The follow-on remarks in this particular thread were all, without exception, encouraging, supportive, and helpful by offering similar stories of initial discouragement followed by eventual success, along with some useful tips. No one wants this new narrator to fail. The audiobook narrator community is a very large community, but we are a nice bunch of folks who don’t mind at all bringing a new narrator along.
My contribution to soothing this new narrator’s feeling of frustration is to suggest he—and any narrator, new or with some experience--look seriously at doing volunteer narration for Learning Ally
[Note: The link I’m using is not the home page link for Learning Ally…it is the specific link for narrators interested in signing up with Learning Ally.]
Here is Learning Ally’s mission statement, taken from their website:
The site also notes:
“We are a national non-profit dedicated to helping students with print disabilities, including blindness, visual impairment and dyslexia. Learning Ally improves the way students learn at home and in the classroom.
Here is Learning Ally’s mission statement, taken from their website:
Promote personal achievement when access and reading are barriers to learning by advancing the use of accessible and effective educational solutions
The site also notes:
“We are a national non-profit dedicated to helping students with print disabilities, including blindness, visual impairment and dyslexia. Learning Ally improves the way students learn at home and in the classroom.
Up to 1 in 5 students has a learning difference. That means 10 million students in grades K-12 alone are struggling to read the printed word. Together it’s possible to help these students succeed in school, feel more confident, and stay on a positive path for years to come.”
I have been a Learning Ally narrator for several years, having gotten into it through my work with the Metropolitan Washington Ear, a D.C. area non-profit whose more than 300 volunteer readers record The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications every day, seven days a week, year-round, for people in the Washington area (D.C., Maryland, and Virginia for the most part), who are blind or visually impaired or physically unable to read. One of my colleagues at the Ear mentioned that he also narrated for Learning Ally—at that time with a local studio in Bethesda, Maryland, about a 30-minute drive from my Virginia home.
I visited Learning Ally and found one of the most eclectic group of narrators I’d ever encountered. There are retired college professors who represent almost all the undergraduate and graduate disciplines; there are high school teachers, and former government media professionals; there are parents whose kids are finally in school, leaving some time open for getting out of the house; there are stage actors who are performing in theaters in the Washington, D.C. area; there are men and women, young, old, and pretty darn old but active, who are lifelong readers.
We all have one thing in common: We want/need to share our love of words with others who are struggling with decoding what seem to them to be complex patterns of letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and whole books. And we also want to bring the pleasure of listening to a good story well read, or vital written information, to those who cannot read at all due to blindness or other visual impairments.
I fell in love with the concept at once, and, after a brief trial period in their studios, began a weekly routine of narration for Learning Ally. I learned to read for the pre-teen and young adult audience; I read from encyclopedias; I read short stories; I read non-fiction. And, over time, I built two things: 1. Confidence in my narration ability and; 2. A body of work of which I could be proud, a body of work that was meaningful and had nothing to do with income. I also accumulated quite a few hours of volunteer time, which, when combined with the volunteer time I log with the Washington Metropolitan Ear, amounts to nearly 200 hours per year.
And the books you’ll narrate are not obscure; I’ve read popular YA literature right along with Stephen King’s 20+ hour “Changing Seasons”). You can read as much or as little as you like, and the staff support is top-notch and as timely as a phone call.
Initially I had to work from the Learning Ally studios, then Learning Ally developed a downloadable app that made it possible to record from home, but with a proprietary protocol and limited narrator editability. Now, the Learning Ally narration process nearly mirrors what most of do in our normal audiobook recording sessions—using popular recording and editing programs, with file-naming protocols that most audiobook producers use, and uploading MP3s of your files to Learning Ally. I can go from working on an Audible-intended audiobook to a Learning Ally audiobook with no changes in my basic DAW settings.
The takeaway message here is simple, and it is directed at both new narrators still waiting for their first audiobook contract and experienced narrators who can make time to use their skills in a non-profitable but highly-rewarding way. Get in touch with Learning Ally and offer your skills and time to an organization that is doing so much for so many people who are in real need of exactly what you do every day in your home studio or other recording studios. If you are in any kind of program that encourages volunteering, Learning Ally logs your narration minutes/hours in their system, so you will have a record of what you are contributing in your own time.
If you are a new narrator, there is no better way, IMHO, for you to hone your narration/voice acting skills and build a catalog of audiobooks while you also work on snagging that first important audiobook project on ACX or for the several audiobook producers like BeeAudio, Deyan Audio, Dreamscape, and others. If you are an experienced narrator, and simply want to break your routine or reach out to an organization that will be grateful for your time, then Learning Ally is the place to go.
I have been a Learning Ally narrator for several years, having gotten into it through my work with the Metropolitan Washington Ear, a D.C. area non-profit whose more than 300 volunteer readers record The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications every day, seven days a week, year-round, for people in the Washington area (D.C., Maryland, and Virginia for the most part), who are blind or visually impaired or physically unable to read. One of my colleagues at the Ear mentioned that he also narrated for Learning Ally—at that time with a local studio in Bethesda, Maryland, about a 30-minute drive from my Virginia home.
I visited Learning Ally and found one of the most eclectic group of narrators I’d ever encountered. There are retired college professors who represent almost all the undergraduate and graduate disciplines; there are high school teachers, and former government media professionals; there are parents whose kids are finally in school, leaving some time open for getting out of the house; there are stage actors who are performing in theaters in the Washington, D.C. area; there are men and women, young, old, and pretty darn old but active, who are lifelong readers.
We all have one thing in common: We want/need to share our love of words with others who are struggling with decoding what seem to them to be complex patterns of letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and whole books. And we also want to bring the pleasure of listening to a good story well read, or vital written information, to those who cannot read at all due to blindness or other visual impairments.
I fell in love with the concept at once, and, after a brief trial period in their studios, began a weekly routine of narration for Learning Ally. I learned to read for the pre-teen and young adult audience; I read from encyclopedias; I read short stories; I read non-fiction. And, over time, I built two things: 1. Confidence in my narration ability and; 2. A body of work of which I could be proud, a body of work that was meaningful and had nothing to do with income. I also accumulated quite a few hours of volunteer time, which, when combined with the volunteer time I log with the Washington Metropolitan Ear, amounts to nearly 200 hours per year.
And the books you’ll narrate are not obscure; I’ve read popular YA literature right along with Stephen King’s 20+ hour “Changing Seasons”). You can read as much or as little as you like, and the staff support is top-notch and as timely as a phone call.
Initially I had to work from the Learning Ally studios, then Learning Ally developed a downloadable app that made it possible to record from home, but with a proprietary protocol and limited narrator editability. Now, the Learning Ally narration process nearly mirrors what most of do in our normal audiobook recording sessions—using popular recording and editing programs, with file-naming protocols that most audiobook producers use, and uploading MP3s of your files to Learning Ally. I can go from working on an Audible-intended audiobook to a Learning Ally audiobook with no changes in my basic DAW settings.
The takeaway message here is simple, and it is directed at both new narrators still waiting for their first audiobook contract and experienced narrators who can make time to use their skills in a non-profitable but highly-rewarding way. Get in touch with Learning Ally and offer your skills and time to an organization that is doing so much for so many people who are in real need of exactly what you do every day in your home studio or other recording studios. If you are in any kind of program that encourages volunteering, Learning Ally logs your narration minutes/hours in their system, so you will have a record of what you are contributing in your own time.
If you are a new narrator, there is no better way, IMHO, for you to hone your narration/voice acting skills and build a catalog of audiobooks while you also work on snagging that first important audiobook project on ACX or for the several audiobook producers like BeeAudio, Deyan Audio, Dreamscape, and others. If you are an experienced narrator, and simply want to break your routine or reach out to an organization that will be grateful for your time, then Learning Ally is the place to go.
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