The Audiobook Narrator Prep Program
plus optional demo

Syllabus-

• Week 1
  • Webinar 1 – Audiobook Performance Basics
    • Review of genre types – which genres are you best suited for?
    • Preparing the manuscript – paper and digital
    • Research and manuscript/title review
    • Working effectively with Authors and Publishers
  • One-to-One Coaching Session 1
• Week 2
  • Webinar 2 – Making the Right Acting Choices
    • Acting workshop with a leading audiobook narration coach
    • What level of dramatization is appropriate?
    • Dialects, accents …
    • Performance basics – tempo/pacing; tone/emotion; pitch; volume …
    • Long form character development
  • One-to-One Coaching Session 2
• Week 3
  • Webinar 3 – Vocal care & consistency; developing stamina for long-form narration
    • Vocal care workshop with a leading audiobook coach
    • Maintaining consistency
    • Strengthening stamina
  • One-to-One Coaching Session 3
• Week 4
  • Webinar 4 – Pulling it all Together
    • Q&A re acting for audiobooks; Audio demos for audiobook narrators
    • The auditioning process
    • Developing your personal action plan
    • The business-side of the industry – how narrators get paid, and pricing your services
  • One-to-One Coaching Session 4
• Submission of recording for Final Evaluation

*Private one-to-one coaching sessions are one hour long and take place either via Zoom, at our NYC studio, or at our LA studio, depending on you and your coach’s location and preference.

*The Interactive Group Webinars are two hours long and take place via Zoom.

Specifics-

Covering audiobook performance technique basics, you and your coach will quickly identify which voiceover genres are most relevant for you to work in (e.g. sci-fi, self-help, contemporary classic, mystery, kids, adult,…). It’s always important to align your interests and capabilities with your pursuits in the VO marketplace. That’s a key part of the Edge Studio coaching curriculum. Together, we’ll:

• Determine which audiobook genres will be most relevant for you
• Learn to identify which genres might have less competition
• Ultimately select the work you have the best chance of success

Then using actual scripts, your coach will work with you on groundwork techniques.

• Find out which of your vocal attributes will likely attract authors and publishers, and which ones will likely turn them off
• Review performance techniques that help blend the story’s focus and direction with your authentic, natural voice.
• Learn how to insert personality into your recording, while still adhering to the client’s direction
• Focus a lot on the first few seconds of your audition, since casting teams move quickly through submissions and make quick decisions based on ‘first impression’
• Work on 4 key components that voice actors use to win auditions: Pacing, connecting words, emphasizing the right words, and using the appropriate emotion
• Work on variety for multiple quality takes

It is SO important to have this insight before you begin auditioning and working. The industry is full of talent who make performing and technical mistakes that instantly brand them as less than fully professional, simply because they didn’t know.

Even if you have experience in a related field (say theater acting, corporate presentation, singing, disc jockeying, comedy, improv, reciting poetry, even the debate club), it can cause you to overestimate what you think you know. This session will fill in your knowledge gaps, and help you go on to greater auditioning success!

Throughout the program, your coach will drill you on simulated auditions and titles, focusing on “best practices” specific to your most marketable genres. You will learn how to provide clean, clear, useful recordings. You’ll also come to understand why this is so important in attracting the attention of publishers, clients, agents, and authors. You need to pay close attention to this if you want them to pay attention to you!

In addition to providing simulated client direction, your coach will also work with you on SELF-direction, since that’s how virtually every audition works: when recording your voice in your home studio, nobody is there to guide you. This is one of the most valuable takeaways from this program.

The Edge Studio teaching process and learning techniques ensure you’ll know how to:

• Work with real copy and real client direction
• Bring some originality to the read without compromising authors’ intent and direction
• Self-direct and hear your own performance objectively
• Incorporate best practices when narrating, recording, and editing

While professional training is important to success in starting voice acting careers, another important step in booking voiceover work is having a demo.

The ‘Plus Demo’ Program includes everything in the ‘Audiobook Narrator Prep’ Program, plus a demo!

Clients expect professional voice actors to have at least one demo. Even if they listen only to your audition, and don’t listen to your demo, it raises eyebrows if you don’t have one. So, when you’re ready to record a high-quality demo, this comprehensive demo program is the right way to do it.

Edge Studio demo coaches, directors, and sound-design mixers are specifically expert in demo production. They are working VO professionals, experienced in direction, sound design, music bed selection, mixing, mastering, and – very important – knowledgeable in current demo practices and standards (including up-to-date choices of music). Demos produced at Edge Studio are known throughout the VO industry for their technical quality, performance honesty, and personal representation.  So, as the first step in this professional voiceover demo program, we work to make this demo uniquely yours.