Pick a scene with a mixture of both narrative and dialogue so they can hear how you transition between those two types of writing. The genre choices are all up to you, though including fiction of some sort is an imperative the vast majority of audiobooks published today are novels, after all, so show them what you can do with one. Why five? Why not just one or two? Well, there’s a lot of different types of books out there, and you need to show you’re adept at reading as many as possible. The first thing you’ll have to do to make your demo will be to choose a minimum of five different genres to read. (I’ve included the front and back images from my demo here you can click on each image to enlarge it.) No matter how cool your standard voiceover demo, it most likely won’t be heard. A friend of mine who’s in a position to cast new readers all the time told me he tosses VO demos right into the trash, unopened. If so, let me tell you: do not hope for this.
Now you may be in denial, and thinking you might be the exception to the rule, maybe because your VO demo is so freakin’ cool that some publisher will just HAVE to listen to it and won’t care that you haven’t sent in the appropriate type. You’re going to need an audiobook demo, specifically created to show off those long form skills. Voice-overs are short form, whereas narrating a book is about the longest form you can get. Here’s the bad news, though: for those of you who already have one, your standard VO demo won’t help you book an audiobook gig. It’s essentially an audition in absentia, and a common tool in the voice-over community, and in fact, many if not most aspiring VO artists already have one. For those who’ve never heard of this, a demo is just a short collection of vocal tracks, all dolled up in a pretty package to best convey the idea that YOU are the person who should be reading the next novel by Stephen King or Danielle Steele. The most important thing: just like with any type of voiceover work, you’re going to need a demo to send off to publishers. This is it: my advice on how to break into this industry.
Well, it’s taken me way yonder too long, and all those people are probably sick and tired of checking back by now, but I’m finally doing what I committed to so long ago. Okay, I’m asked constantly how people can get started in the business of audiobook narration, and for the last six months or so, I’ve been promising everyone that I’m writing a blog on just that subject, so if they’ll just check my website regularly they’ll find the advice they’re looking for.
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