
asking permission to add people to my mailing list

I even have a template for newcomers who leave me voice mail asking to talk with me about becoming a narrator! It’s super fast and easy for me to open my Evernote app on my phone, find that template, and copy and paste it to a text message back to the originating phone number. In the time it took for me to write or you to read that sentence, I could have taken those actions, responded to that query, and moved on with my day.

2. Create and use keyboard text shortcuts.

Facebook Messenger, WordPress, and other platforms don’t maintain my email signature. As pictured below, I set my keyboard text replacement to automatically and magically type Cordially, Karen Commins when I type the 3 letters ckc and press space or return.

I have created a number of text shortcuts for things that I type frequently:

my email address
sign-off sentence in email
daily tasks like walking my dog
my web site URLs

MacOS has text replacement as a built-in feature. From my quick Google search, it looks like you have to use a separate text expander utility in Windows to get this functionality. I saw this one recommended on several sites, and its capabilities go beyond simple text replacement.

3. Don’t answer everybody even when you know the answer.

Mitchell prided herself on the depth and accuracy of her historical research for GWTW. She felt compelled to set the record straight whenever anyone questioned the facts in her book. Instead of defending her previous research, she could have spent that time doing new research for a new project.

This tip is becoming one of my mantras! I remind myself of this point when I am reading Facebook forum threads. I’ve decided it’s not my job or even in my best interest to share my knowledge every time the opportunity presents itself.

In addition, I receive LOTS of messages from narrators, authors, and wannabes via email, text messages, and social media. As I’ve previously noted, if I personally assisted everyone who asked for my help, I would never have time to do any work of my own.

I state on my Contact page:

Due to the volume of requests that I receive, I may not personally respond to your message. I prefer to answer publicly so that more than one person benefits from the answer.

If I can quickly point someone to a blog article or other resource, I am very happy to do so. Otherwise, since I have stated my policy, I feel no guilt when I sometimes need to press the delete key. I especially use the delete key when I know someone wants to sell me something or I can tell that writing a suitable answer would take more than 5-10 minutes. I make a note of questions that require more involved answers for subjects to explore here on the blog.

4. Don’t put others’ needs ahead of your own creative output.

I saw a quote recently that speaks to this thought:

“When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.”
— Paulo Coelho

When I re-read my journals, I’ve noticed that I’ve said on too many occasions that I didn’t even start on my project for the day because I was helping other people.

Helping people gives me joy. I feel it’s a large part of my purpose.

I’m realizing, though, that I can help more people in the long run by prioritizing my creative projects (like writing this article!) ahead of helping a single person in the moment.

5. Get to the point quickly, and don’t bury the lede.

Mitchell’s letters show her immense strength and charm as a loquacious storyteller. She wrote the most chatty, lengthy letters and would wax on for paragraphs assuming that her recipient was devouring her every word with keen interest.

People today are too busy and get far too many sources of info hammering at us every day.

When I worked as the deputy branch manager in my government IT career, my boss complained that he received lengthy emails that left him wondering what the person wanted him to do. He often forwarded such messages to me to decipher and resolve.

At least once a week now, one of those kinds of messages appears in my inbox. If I can’t quickly figure out what the person wants from me, I delete the message.

A while back, I did some research to learn the ideal length for a prospecting email to a potential client. One writer uses a 5-sentence rule.

The sweet spot falls between 50 and 125 words, which is not much longer than a tweet. I use this site to check the length of emails before I send them.

You also may want to compose messages on your phone because more people are now reading and replying to emails on their phones. If you have to scroll your message, it’s time to make some cuts!

If you wonder why your emails go unanswered, one article writer commented that, like my former boss, s/he felt anxious when seeing large blocks of text. Do they have time to read it? Would they get all of the sender’s points? Do they need to read it carefully? Do they have time to write a long response?

When I’m drafting a message, I may write it in linear/chronological fashion about the situation, which naturally causes my call to action to fall near the end. I then move that action to the 1st or 2nd sentence so it’s immediately clear to the recipient why I sent the message and the action I want them to take. I’ll also enter the action as the subject of the message. I’ll edit the message to use a journalism-style of inverted pyramid where the least important info is left to the end.

Applying these 5 guidelines to my own correspondence and forum participation enables me to spend more quality time on my own projects. How do you make time for your creative work? Please leave a comment!

Commit to Creativity Workshop

11 January 2021

Yesterday I attended the Commit to Creativity workshop hosted by Krista Vernoff, show runner for the Grey’s Anatomy TV show and others. After doing 2 writing exercises during the workshop, I feel inspired and energized to write more articles here on my blog.

I’ll discuss the workshop and share those 2 powerful writing prompts in a minute. First, I want to discuss my plans for this blog going forward.

I want to write more frequently, and I want to write shorter pieces sometimes.

I also give myself permission to write more about my own journey as a recording artist, writer, and owner of a membership site. While I’m changing my format and focus somewhat from more substantive content that I’d call “teachable moments” — I will still write those, of course! — I think the lessons I learn and observations I have along the way will still be relevant to other narrators and authors who are publishing their work in audiobooks.

With that said, let me tell you now about the workshop yesterday.

I could say that I only learned about this workshop through accident.

On 29 December 2020, I saw a post in a Facebook group where someone referenced this Twitter thread that Krista Vernoff wrote about having a life in the arts. I confess that I did not know who she was when I clicked the link.

I connected to what she wrote and saw that she was hosting this workshop. Her guests were actress/director/dancer/choreographer Debbie Allen, actress/writer Nia Vardalos, and author Cheryl Strayed.

I knew the phenomenal accomplishments of these ladies and thought the afternoon would be entertaining, if nothing else. I signed up.

When the event started, I felt excited to be in the presence of these creative powerhouses! Within a few minutes, their genuine natures had crossed the ether in the casual Zoom atmosphere and made me feel like they were mentors and friends I had known for years.

Of course, I took a loooong page of notes in Evernote! Almost every utterance from each of these accomplished women was a golden nugget of wisdom. Listed below are a few of the gems I heard:

The most important thing is to learn how to take a note even if you don’t like it. — Krista Vernoff
If the phone doesn’t ring with a job offer, call yourself and do your own project. — Nia Vardalos
Don’t reject yourself. Don’t let someone else’s opinion or criticism come for you. — Debbie Allen
Part of creating art is letting it go. — Cheryl Strayed

A Compelling Case Study

One part of the conversation was particularly thrilling to anyone in a creative field as we all can follow similar steps to our own destiny!

Early in her career, Cheryl wrote a series of essays as if she were an advice columnist named Sugar. She wrote them for free to create content for a friend’s web site.

At some point, she repackaged and repurposed those essays into a book named Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar.

Some time later, a director urged Nia to read Tiny Beautiful Things. Nia had a highly emotional experience in reading the book; she used the phrase “it unzipped me” to describe it.

Nia decided she wanted to adapt it for a stage play — not that she had any experience in stage adaptations.

She laughed as she said she had the AUDACITY to ask Cheryl Strayed for the permission to develop that adaptation.

Not only did Cheryl say “yes” to the adaptation, but she asked Nia to play Sugar in the stage production! Although Nia hadn’t even given herself permission to ask that question, she had no hesitation in her answer: “Yes, please!”

She and Cheryl lived on opposite coasts, so it cost Nia money to fly back and forth for meetings with Cheryl and later the Broadway production.

In its review of the play, the New York Times awarded a Critics Pick designation.

Nia commented that she’d made the least money on that play than any other professional pursuit, but it gave her the most professional satisfaction.

Now, the play has been done in numerous other cities and theatres. I’m sure when Cheryl wrote all of the columns originally way back when, she never would have dreamed that her creative output would take on the life that it did.

By the way, Nia did an incredible reading from the libretto that had us all in tears. Cheryl’s words and Nia’s interpretation left me breathless and further motivated me to continue improving my acting ability in order to bring even more nuance to my narration.

The Writing Prompts

At the workshop’s conclusion, I no longer thought of this workshop as an “accidental” find. It was more a case of “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

You’ll remember that I said Cheryl gave us 2 writing prompts. In writing the second one, I found marching orders to guide my path going forward!

She explained we must trust the clarity of our deepest inner truth. Every day, she has to face down the inner critic and start new. Cheryl said, “Every time you do it, you evolve. You hand yourself the key to your next becoming.”

The writing prompt she gave us was:

Dear [your name here],

This is your deepest inner truth, and here is what I know.

In her prelude to the second prompt, Cheryl stated that your power/strength/love is at the root of your desire. She encouraged us to not think about the obstacles we face, but to instead think how it feels when you have stepped into your power and are creating your art. “Who are you when you are doing what you are most deeply, divinely called to do?”

Here’s the writing prompt:

Dear [your name here],

This is your power, and this is who you are when you own me.

In both cases, you should set a timer for 10 minutes and then write everything that comes to you as fast as you can. Don’t stop to edit or fix mistakes. Just keep writing.

For me, the last 3 sentences I wrote about my power contained truths I knew but had tried to ignore.

I won’t ignore them any more.

If you do these 2 exercises, did you learn something about yourself? I hope you’ll share your comments below!

Avoid Copyright Infringement During The Pandemic (and Always)

19 March 2020

Last updated 30 March 2020

I first saw someone on Facebook propose a concept. A day or so later, I read a tweet from another person writing about the same thing. Suddenly, it seemed that this idea started spreading exponentially. I began to worry about narrator friends who were unnecessarily exposing themselves to risk.

You see, due to the closures and social distancing measures prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, many audiobook narrators, teachers, and parents have announced plans to record books on YouTube to educate and entertain children or even the public at large. They don’t realize they could be liable for copyright infringement.

Before I finished grad school with my Master of Science in computer information systems, I considered switching to law school to specialize in intellectual property law. I therefore was beyond excited to be accepted in the 2020 CopyrightX course offered by Harvard Law School.

I’ve learned so much in this course and look forward to my successful conclusion of it in early May.

While I’m not a copyright expert, I want to share some information to help these well-intentioned people better understand the laws so that they can avoid the possibility of copyright infringement during the pandemic and thereafter.

Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

6 January 2020

I’ve always been a planner. I’ve even planned vacations more than a year out so that the trip would coincide with a certain date, like when I decided we’d be on cruise ship sailing through the Panama Canal on my birthday. A friend asked me about my plans for this year and expressed curiosity about my planning process, which inspired me to write this article.

Background

First, it may help to know that I love the book Write It Down, Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want and Getting It. The author relates numerous stories about various, interesting ways people wrote about an idea as the first step toward making their dream a reality. The act of writing changes the idea from a mere thought in your brain to an attainable goal in the real world. Many of my grand plans start out as glimmering thoughts in my journal.

I have stopped setting big yearly goals like number of books to narrate or amount of money to be earned in a year. Some of those things are beyond my control, especially in devastating years like 2017-2018. Whenever I didn’t meet my big goals, I’ve felt disappointed and critical of myself rather than celebrating all the things that I did accomplish.

In the last 3 years, I’ve adopted the idea of having a focus word guide me through the year. A 2018 article stated to choose something you want more of. “What is your life missing now? Choose that.”

Optimism was my key word for 2018. Content was doubly important as my word for 2019 as I wanted more of both the adjective for an emotional state and the noun for creative output. My word for 2020 remains my secret as I think telling it may diminish its power.

My key word helps me establish intermediate targets like contacting X publishers each month that I hope will lead to the big achievements. I also select some milestones that are completely within my control. For example, this year I will create at least 2 more video courses for NarratorsRoadmap.com. I already know the topics and am gathering the material I want to include in the courses.

Go-to Apps

Evernote and my calendars are the foundations for everything I do, both personally and professionally. When I wrote above that I’m gathering material to include in my courses, it means that I’m copying web pages, making notes, and adding media to an Evernote notebook named for the course subject.

As soon as I know I’m going to an activity or am taking a trip, I add the function on my calendar with 1 or more reminders before the day. I’ll be able to look forward to events and schedule my other activities around them. Though we’re not even a week into the new year, I’ve already scheduled trips to NY in March and May for multiple audiobook events, participation at VOAtlanta Audiobook Academy in March, and attendance at the play “Hamilton” when it tours here in Atlanta in April. When planning travel, I copy all of my confirmation emails to Evernote and fill out my Evernote trip itinerary template with all the pertinent details and links to those emails.

I use Evernote as my client relationship manager and set reminders on notes for follow-up actions. The Cronofy Evernote Calendar Connector automatically transfers the reminders to my calendar and keeps Evernote and my calendar in synch. I have a color-coded calendar to distinguish various activities.

For instance, I add dates with tie-ins to specific audiobooks to my Promotions calendar. I may set the first reminder a week ahead for a new book where I want to create a graphic. I’d set the second reminder for the day before the date to be sure I schedule the promotion. Sometimes after seeing a reminder about an audiobook in my backlist, I’ll create a new graphic to promote it, such as in this recent tweet.

I start each month by filling in this Evernote template that I created to itemize the major things I want to get done that month. I confess that I’m notorious for trying to stuff 10 pounds of activities into a 2-pound bag! I may not do half the things I set out to do, but action begets action begets action, which all becomes and sustains forward movement. I add dates from the calendar for my standing commitments like my biweekly show for the Georgia Radio Reading Service and the Tuesday tips I write and distribute each week on Twitter.

On a daily basis, I look at the monthly note and my list of Evernote reminders and then fill in this Evernote template of 1 to 5 things I expect to do that day. I list personal appointments like the dentist and hair salon among those 5 tasks.

In the blank space at the top of the note, I record the audio of my daily sightreading practice and enter info about exercise I undertook that day like swimming and walking the dog. Throughout the day, I check the boxes when completing tasks and add any links or documents created in the process.

I have almost 2700 Daily Notes in Evernote stretching back to October 2012. Before I started keeping them in Evernote, I used paper calendars. My paper archives go back to 2003!

I love having all of my planning info in Evernote because it’s searchable, and I can add audio, pictures, videos, emoticons, and links to each page. If I don’t finish something in a day, which is OFTEN the case due to the rabbit holes I jump in, I can copy and paste it to the next day (or even the next week).

I hope that sharing part of my process gives you some useful ideas for your own planning sessions! I’d love to see your questions and comments below.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

16 September 2019

When a kid returns to school in the fall during a movie or TV show, they invariably must write and recite a report discussing how they spent their summer vacation. I never recall having that assignment at the start of any school year.

If I had, my report probably would have included the number of books I checked out from the library and the songs I learned to play on piano, and, from 5th grade on, the music I played on clarinet, oboe, and flute. I also would have talked about my daily trips to the pool.

My almost daily pool time would certainly remain present in such a chronicle today; some things never change. However, today’s account also would be bubbling with discussion about my new web site NarratorsRoadmap.com, which is fully launching today 9/16 at 9:00am!

Looking back, I can connect the dots and see this site has been in my destiny for quite a while and is a natural evolution and expansion of things I’ve been doing.

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™