AUDIOBOOKS Audiobook Narrator: Do Listeners Find You InterestING Or InterestED? They'll Hear It ... March 2, 2017 By Jim Conlan Voice Actor, Audiobook Narrator, Coach What makes a story interesting? For years I’ve been saying that if what you’re narrating matters to you, it will matter to your listeners. But how do you make it matter? Logically, you might say (and I’ve heard many say it) that you need to "be interesting.” Well… OK… but have you ever tried to "be interesting”? I have. Any number of painful dating experiences comes to mind. By when trying to be interesting I was putting the attention on myself, not on the other person. CHANGE YOUR FOCUS So, what if we changed the adjective a little: instead of trying to be "interesting,” how about being "interested”? Whether you’re narrating an account of the murder of Robert Blake’s wife (did that) or the ascent of Mt. Ararat (did that) or an hour-by-hour description of the taking of the Scheldt River Estuary in WWII (yeah, did that, too), you’ll keep your listener’s attention in proportion to how interested you are in what you’re narrating. In practice it works sort of like this: Before you narrate a single chapter, adopt the attitude that you hope your listener will have: be curious.
The result is that, instead of trying to sound interesting, you’re sharing a mutually interesting experience. Who wouldn’t be interested in that? ----------------- ABOUT JIM James Conlan is a narrator with nearly 70 fiction and non-fiction titles. He has trained dozens of extremely interesting audiobook narrators. Email: provomaster@yahoo.com Web: www.provomaster.com SEE MORE HELPFUL AUDIOBOOK NARRATION ARTICLES HERE Your Daily Resource For Voice-Over Success
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It's no wonder that when a voice artist narrates his own books, he or she sound much better than when they're narrating someone else's story.
A good tip by far is to be part of that book, get involved in the story, really feel each character and location.
If the narrator doesn't believe it, it'll show and the audience won't believe it either.
I've returned many audiobooks narrated by some of the best in the industry who simply bore me to death.
I love you and hope we teach together soon!!!!