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San Francisco Audio Book Voice Over

How To Make It In The Business Of Audiobook Recording

Audiobooks have become integral complementary components to their written counterparts. They are the perfect way of capturing the additional market segment of those who, while interested in books, are either too busy or unable to read.

However, just the way the writing style and fluency affects a book’s ability to capture the reader’s attention, an audiobook’s ability to retain the attention of the listener is hugely dependent on the narrator’s ability to tell the story as it needs to be told. Doing an audiobook voice-over is not as simple as it sounds and there is the huge responsibility of making the book appealing to the audience on the narrator.

So, if you are looking to become a narrator then it is important to understand the significance of the narration’s role in making an audiobook successful. And then it is important to understand how to go about becoming a good audiobook recording artist.

The Skills You Need To Become A Successful San Francisco Audio Book Voice Over Narrator

Narrating an audiobook is one of the hardest voiceover jobs in the business.

To succeed in it, there are specific skills you need to nurture and develop so that when the opportunity arises, you hit the nail on the head. Here are some of the most important skills needed to be a good narrator:

  • Perfect Articulation: Enunciate, enunciate, enunciate: This is one of the most important rules to live by. You need to make sure to pronounce every word properly and clearly so the listener has no trouble understanding even while multi-tasking.
  • Compelling Delivery: While diction is important, storytelling is also about communicating the changing tones of the plot. A good narrator needs to be able to deliver the feel and vibe the author intends for the text and tries to remain consistent with the author’s intentions throughout the narration. You should, for example, know how to maintain consistent pacing of narration, how to time the delivery for different situations, and when to give a long pause for effect.
  • Bringing Characters To Life: You need to have the ability to create different-sounding vocals to be able to bring the characters to life in a distinct fashion so that the listener can easily identify them while listening to the story. Your inability to do this can make the story boring and difficult to follow for the listener.
  • Consistent Story-telling: You are likely to record a book over a few days and each recording day can be 6 hours and more. You need to make sure that your energy, tone, pitch control, and characterization remain consistent throughout the day and for the duration of recording the audio of the book. A lack of consistency will once again take away from the charm and attraction of the story.
  • Stamina: As we mentioned, storytelling can be long days of grueling hours of voice-recording, in which you can’t let your voice drop in energy or pitch nor can you let you characterizations and pacing change. This is no mean feat. It requires considerable stamina and that is something you need to have built up before attempting even your first attempt at audiobook recording.
  • Commitment To The Art: There will be days that your throat will be hoarse from working and there will books, which will challenge your ability and endurance to the maximum. But if you want to make this a career and succeed at it, you need to be absolutely committed and unwaveringly invested into it. This means you do everything you can to succeed: Learn the skills you don’t have, sharpen the ones you do have, and practice, practice, and practice. It is the only way you will be able to make it in this business.
san francisco audio book voice over

There is much you can do to develop some of these skills. Here are just a few things you can do to become an expert at audio book voice over:

audio book voice over
  • Practice narrating books at home
  • Record your voice and analyze its clarity and pacing
  • Take acting lessons and participate in skits to be able to develop the ability to voice different characters
  • Take voice lessons to improve your pitch, pacing and delivery
  • Take diction lessons to ensure clarity of speech and overcoming any pronounced accent

If you practice and take time to identify the niche you feel you are most suited to and comfortable with, you can become an audio book voice over pro.

Knowing your strength and sticking with it is key to helping you succeed from the first project you take on. If you commit yourself to this art, prepare for it, and persevere, there is no reason why you can’t become a successful audiobook recording artist.

Contact us to learn more how Oddua Productions can make your San Francisco audio book voice over project a success.