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Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

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voiceover

6 Weeks of Showing My Work

1 July 2015

On Saturday, 16 May, I read Austin Kleon‘s book Show Your Work: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered. He wrote:

When I have the privilege of talking to my readers, the most common questions they ask me are about self-promotion. How do I get my stuff out there? How do I get noticed? How do I find an audience? How did you do it? I hate talking about self-promotion. Comedian Steve Martin famously dodges these questions with the advice, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” If you just focus on getting really good, Martin says, people will come to you. I happen to agree: You don’t really find an audience for your work; they find you. But it’s not enough to be good. In order to be found, you have to be findable. I think there’s an easy way of putting your work out there and making it discoverable while you’re focused on getting really good at what you do….

Become a documentarian of what you do. Start a work journal: Write your thoughts down in a notebook, or speak them into an audio recorder. Keep a scrapbook. Take a lot of photographs of your work at different stages in your process. Shoot video of you working. This isn’t about making art, it’s about simply keeping track of what’s going on around you. Take advantage of all the cheap, easy tools at your disposal—these days, most of us carry a fully functional multimedia studio around in our smartphones. Whether you share it or not, documenting and recording your process as you go along has its own rewards: You’ll start to see the work you’re doing more clearly and feel like you’re making progress. And when you’re ready to share, you’ll have a surplus of material to choose from.

While the book is short and easily consumed in an hour or so, its wisdom takes longer to digest.

I decided to do an experiment of showing my work with a Daily Dispatch on Twitter. Before you see all of the Daily Dispatches, let me first tell you 4 few things I learned in the experiment.

[Read more…] about 6 Weeks of Showing My Work

Filed Under: Away From the Mic, Business, Narrators, Voice-Over Tagged With: audiobook, Austin Kleon, Daily Dispatch, Evernote, experiment, Jing, Lynda.com, marketing, narration, Show Your Work, Skitch, Techsmith, voiceover

Stray Post Roundup

13 June 2015


Howdy, pardner! Welcome to my first stray post roundup! I don’t always confine my writing to this blog, and some of my critters have wandered off hither and yon across the ‘Net. I thought I’d rein ’em in here in case you missed seeing them.

In this roundup, I’ll link to my new magazine column and responses posted on other sites about my thoughts on setting boundaries in your voiceover business, how audiobooks allow you to read more books, which audiobooks about technology are best, and whether to read fiction or non-fiction. I’ll also unveil my latest video, which shows how to use the iAnnotate app during the audiobook corrections process.

[Read more…] about Stray Post Roundup

Filed Under: Away From the Mic, Books, Business, Narrators, Other Videos, Videos, Voice-Over Tagged With: Ann M Richardson, boundaries, iAnnotate app, InD'ear, InD'tale, IT, LinkedIn, narrator, Quora, technology, voiceover

Dual Gender Narrations in Audiobooks

21 February 2015

An audiobook listener on Goodreads wrote recently:

“I’m hoping the powers-that-be realize this (and care) and we’ll see more audiobooks being narrated by dual-gender narrators.

And I don’t mean simply dividing up the chapters between a male and female narrator to read…I like the dialogue narrated by the relevant gender.”

I can tell you why most books have a solo narrator: COST.

I produced and co-narrated the 4-book Blue Suede Memphis mystery series (fun, cozy mysteries with romantic elements) where I voiced the narrative and all of the female parts, and a male actor (my husband Drew!) voiced all of the male parts — a narration style known as DUET.

A DUAL narration occurs where 2 actors narrate all the characters’ lines in the chapters associated with their main characters’ points of view.

While I love the sound of the finished product and agree that having both genders makes the production so much more interesting, it’s a very time-consuming and tedious process to create an audiobook this way.

First, you have to have production rights to even be able to do a multi-voice production. One mid-size publisher told me that we couldn’t use 2 voices on a particular book because they didn’t have the production rights for it. I guess the production rights allow you to make a play or movie from the book’s text and are somehow different than audio rights.

Next, you cast the 2 actors and must coordinate their recording schedules. If I weren’t married to my co-star, the scheduling step alone could have derailed the production. The schedule is less of a consideration when the narrators are reading whole chapters instead of performing dialogue.

Once the schedule is worked out, you turn to the cost of studio time, both for the recording and the editing/mastering. The Big 5 publishers can afford real-time studio hours in big cities for their high-profile, bestselling titles. Everyone else — small and mid-size publishers and indie authors — usually looks to control costs by casting narrators with home studios. Depending on the project, the editing might be done by the publisher, the narrator, or an editor sub-contracted by the narrator.

Normally, my rule of thumb is that it takes 2 hours in real time to record 1 finished hour and 3 hours in real time to proof/edit/master for 1 finished hour. With the books in this series, we spent at least an additional hour on both phases. A book that runs 10 hours with 1 narrator (or 2 or more narrators who read different chapters) therefore might require 50 hours in real time to record and edit. The same book with 2 narrators and interspersed dialogue might require 70 hours of production time.

Studio time isn’t the only cost consideration. I also have the opportunity cost of other projects or promotion that I can’t do when an audiobook requires more time than usual to complete.

In this series, I did all of the narrative portions and the female voices. I left airtime in the dialogue where male characters spoke. As Drew directed me, he mouthed his lines and cued me in for my next sentence.

Then, we switched places; I directed him as we recorded his parts:

  • I cued him by playing my audio in his headphones.
  • I pressed Record in the software.
  • He delivered his lines. Everything true of solo narration is true here, too, as far as re-recording to fix inflection, accent, flubs, etc. In fact, it may be harder to be the 2nd person because you’re kind of coming into the dialogue cold. I think that person has to work harder to connect to the text because they weren’t immersed in the story to that point.
  • I stopped recording before he spoke over my next line.
  • Sometimes we originally left too much time for his parts, sometimes not enough. Sometimes his delivery caused me go back to my part and re-do it to change some nuance.

As a result, editing the dialogue is EXTREMELY time-consuming. When I am narrating all voices, as is customary, I naturally leave the appropriate amount of time between characters. The editor is not constantly adjusting the timing to make the conversations flow smoothly and naturally. In these productions with true M/F dialogue, the editor’s job was even tougher given the timing issues.

Due to the considerable amount of time needed for this kind of production, I’m not too eager to produce another one. Instead, I’m looking for dual narration projects with 2-3 1st person POVs (romance or mystery) where each narrator is responsible for entire chapters.

Do you like hearing books with 2 narrators? Do you know of a book for which you’d like to hear a dual narration in the audiobook? Please leave a note in the comments!

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Authors, Business, Observations, Voice-Over Tagged With: 2 voices, audiobook, Blue Suede Memphis mysteries, dual narrators, male and female narrators, voiceover

How to Embed a Soundcloud Sample in a WordPress Blog

29 November 2014

With more voice artists sharing their recordings on Soundcloud, I thought it might be helpful to share some steps for embedding the Soundcloud player in a WordPress blog.

First, go to the user’s profile on Soundcloud.

Click the Share button (circled below) on the track or playlist that you want to embed.

On the next screen, choose the Embed tab and check the box for WordPress code. I choose the large player on the left of the 3 sizes shown and make a modification to the code pasted in WordPress, which I’ll explain shortly.

Copy the code from Soundcloud and paste it in the Visual tab your WordPress post.

Note that this code gives you a large picture and player like this:

If you pick the middle player on the Soundcloud embed screen, your player is smaller, but your image may not look pretty.

The player on the right side of the embed screen displays a thin strip of the artwork and is so unsatisfactory in appearance that I don’t even want to include it here.

My blog would crash on an iPad if I had more than one of those large players.

I therefore manually change the code for the large player in my WordPress post so that my player looks like Soundcloud’s original small player. I also like that the cover art is fully represented in the small player.

To make your code for the large player look this way, make these 2 changes to the Soundcloud code that you pasted into WordPress:

&visual=false   (default was true)

height=166       (default was 450)

For an example of a finished post, check out this article, which includes 3 small players.
 

Filed Under: Business, Marketing, Narrators, Recordings Tagged With: recordings, Soundcloud, voiceover, WordPress

TDIMH — Maybe When I Retire

26 June 2014

This Date In My History is an ongoing series of blog posts taken directly from my private journal entries written at least 10 years ago. 

I decided to make it a little more obvious that these journal entries are not current after the last article in this series caused a few people to think I was really down in the dumps. While I truly appreciate their friendship and encouragement, I share these journal entries to help encourage others along their path.

Situation

In this entry, I was in Phoenix for 2 weeks to attend a class for my day job, which I described in an earlier entry:

One down and 7 more to go. Seven more weekdays of mind-numbingly boring class on Exchange 2000 with all these people, 2 of whom are constantly, obnoxiously loud and on my nerves….The temperature here has been 109 degrees. Everyone says “yes, but it’s a dry heat.” It’s still hotter than hell. It’s like poking your whole body into an oven.

Journal Entry

TDIMH — Wednesday June 26, 2002 10:45pm watching Seinfeld in Phoenix

“Maybe when I retire” seems to be a common phrase and state of mind for most people I know.

I was trying to get [a coworker] thinking about her dreams this morning at breakfast. I guess the questions not only came too early in the day but also too early in her life. She’s 43 and said she might like to open a dive shop in Japan — someday — “maybe when I retire.” Most people can’t seem to think about the here and now, preferring to think of “somedays” that may never happen.

Not me. I am so focused on my goals, and I am determined that no one or nothing will stop me from achieving them.

Half of the people attending the class have spent the last 2 weeks drinking by the hotel pool.

Not me. I’ve spent time almost every day trying to make new contacts for voice work. Tonight, I was online for 3 hours. I posted a situation wanted at [one web site]. I looked at web sites on Mandy.com and sent an email to one company. I also have spent time today looking at [at least 5 other sites].

I am a working voice actress who makes my living voicing commercials, narrations, audiobooks and cartoons primarily from my home studio. I am well-known in the industry; well-loved by legions of fans; well-respected by peers, directors, and producers; very well utilized because I can pick and choose my projects; and EXTREMELY well-paid.

Today’s Take-aways

1. How you spend your days is how you will spend your LIFE. How will you spend your next 24 hours? If you have a day job, realize that it isn’t the thing that is holding you back. I’ve previously written about ways to find happiness when you hate your day job. Taking active steps toward your dream will spill over into every other facet of your life.

2.

3.  A dream is just a wish until you WRITE IT DOWN. Most of the last paragraph in the journal entry was so far away from my reality in 2002 but is becoming truer for me every day. It’s important to write what you want to happen in the present tense as if it’s already here. Doing so rewires your brain so that you can feel and live the truth of the thought. You become filled with a joyful expectancy that naturally inspires you to take action to make your statements a reality! To prove this point, take a look at Jim Carrey’s wonderful true story about visualization and manifestation.


Photo: iStockPhoto/maxmihai

 

Filed Under: Away From the Mic, Narrators, This Date in My History, Voice-Over Tagged With: day job, Jim Carrey, Phoenix, visualization, voiceover

Hogan’s Prescription for Success

20 January 2014

This Date in My History is a series of blog posts taken from my private journal entries from at least 10 years ago.

TDIMH — Tuesday 20 January 2004 11:18pm on my sofa

When I leave my day job on the day before holidays, vacation, or wonderful Wednesday, I have the lightness of step and giddy heart of a child out of school for the summer. Knowing that I don’t have to get up early tomorrow and go there gives me such joy! It doesn’t even matter that I feel little stress or pressure on the job. I just love my freedom away from it!

I didn’t even mind going to the doctor for a physical this afternoon. It meant I left even earlier and could start wonderful Wednesday even sooner. It also meant I got home earlier than normal.

While I was in the waiting room, I continued to read Harlan Hogan’s book VO: Tales and Techniques of a Voice-over Actor. Reading his many anecdotes, which, of course, mentioned his clients and credit list along the way, made me feel a bit depressed and discouraged. Sometimes, I feel like I’m a dreamer (on a rough road, to quote the song Swing Street by Barry). I wonder when I’ll get my big break.

However, I was heartened when I read p. 208-210 in his book. He states that we have been taught to ask the big, breakthrough kinds of questions. [He wrote:]

These questions are self-defeating and downright depressing. They are ends, not means.

He talked about Kaizen, which is an ancient Zen philosophy that teaches small, constant improvements by taking tiny steps and asking easy questions to achieve large goals. You should look closely at small, seemingly insignificant details to learn big lessons. [He continued:]

Ask yourself what tiny thing can I do to further my voice-over career today? Keep acquiring and improving the four Ts of voice over — training, talent, tools, and technique — by asking the small questions, taking the small steps, learning each lesson and enjoying the long journey — one session at a time.

I always feel better when I record my activities on my Goals calendar. I get stars for voice-over, and I earn a star almost every day. Some of my activities are pretty small, indeed, but I guess they are better than nothing.

Today’s Take-aways

1.  Do one thing, no matter how small, each day toward your goals. I actually wrote a post on this same topic 5 years ago, which featured a lovely story from Joe Cipriano explaining why it’s important to do something everyday.

2.  You may find it fun and inspirational to track your progress on a calendar. You may even want to give yourself stickers as a small reward for each accomplishment. I got the idea for rewarding myself with stickers on my goals calendar from this post on the Barbara Sher board.  I described how I decorated and used my book in this post. Unfortunately, the links in that post to the pictures no longer work, and I don’t seem to have copies of them to re-upload to my site.

I kept the sticker format for years! I have a binder full of calendars going back to 2003. I stopped keeping a paper calendar in the last couple of years only because I wanted to take less stuff with me on trips. However, I still track my progress every day in an iPad app called Daily Notes. It allows you to create as many tabs as you like so you can track different parts of your life. You also can draw and add pictures, as well as tag and search posts.

3.  I notice in this journal entry that I was once again making comparisons between myself and another voiceover actor. For peace of mind and happiness every day, it’s vital to STOP THE COMPARISONS! Just remember: Comparison is a cancer of the soul.
 

Filed Under: Books, Business, Narrators, This Date in My History, Voice-Over Tagged With: Barbara Sher, Barry Manilow, Harlan Hogan, Joe Cipriano, TDIMH, voiceover, wonderful Wednesday

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