![]() So she tips her chin down and reads while looking downward. She imagines that Fran would literally have to talk down to people most of the time. For example, what might a really tall woman named Fran sound like? Robin has a whole process of figuring it out. Sometimes, though, a character’s characteristics are a lot more subtle. In Robin’s case, she has voiced Cockney-accented pirates, grumpy Norwegians, and even the raspy voice of blues singer Howlin’ Wolf. Sometimes it’s obvious – sometimes the book mentions an accent specifically. Some are probably pretty obvious - names they don’t know how to pronounce, or pivotal scenes with a big emotional moment.īut what really blew my mind to think about was how narrators bring characters to life with different voices. “What I’ve discovered is that most mainstream books, right around page 80, you’re going to find like the first significant incident,” Robin says.Īs the narrators are reading, they’re taking a lot of notes. If Robin is tight on time, she has some tricks too. He’s Robin’s production manager and a speed reader. Sometimes Robin’s husband helps her out with that part. ![]() If they accept the gig, then they start reading. “A lot of times, I don’t know what the book is going to be about, except for the description that is sent to me by a publisher,” Kevin says. Which may seem risky, but does make sense in terms of how long it can take to read a book before even deciding to take a job. Which is just to say that she has immense range.īoth Robin and Kevin said they don’t read the entire book before agreeing to voice it. She’s also narrated nonfiction like Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns, or fiction like Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. It’s exciting,” Kevin says.Īnother one of my favorite readers is Robin Miles. “When I’m doing an audiobook, I get to play a leading man. It took him a while to fully embrace narration as the actual goal, but he says it’s the only time he gets to use all of his talents as an actor. “I grew up wanting to be an actor, and that meant theater, and then eventually TV, and then movies, and then you know, death,” Kevin says. Free, who describes himself as a multi-hyphenate artist who has been wearing the audiobook narrator hat since 2000.Īmong many other things, he narrates Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, which is a much more delightful series than the title may suggest.įor Kevin, audiobook narration wasn’t originally a career path he had considered. And then I get to find and hire that voice.” I get paid to read books all day and talk to really brilliant authors, and then do the dream casting that I think we all do in our heads. “Mostly, I think my 10 year old self would be thrilled. Sarah Jaffe, an executive producer at Penguin Random House audio, says she’s been explaining what she does to her parents for the last 12 years. Plus, publishers are making more audiobooks than ever.Ī person with a big role in your favorite audiobooks, but whose voice you’ll never actually hear is the producer. In 2021, revenue increased by 25% over the year before - that’s more than $1.5 billion. According to the audiobook company Libro, 2022 was the tenth straight year of double-digit growth in audiobook sales. ![]() I first learned about books on tape from my legally blind Opa, my dad’s dad, who’d get them mailed to him from the Library of Congress.įast forward to today, and the audiobook business is thriving. ![]() I didn’t know this history, but it didn’t totally surprise me. In 1932, the American Federation for the Blind began making what was then known as “talking books.” The history of the audiobook is deeply rooted in the history of disability justice in the United States. ![]() Except we’ll be following the life cycle of an audiobook from author to producer to narrator … to the sounds coming out of your earbuds. “In a sense, audiobooks take us back to that world before the novel.”ĭo you know those “How it’s made” videos that show you how hard candy or soda cans or crayons are made in the bowels of a factory? Today, we’re going to do something similar. “It’s like the family or the tribe has gathered around a fire at night, and a storyteller is telling the story,” author Mohsin Hamid says. “When we’re born, we are already wired to respond to the sound of our mother’s voice,” says seasoned audiobook narrator Robin Miles. ![]()
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