Audiobooks are a booming industry with retail sales having doubled in the last four years alone, to over $1.5 billion per year. Aside from the racks to be found in major book chains, libraries, and even convenience stores, the genre is so popular that all-audio bookstores and mail-order audiobook clubs are cropping up nationwide, as more than 100 new releases hit the stands each month.
Who reads these books to their avid listeners? Actors. There is also work in this fast-growing genre for audio producers, directors, and background musicians.
The big publishing companies usually hire stars--several of whom actively seek this work, as it's very much in fashion. Or, in the case of bestselling self-help books, the authors read their own works, with a tape's release timed to coincide with the printed version. Even so, the big publishers--Bantam-Doubleday-Dell, Harper Audio, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Time-Warner, Penguin, and others--do hire a goodly number of "working actors." Florence Barrau-Adams, associate producer at Simon & Schuster's in-house audio production facility, says, "We do a lot of non-fiction and that's where the non-stars have a better chance."
And, as in film and theatre, the top studios and producers are not the only game in town. There are numerous independent audio publishers with large mail-order followings. These companies seek non-star, professional actors as "narrators," the term often used to describe the "book's" reader-performer.
The world of audiobook production is nevertheless a relatively small one in which word-of-mouth plays a major role. If an actor has done a recorded book that was well received, he or she has that much better a crack at another one. Telling examples are the recent winners of the American Foundation for the Blind's prestigious Alexander Scourby Narrator of the Year Award--named for that much-admired actor-narrator. Catherine Byers, honored as best reader of children's literature, has done nearly 350 audiobooks. Her fellow winners, Chuck Benson (fiction narration) and Lou Harpenau (nonfiction narration), have recorded close to 200 and more than 350, respectively.
Many voice actors, as they often call themselves, have developed avid followings. Buyers often request audiobooks read by a given narrator, who may not be "famous" to the public at large. Several companies assign all books by a specific author to one particular actor.
The smaller companies are often on the lookout for new voices and many accept tapes and resumes. The producers who work for or with the big publishing houses often accept these, too, though nearly always from agents. (See our list on page TK for "Where to Send Your Tape.") Of course, the more big-time the company, the slimmer the chances, but it's not impossible.
Again, paralleling theatre and film, many jobs are union, covered by AFTRA's Sound Recordings Code, and many others are not. (AFTRA's minumum for a solo narrating job is $120.25 per hour; for recordings using more than one performer, it's $106 per hour. Some organizations, notes a union representative, have negotiated individual agreements with AFTRA at lower rates.)
SUB: These Aren't Commercials
Do not confuse audiobooks with standard voice-over work.
"The biggest mistake agents and actors make is to send a commercial voice-over demo tape," says Karen Pearlman, a freelance producer who works with many leading audio publishers. "Those are useless."
Every producer, director, and voice actor made this point strongly. The ideal demo tape is five minutes of the actor reading a story, preferably one in which different characters appear.
The advice often given to actors about their headshots applies to demos as well. "Send in something which is simply the basic you," says producer Claudia Howard of Recorded Books. "Read something you feel well cast in. Don't do fancy accents or overdone character types. We know there's no way you can show all your talents in five minutes." A resume should accompany the tape. A headshot is not necessary. In fact, feeling they do not look the way they sound (authoritative-sounding but young-looking, or vice versa) many voice actors don't send photos.
Actors, directors, and producers also agree that the actual work the actor does in the studio for audiobook narration differs from that required by commercial voiceovers--although many people do both. Reading an audiobook means telling a story. "That's our first and most familiar experience in life," says Harper Audio producer Rick Harris. "Mom reading to you." This feeling of being personally read to, say actors and creative staff alike, is what the audience is looking for.
Subhead: Who Is the Audience?
Drivers are the biggest group by far. "I imagine my listener to be a commuter stuck on the L.A. freeway," says Karen Pearlman. According to the Audio Publishing Association (APA), over 70 percent of listeners are, indeed, drivers. Duvall Hecht, president of Books-on-Tape; Craig Black, president of Blackstone Audio; and Henry Trentman, president of Recorded Books, each came up with the notion of starting his respective enterprise when he found himself bored while on the road for business trips. In our car culture, most Americans can't read a book on their way to work.
The audience also includes exercisers and people doing chores. Being able to listen while doing something else is most often cited to the APA as the reason people become fans of the genre, which has its own within-the-industry awards, and its own category in the Grammies. (This year's Grammy winner was freelance producer-director Charles Potter, for Maya Angelou's audiobook of her own "Phenomenal Woman," for Random House.) The industry has its own closely followed trade magazine, Audiofile, edited and published by Robin Whitten, who is regarded as one of the top experts on this field. Audiobooks are also covered by Billboard and Publisher's Weekly.
The size of this industry marks a huge change from when the main audience was blind people, for whom the genre was originally initiated. They, and others with disabilities which make reading difficult, still form a large group of listeners.
SUB: How Is the Work Different?
Specific differences between audiobooks and commercial voiceover work are mentioned again and again.
"You are every character," says actor Tom Martin, who read a series of ghost stories, "Things That Go Bump in the Night," for the Lending Library and narrates for the American Foundation for the Blind. "I have to read both the men's and women's characters' lines--sometimes in love scenes in which they're talking to one another--without sounding silly. You have to be subtle--going slightly faster for one character, or a very tiny bit higher for another, a bit slower for yet another."
Book narrators do not "do" voices like cartoon voiceovers. They are always themselves, always using their own natural voices, but readers must be able to follow which character is speaking to whom. In this respect it is very different from radio drama, in which each character is played by a different actor.
Audiobooks are far longer than commercials or narrated industrials. The finished versions of the abridged works that the large publishers tend to put out are usually around three hours long. Freelance producer-director David Rapkin, who has worked with several publishing houses, notes these usually include music and sound effects.
Audio publishing houses specializing in unabridged versions--Books-on-Tape, Audio Scholar, Chivers, Lending Library, Recorded Books, Highbridge, among others--release books which can be seven to 10 hours long, sometimes even more. Recorded Books' audiobook version of James Joyce's "Ulysses" is 43 hours long. It is narrated by actor Donal Donnelly, with Miriam Healy-Louie reading the role of Molly Bloom. Dublin natives, both actors have extensive New York theatre credits.
In these long works, "Your voice is your only palette," notes actress Barbara Rosenblat, winner of Audiofile magazine's Earphones Awards this year for her reading of two novels. Gestures, facial expressions, and "business" are nonexistent as tools to fall back on in giving a good performance. "It can be very lonely behind that microphone," says Robin Whitten.
Actor Jason Culp recently completed the audio version of Danielle Steele's "Malice" for Bantam-Doubleday-Dell and read "f2f" by Philip Finch, both directed by David Rapkin. Culp finds, "You have to be used to reading aloud for very long stretches of time. It just happens that all of my life I've read aloud because I enjoy it. I used to record books on my own as gifts for friends. For that reason, I kept after my agent to submit me for audiobooks."
Veteran narrator Barbara Caruso, also a Scourby Award-winner, points out, "You have to sound like someone whose voice people are going to want to listen to for hours." (She recently read a 10-cassette edition of "American Appetities," by Joyce Carol Oates, for Recorded Books). "That voice should be pleasant and free of regionalisms except when that's called for in a specific character. And you have to be able to keep people interested in what you're saying with that voice." She attributes one source of this ability to her years in the theatre.
British-born Rosenblat, who jokes that she was told by a trucker fan that she has "kept him awake many nights," has extensive London and New York theatre credits. Culp acted with the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Company for many summers and now plays Tony Carlino on "Another World."
"Many excellent actors just can't do this kind of work," says David Rapkin, "while other artists are superb and love every minute of it."
"The audiobook is a very intimate medium," says Florence Barrau-Adams. "You're alone in the car or with your headsets. The narrator can't sound like he or she is reading but must sound as if he or she is chatting directly with you, telling you how you should invest or exercise, or telling you a story. I've heard famous performers come out of the studio saying this was far more difficult than they'd expected and that the experience had made them better actors."
SUB: Stage Training and Preparation
Whether freelance or in-house, producers are the people who do the casting. Many of them say that they go to the theatre and keep their eyes--well, actually their ears--open. They say actors who only have film or television experience don't always have the ability to quickly and subtly shift from character to character, nor the endurance to read accurately, expressively, and in "good voice" for hours on end, several days in a row. For that reason, New York is a favorite casting spot and most production takes place there, even though the publishers are located throughout the country.
But recording does go on nationwide. Margie Bauman of Audio Scholar--which produces classics, including nonfiction works by great scholars such as Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, and books published by Harvard University Press--is located in Northern California. She casts many actors there, but also has been working with producer Susan Mackewich of BAM Media Services in New Jersey to recruit talent and produce recordings.
BAM has also cast and produced audiobooks for Chivers Audio, as well as for Random House, Thorndike, and others.
Paul Gagnƒ, director of production at Weston Woods Studios in Connecticut, has headed for the nearby Long Wharf Theatre to look for narration talent. Blackstone Audio is headquartered in Oregon but works with several producers and actors in the Washington, D.C., area.
Kathy Hale, executive producer of audio books at Bantam-Doubleday-Dell, says, "People with stage training [keep] their voices in shape. We look for fluency. This work is complex. You have to have a strongly developed sense of characterization."
In addition to fluency, a low-key approach is sought. Craig Black stresses, "We want listeners to hear the author's words. So we look for people who convey intelligence yet can keep themselves out of it, while putting theatre into the words. It's a real trick."
British actors are often sought. Culp, who is American, notes, "The British have a long tradition of reading out loud. The BBC still runs radio programs in which a chapter a day is read of a given book and the public really does listen." Caruso, who studied in Britain, agrees and points out, "Reading aloud is still very much a part of their schooling there."
Rick Harris of Harper likes to cast actors with singing experience, as "they understand phrasing."
And yet, despite the stress on theatre skills, "The actors must read with "film energy," says Pearlman, meaning subtlety is a must, as is the case when acting for the camera. Every breath, every shift of the page, can be heard. "It's the opposite of commercials where you really punch it up," says actor David Cooper. The slightest voice differences are noticeable.
"Stick to your own natural voice or you won't be able to sustain the same sound," advises actor John C. Mollard, who read Donald Trump's "Surviving at the Top" for Random House, and has read fiction and educational audiobooks for several publishers. "You may be in the studio for three days for 12 hours a day."
When audiobooks are cast for larger publishers, explains David Rapkin, there is often a freelance producer or production house that does the initial search, nearly always through agents. That producer is usually also the director of the performance and the "proofreader," following along. Some publishers have their recordings listened to by additional audio proofreaders. Studio engineers sometimes follow along as well. There's no ad libbing. Everything read must be word perfect from the text.
In many cases during the casting process, the in-house producer for the written book's publishing house, and sometimes the author (if he/she has major clout), will listen to the final callbacks and make the final choice.
Voices are matched with what's perceived as the "type" needed. "We used James Earl Jones for a book with African-American content and Theodore Bikel for one with Jewish content," says Cari Best of Weston Woods Studios, "but we use non-stars also. We listen for the kind of voice you'd expect for the type of book--a children's book, a romance novel, a mystery."
Actress Beverly Butler had done years of voiceover work narrating instructional industrials, where "I had to explain things in a straightforward, teaching sort of way, and also leave the narrating mode and do characters in little skits demonstrating what's being taught." This background stood her in good stead when her agent submitted her for the job of narrator of the audiobook "How to Study," by Ron Fry, for Highbridge Audio.
"It's aimed at high school students. The style I'd developed in my other work was what they were looking for."
And Cinderella stories can happen. Just as in those tales about actors getting calls long after they've submitted their headshots and forgotten about them, a tape kept on file can yield results.
Susan Mackewich of BAM Media Services was producing "Night Watch," by Karen Robards, for Chivers Audio. "An agent gave me a tape of an actress, Renƒe Maxwell, who'd been a high school English and drama teacher, doing local theatre and voice-over work for PSAs [public service announcemnts]. She'd submitted it two years before. Her voice sounded right and it worked out very well." Mackewich notes that she looks for "an attitude"--that certain voices seem to go with certain books.
SUB: Preparation
Actors vary enormously in their preparation techniques, but it's a luxury if they have as long as a week between receiving the book and beginning to record. Often they have only a couple of days.
"It's rare that you find a person who can read this sort of work cold," says Florence Barrau-Adams. "We encourage readers to study the script a couple of days in advance. They should read out loud. There's a great difference between reading to yourself and reading out loud."
Some companies research difficult words--foreign language or technical terms--for the actor. The directors work with the actors, discussing characterization. In most cases, however, the narrator is on his own and must look these things up. Several performers have commented that they feel they have received an extensive education by doing this work.
Directors will stop readers and discuss an approach they think should be different, but basically, since studio time is money, the goal is reading as straight through with as few retakes as possible, while still maintaining quality. Actor Grover Gardner, an Earphones winner for his reading of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" for Audio Book Contractors, notes, "If you're fast, expressive and accurate, they love you and you'll hear from them again." Usually, retakes are done on the spot as an error is caught, or if the director wants a slightly different reading.
Newcomer Renƒe Maxwell recalls, "I read the book carefully and listened to people speak who seemed similar to the way I imagined each of the characters I had to be would speak. I color-highlighted and I read aloud."
This is the advice heard again and again: listen closely to speech patterns and to other books and read aloud, especially now that older literary works are regaining popularity. Among the houses with successful audio classics lines are Penguin, Time-Warner and Highbridge. Children's literature is another specialty line for many publishers.
For many years, Caedmon Records, founded in 1952 and now part of Harper, was virtually the only company doing "spoken word" books, specializing in classical literature, read by such greats as Sir John Gielgud, Claire Bloom, Hume Cronyn, and Jessica Tandy. Ward Botsford, Caedmon's executive producer for 15 years, observes, "The literacy of those actors and their love of the material allowed them to give magnificent performances. Actors who were not well read, and did not have stage training--which mattered more than radio training because they understood character as much as voice--had a difficult time."
Sheer love of the material has led to many well-received current audio projects. The National Yiddish Book Center recruited several top stars to read English translations of Yiddish stories for a series, "Jewish Short Stories From Eastern Europe and Beyond," produced by Lori McGlinchey and Johanna Cooper. It ran on National Public Radio last season and proved so popular that stations are rerunning it. A second series is planned.
Among the first series' readers were Amy Irving, Alan Alda, Lauren Bacall, Olympia Dukakis, Walter Matthau, Leonard Nimoy, Rhea Perlman, Hank Azaria, Jerry Stiller, and Jeff Goldblum.
SUB: Reading for the Blind--A Good Place to Start
"Talking books" were originated by organizations serving the blind. The Library of Congress funds the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped's Talking Books programs at the American Foundation for the Blind in New York, and programs in Denver, Louisville, Bethesda (Md.), and Burlington (Mass.).
The Foundation's program was begun shortly after Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. Helen Keller was its first spokesperson. Foundation representatives say that well-known blind performers have long been subscribers. Singer Stevie Wonder recently donated one of his platinum records as a gift.
The Library of Congress closely regulates performing standards. Tony Henderson, Talking Books studio manager at the Foundation, explains, "We have to read aloud the bibliography, the table of contents, everything. Pronunciation is monitored."
The actors who take part in these programs are experienced professionals. "We feel we are giving something," says Catherine Byers, expressing these actors' sense of mission. Most do other acting work as well, often more lucrative, though they do receive union pay at the Foundation. Many audiobook narrators for commercial companies got their start reading for the blind.
There are other organizations serving the blind which seek volunteer readers. Actor Jason Culp strongly recommends this route into this field. "Reading out loud is the way to learn to read out loud," he says. John C. Mollard started as a volunteer for the In Touch Network, a radio facility operated by the Jewish Guild for the blind.
Recordings for the Blind has 30 locations nationwide. Other organizations that welcome volunteers include the Lighthouse for the Blind and the Jewish Braille Institute. These provide training in reading, and in some cases in directing. In return, they require a commitment of a few hours per week over several months.
As in all areas of show business, breaking into audiobooks isn't easy, but once an actor gets a foot in the door, he or she can find steady work and become well known, often literally on the highways and byways of the na