Hi all, I'm brand new here. I can't wait to compare notes about all of my favorite books but I have one quick question. I'm just starting to narrate audio books and my producer focuses mainly on technical books (I was a scientist and engineer so the big words aren't a problem for me) and erotica (I go all the way down to Barry White.) While I absolutely love reading, and I'm having tons of fun reading anything that comes my way, I would really love to do dramatic narration of litrpg novels. I've listened to at least 50 titles in the genre and am completely hooked. So I have to make another audition tape. 3 minutes long. I need some kind of action scene with three or four characters from a book that hasn't already been narrated by a top-tier performer like Jeff Hayes. The problem is that I have no clear favorite. Okay, it's worse than that. I have no idea what scene I want to do and would find it infinitely easier if someone would just tell me. Thanks for your help and I'm glad to have found this wonderful group.
I'm not sure how many are directly in this group. I do know the GameLit Discord has a few that pop in to talk to. I can say that ACX also has a metric ton of stuff up, constantly. Throwing out an audition and seeing what they chose for scripts is probably a good way to build. In fact, most of those authors pick out what they want you to do, so that you don't have to set up guess. It's also possible to communicate with the writer and see what they're looking for prior to the audition. I had a lot of them reach out to me through ACX when my stuff was up there.
I have 3 auditions up on ACX so far. One computational neuroscience segment, One juicy erotica segment, and a portion of Dune which I am now regretting. I think I would rather include a science fiction portion and a litRPG portion. As an author though, I have to ask you another question. My producer normally hands me titles so I'm not clear on the steps an author takes when shopping for narrators. For instance, do you look at which sample was performed? What catches your eye first when you're scrolling down the page? What in the first 10 seconds do you hear that makes you want to keep listening?
I can help you out with your audition tape. I've got a book in the works you can crib a few minutes out of, drop me a PM if you're interested.
Are you auditioning for a production company, or just uploading samples to ACX so people can hear your voice? Either way, I'd worry less about what book you're taking an excerpt from and more about finding text that plays to your strengths as a narrator. To be honest, I always assumed the samples on the website were from projects the narrators had already completed, and they got their initial jobs by auditioning for specific books in the catalog. As an author, I've only been through the audition process once. I posted the script on the website and submissions started trickling in. For book two, I went with the same narrator so there was no need to do it again.
