 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. How's everybody doing out there? Oh Tonight we got a guest because and a great guest because believe it or not This is our 12th anniversary of doing voiceover body shop. You can throw that up there now Sue There we go, all right And because we're celebrating 12 years we have a very very special guest our good friend Scott bricks say hi Scott Hey there, it's good to be back. It's great to see you guys great to have you All right, if you got a question for Scott about audio books or anything else that he's willing to talk about I guess throw it in the Facebook chat or in the YouTube chat and depending on where you're watching and We will get to that question too sweet. Whatever that means. I think that means right away Afterwards after our second set, you know during our second segment after we do the first break anyway You ready George? I'm ready to go. It's voiceover body shop with Scott brick right now now It's time for voiceover body shop Brought to you by voiceover essentials comm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the makers of source connect voiceover heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor websites comm where your voice actor website doesn't have to be a pain in the butt voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success and World Voices the industry association of freelance voice talent and Now here's your hosts Dan and George Well, greetings everyone. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO Bs Alrighty 12 years. This is actually our the actual 12th anniversary is March 22nd, but since it's March 20th. Thank you. Thank you very much We've been doing this show for 12 years now. I mean literally since since I was in Buffalo and you were in Santa Monica and It has been quite the journey and we're just gonna keep going here It's that's right. What's like we don't get bored with this This is what we do every day and if we got bored with it when you would go do something else I was looking in the archives the last e-wabs east-west audio body shop was episode 195 on July 6th 2015 yeah, so VOBS has been happening since 2015 so we've been doing the VOBS version for a lot longer now than e-wabs Which is kind of mind-blowing Considering we used to do it every week. That's right. We did do it every week now We're doing the flip-flop the interview and the tech talk and I think it paces out. Lovely I hope you guys agree fresh fresh content every week and speaking of fresh content We have a great guest tonight. I'm gonna introduce him because we want to have as much time as possible with him and Scott brick is an actor writer an award-winning narrator of over 800 800 audiobooks Wow including popular titles such as Washington a life Moneyball Cloud Atlas a princess of Mars the whole born series by Robert Ludlam and many other high-profile authors He also coaches talent does many appearances in webinars and DO conferences one of our favorite people here on the voiceover body shop Let's welcome back Scott brick Scott, how are you doing? Great, I'm much better now that I'm seeing you guys again. It's so great to be here. We'll take that as a compliment I did a show from my booth downstairs when it first opened. I want to say it's 2010 something like that then I did another show. We were at via Atlanta. It was a live ring on the stage I did another one that came to your place Dan. I think it's my fourth My fourth time here with you guys and it's always a pleasure Over the years that's once every three years if my math is cool something like that Which is amazing in itself if you know anything about my math skills Anyway, yeah, it was it's always great to have you here And of course you you you wanted to come here this time because you wanted to see you know the improvements to the bathroom I wanted to see about the last time that we did this It was in person it was before the pandemic and I fell I am just a man in love with your bathroom Dan It's just the way it is the way that you have decorated that thing got an old floor model radio And you hollowed it out and you put a you put a sink into it I just let there as an old-time radio fan and just went oh my god. How do I get one of these? How do I make this happen? Well, you know you can come and use my bathroom anytime you want Scott So what can you give me key sure? Yeah, I'd be wonderful give him the bathroom door code, right Anyway, you are like you are the guy when it comes to audiobook narration as you can tell I mean over 800 titles I mean I did like 40 and I thought that was a lot Tell us a little bit about your background and your training and what brought you to to doing audiobooks My training is I Mean when I got into college, I went to UCLA In the theater department, which is really interesting because now I'm back at UCLA teaching in the theater department They brought me back to teach their grad students their graduate acting students audiobook narration, which is crazy Been doing that for about seven years now and You know look we were talking about her off-camera as we were getting set up I did a lot of Shakespeare in in college as well as afterward I did ten years on and off with a traveling Shakespeare company and and I think it's really important for voiceover performers Because there's one really valuable tool that you learn when you're doing Shakespeare In Shakespeare the the text is everything however There's punctuation and as I've always said Pat Fraley and I agree on this There are times you have to dishonor the punctuation And I think when the more you perform Shakespeare the more you realize that there are going to be times where if you followed the punctuation in the text slavishly it would not serve the author's intent if it if that was the case then you would You would you could pronounce this line this way. Who do you think you are anyway? Yeah, you know The fact of the matter is punctuation doesn't exist There's no such thing as punctuation in human speech all there are our pauses and full stops and drifting off as you come to the end of an idea and you just kind of run out on what to say and you know Authors since the dawn of time have come up with this system where we try to approximate those pauses and full stops and what have you and you have to realize at some point in In order to get the author's idea across sometimes you have to dishonor the punctuation And I think Shakespeare was really certainly helpful for me in learning how to do that Yeah, did you do any other classical type of theater along along with Shakespeare? Sure. Yeah, one of my I think that my favorite experience ever on stage was playing Serena Which is certainly a couple of hundred years more recent than then Shakespeare, I think it was written in 1898, but it was set not long after Shakespeare's death 1640 I think and so yeah, I did a lot of what I called long hair rolls And I had the oh my god, I had the longest craziest longest hair and thank God none of those photos exist That would be genuinely embarrassed pre-internet. Is there you're saying? Yes, don't go looking for them anybody. Don't go looking So how did you do so you studied theater But you were saying that they were actually had a course in audiobook narration Is this what you've been doing since the starter was there, you know, like working at McDonald's and in between there? I worked I worked at a at an at a bank in Beverly Hills for seven years right when I got out of UCLA I did this while I was doing Shakespeare because the Shakespeare was a was a part-time gig and and I wasn't able because the Union rules at the time I wasn't able to Get insurance and As a result of it and I have diabetes So I I stayed with a desk job the the bank job for seven years And I will never forget my my former pastor. He had gotten out of the ministry and he had become a Coach a private coach can your own personal Tony Robbins and he I Hired him to try to because I wasn't happy what I was in life I wasn't doing what I felt like I was born to do and he Said to me one time after like six or seven or eight or ten weeks of just bitching and moaning about my day job He he looked at me and there was no smile on his face There was no sense of of being facetious or anything. He said Do you need permission to quit your job? And I said what he said look we meet every week and you say the same thing ever you say the same thing every week, but you're not You're not changing anything. You're not making that change And I'm wondering if you need permission to quit because if you do I Give you mine You have my permission to quit. Oh great advice It really is it really is and I have found myself doing that with a lot of voiceover people in in whatever genre flavor of voiceover there that they're working in Whether it's Promo or radio or you know or audiobooks my my Can't say Suzanne when she was when I the day I met her she said well, I'm I've got a I've got a job that I'm working and and I kind of need to finish that it'll take me about six months But then I think I'm gonna go full-time and I said well Why not quit now not not in a way to be like provocative, but I'm always well Why not cut the cord right now? Follow your dreams and she said she worked for an event management corporation And the event was the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday with 20,000 of his closest friends at the Irvine spectrum, and I was like oh, yeah go ahead Yeah, stay stay in that for six months That makes all the sense in the world, but afterwards I'm always you know trying to encourage people to make the leap Yeah, once again, we're talking with Scott brick Be talking about audiobooks, and if you've got a question for Scott again throw it in the chat room You know where it is if you're watching on Facebook or if you're watching on YouTube live We're also on LinkedIn now too on the voiceover body shop page on LinkedIn I'm not exactly sure how it works or if it works. I just clicked go to LinkedIn and so it should be working anyway So how many books can you do at a time? I'm because I'm gonna assume you either try to it one at a time or you've got several projects going at the same time I don't recommend doing more than I wouldn't either It's horrible you know as you all know we're we're about to leave for via Atlanta and Up until about half an hour ago. I was working on a Tom Clancy book that I'm not gonna be able to finish Before leaving I'm gonna have to pick it up when we get back And I know that you know in the 10 days because we're going to New York afterwards for the audio words and such all the audiobook Festivities by the time I get back to my booth. I'm not gonna remember what I did with any of these characters So I'm dropping markers left right in center. I'm like, okay. Oh God Okay The most I've ever worked on at the same time is for title at once You wouldn't recommend doing that again That was a special kind of awful. Yeah, I'm sure I got it done. I'm sure I'm sure it is What's involved in producing your books when you get you get a gig from somewhere What's your process of what goes into? you know preparation and recording and then Sending it wherever it is. It's supposed to go I Have two first steps one for me and one for somebody who works with me You have to know how to pronounce everything whether it's a word or phrase a proper name In acronym, you know forward operating base in the military FOB it's right And I always thought it would be called an FOB because calling it a fob like a like a watch fob from a hundred years ago I I thought no that can't be right, but I called my best friend's brother Colonel in the military and I said dude. I really need your help I'm working on a I'm working on a really high-profile title and I need to know They talked about forward operating base Tillman. It was a book about the life of Pat Tillman who died by friendly fire Who's the former NFL player? Yeah, who died tragically in Afghanistan and I said I need to know I said fob And he goes, oh, no, it's Bob. I said are you sure? Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, I know but here's the thing and I started explaining and I feel like I was mansplaining to another guy right and finally he said Scott not to interrupt you, but I Am calling you from Bob Tillman Which I got to be honest was a little in a little humbling Okay, I'm gonna shut the hell up now You have to do things like that and so I rely on my researcher George Weisberg Marvelous guy if anybody in the audience wants to hire him, please do he's a freelancer George George Weisberg to us is at Gmail.com. He's wonderful. He's got a whole staff. He can help you First time I get a manuscript. I send it off to him as He is working on it what I do is I look at the text and I have first thing I have to do is determine who is the protagonist Most people think that's a really easy decision to make it's the lead character But it's not the protagonist isn't the lead character. The protagonist is the character who changes Look at Star Trek, right? William Shatner was the title, you know, he was the first name in the credits Right is the captain, but he's not the protagonist the protagonist is spot because he's the one who changes Same thing the Big Bang Theory. It's not Leonard who Johnny Gasecki I know he's then the main character in the credits. No, it's Sheldon Sheldon is the character who changes so Identify who that where the change occurs and then map it. I I do kind of an arc Okay, whatever the issue is If he is an intolerant human being here, but at the end he is far more tolerant over here Then every time that issue comes up. I have to raise the stakes each time. So the by the time that we get here It's not a surprise Alright Right and well and preparation is important for anything you do but for audiobooks I would think that you know some guys say well, I just read through it, you know I can read it cold and you know, if you know the author well, you can sort of get away with that But you know, it's I would imagine that you do you read the whole book before our hand Usually I mean I always try to but there are times where I don't have the chance Sometimes that's easier if it's a nonfiction book. I mean I please don't think I'm making light of this But you know, if it's about a war while I know who won You know, if it's about JFK, well, I know what happens at the end of the story And I can get away with not reading it Then as long as I'm prepared as long as I've paid somebody who prepares me But also like even when I'm working on fiction sometimes If I get a crazy turn around deadline. Hey desperate. We need this in eight days I'm not going to be able to do that prep So I will pay somebody to read it for me and break it down into a very detailed Book report essentially they break it down chapter by chapter. This is what the main character wants This is what the main character needs in this scene. Those are two totally different things sometimes so right once again, we're talking with Scott brick about audiobooks and reading audiobooks and Narrating audiobooks if you've got a question about that again, you can throw it in the chat room Because we have three chat rooms now. This is George. You said somebody actually chimed in from LinkedIn me. Oh You chimed in I jumped on the LinkedIn and typed into the chat on LinkedIn to see that it works and it shows up right here in our Stream yard feed so we see all three chats right here live on the show, which is awesome No matter where you are we can get your questions. That's right So throw them in any one of those chat rooms and we will get to those questions in just a little bit with Scott How do you book your work? I mean, how do you book book work? Hmm I've got our next session Coming up at VO Atlanta. It's called book that book You know, how do you how do you land the gig? I Have agents of course with my agents The amount of work that I get through my agents are maybe a half a dozen books per year You know once I've already got a relationship with a publisher the publisher typically comes straight to me And I worked all the nuances of that out with my agent. So nobody gets upset. I Pay them absolutely there do pay your agents people But then I've also got a very active Production manager through my website and when people are interested in having me do their work this is typically if it's a Hmm and independently published author They'll reach out to Gina Gina Smith my production manager and she will She'll tell me about it and she's like, okay here are the broad strokes It's a book about a guy who you know this this and this I've got things that I just don't want to talk about I You know, there there are political issues. I just you know, they infuriate me and it's like I don't want to live with that for a week And I don't want to deal with the anger that's gonna result from this I've made it very clear. We're not gonna do any books about child abuse. I just I don't want to cry For an entire week of my life So she'll give me the broad strokes and say does it sound interesting at which point I say sure Let's let's look it up at which point she sends it to a mutual friend of ours one of her best friends The I met through Gina and she used to work at Movie studios and she does what's called coverage For somebody who writes a screenplay you send it into a Warner Brothers or Universal or Paramount Hey, would you would you produce my film first thing they do is they hire somebody to do coverage for it It tells you what the themes are it tells you what the overall plot is and then it gives you a spot for a recommendation and She is so good at her job. She's been doing this for studios for so long that when she comes back to me and says Yeah, I really enjoyed this book I'll say great. Let's put her on the schedule How many how many do you have like lined up in a row right now, but you know looking ahead over the next couple of months I Filled out my production calendar a week ago, and I think we had 13 titles Which is about you know three or four months. Yeah All right. Well that explains a number of things but Everyone seems to want to get into audio books these days, you know, but George and I are working with people a lot of times It's like I want to do audio books. Why do you think that is? What is it? Is there an attraction to it? Yeah, well, I think there's I look the audio books are the only Growing part of publishing right you've seen your copy of the LA Times dwindle from this size to this size and You know print publishing is I Hope not on its way out, but it's certainly been relegated to a much smaller position and audiobooks are growing and I think the reason for that is It's cultural. It's the fact that we We were read to as children, and I think we miss it. I Think that's why we listen to audiobooks so much I got interviewed by the Wall Street Journal years ago and and it was I was you know You try not to lead the witness you try not to you know try to you know lead You know for the for the answer that you're looking for as a reporter They were like do you think the importance of it or the the growth of audiobooks has something to do with the? proliferation of you know Technology and the fact that we can now listen on our cell phones. Do you think you might have anything to do with that? I said no, I Said no, and then I gave them the answer that I just gave you. Oh my god. You would have thought I'd farted in church But it's it's it's a fundamental thing in culture I you know we miss being read to and I think as such there is a certainly among voiceover people There is a I don't know just a an overall Cultural memory racial memory. I think is another way that they've referred to it and Look I work with a lot of people who are retirement age Plus and they're trying to rebrand themselves as trying to you know start there they want to make their golden years more important than what they were doing in their day job for 40 years and So many people I know have said to me. I don't need to to you know The balance another checkbook. I don't need to do you know the job I was doing before Hilary Huber once said to me I don't need to do another tide commercial please So I don't take that the wrong way feel free to hire me if you want me to do it But and I don't mean to to judge the people who are doing tide commercials, but as Hilary said to me At the end of my life, I'm not gonna wish I had done one more tide commercial But I probably will wish I had done one more audio Because it's it's something that you can kind of leave behind you Absolutely, that's that's a great way to look at that again if you've got a question for Scott brick about audio books Throw it in there Here's a topic that I really wanted to get into you with a little bit because I mean as you say you you teach you coach You you do a lot of webinars and because I keep seeing your face popping up just about everywhere Hey, it's got bricks gonna be yours copper. It's annoying isn't it and it's no it's not it's like well I'm glad I'm glad somebody's making a living Um Give us your thoughts and what is the state of the audio book industry in 2023? I'm stronger than ever despite the worries about AI Despite Publishing being on a bit of a downturn not as bad as it was a couple of years ago the audio book industry is in really good hands and That's primarily because of all of the many disparate Varian voices that we have Something we learned after the murder of George Floyd People started paying attention to things like representation and inclusion and I think audiobooks have never been stronger since then It's it's it's something I'm proud of it's something I I'm I'm proud of our industry for something like I have anything to do with it, but I Remember working with one of my dearest friends Dan Moslemann He was the the producer at Random House for many years and Penguin Random House, of course after the merger and he just retired recently and and I I Asked him one time why he put so much effort Into training newcomers and he then challenged me He said well you you work with a lot of new narrators. Why do you do it? And I said I asked you first He said I think our answer is the same He said the audiobook industry has been very good to me It's given me everything I've always wanted in this life and There will come a time where I'm not going to be in it anymore And I want to make sure that the people coming up in the industry Know how to appreciate that and how to appreciate the industry how to perform in the industry He said it's kind of like when you're when you're doing a Shakespeare show Somewhere in it in one of the performances if you're performing Shakespeare, you know that someone adult or child will be seeing There they're very first Shakespearean production and you feel this This pressure for lack of a better word To make sure that you get it right so that they want to do it again God forbid you're working with somebody who doesn't know what the hell they're doing and they do an audio book That is somebody's first audiobook and that person thinks and no no more not gonna do this I'm not gonna do this again I'm like look I got everything I want in life from audiobooks, right? What does everybody want everybody wants? They want Love They want a career They want a home Well, you know what my fiance is an audiobook narrator My career is as an audiobook narrator. I bought my house I call it the house that books built and I got all of it because of audiobooks and I just want to make sure To the extent that I can that I help people so that when it comes their time to narrate books that They know how to approach it. Yeah Once again, we're talking with Scott brick and if again you got questions We got a few questions. We're gonna get to in the next half hours So what you still have time to get those in there? Quickly, although I'm sure somebody else is gonna ask about this your thoughts about how AI is going to have impact The the voiceover business or the and the audiobook business specifically Um, I've been asked about this question for at least five years now And I know George will appreciate this. I always quote Donna Fontaine Yeah Whenever somebody will ask me about AI I would say what Don said I Think he was being asked Why do you go to so much effort to you know, bring people along in the car with you on your way to the studio every day? Why do you bring in so many newcomers who could potentially wind up taking your jobs and Don? replied if you're thinking about the competition your head isn't in the game and I I firmly believe that and Yet I have had it pointed out to me by others in the industry who don't have my track record and Haven't recorded the thousand books, you know They say well, it's easy for you to say so Since then what I've tried to do is and frankly we're doing a panel on it at VO Atlanta How not to get replaced by a computer can't wait to show up for that one. Well That there was an author that I I've worked with regularly for 20 years And he talked about the reason that he chose me and I've been kind of debating like should I even play it was on a podcast of the two of us were on on a podcast and and I was like Oh, this this might be helpful But I would have it would be basically an author saying nice things about me and I don't need any help to seem self-centered You know, I don't want to be playing like a podcast. It says you know, oh get a load of him But the things that the author was talking about the reason that he chose me Are things that AI can't do and so It's uh, I Frankly tomorrow night tomorrow morning There's going to be an article in the Wall Street Journal. I was interviewed by them about AI specifically about AI audiobooks and I was called early this morning to verify a quote that I had given them to say there's Accuracy there But there's no soul. There's no soul and there's something called the uncanny Valley. Yep And for those of you who are not aware of it, please look it up It basically means that gap between You know what AI can do and what we need it to do and in between there's just no bridging that gap And I think I think I think listeners It's why I've always in terms of my teaching I always encourage performers To strive for authenticity rather than accuracy and I'll I'll define my terms accuracy to me is Okay You have to do a Hungarian accent you go out and you put in a meryl Streep like amount of work to To learn the Hungarian accent That is accuracy, but if instead you gave them a hint of that and you strive for Authenticity the emotional authenticity of the scene That's something I mean AI can learn and train itself over and over and over and over, but they cannot feel so That's what I always strive for Go for authenticity rather than accuracy because I think the human ear can hear in Authenticity a mile away Very good. All right. Again, you got a question for Scott brick throw it in one of the chat rooms depending on where you're watching We've got a lot more to talk about with him because he knows more about the audiobook business and just about anybody because he does more than anybody Anyway, we'll be right back after these important messages. So do not go away voiceover body shop. We'll be right back This is the Latin lover narrator from Jane the Virgin Anthony Mendez and you're enjoying Dan and George on the voiceover body shop Have you noticed the specific demands of clients regarding our home VO studios? Are they at a professional level to record for broadcast? And what does that mean to me? It means it doesn't sound bad I've seen several now demanding cardioid condenser microphones Some are great and cheap ones not so great. So how do you choose? It's like standing in the checkout line at the supermarket deciding which candy or mince you want to buy So which is right for you? 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Let's get on with the show with more sponsors and our guest Scott prick right after this So when you hear the word accents, right? You see a piece of copy with it or there's an audition that says accents required or maybe an audio book You want to take a stab at what happens in your head? Do you get like? Oh, I don't do accents No, I'm gonna pass on that one. What if you said instead, okay? Let's do this let's figure this out and I can show you how because I was shown how my accent coach is Jim Johnson, he's giving away free lessons this week on the accent class and how to build accents from scratch So just go to VO heroes comm slash accents and get these free lessons. They're all this week next week We'll do a Facebook live. We'll open registration for the accents class. There'll be an early early action bonus But go to VO heroes comm slash accents now and learn from my accent coach That's VO heroes comm slash accents This is Bill Radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Whidham VOBS dot TV And we are back with Scott brick and we got lots of questions here from our Humongous worldwide audience that is just chomping at the bit to ask questions. Can I get the question? Sure you go for it my question is can I choose one of the questions because during during our commercial break I went looking through the chat list and there's a question. I would love to answer if I may Okay, go for it. Yeah, do you want to answer a specific one first to get started go for it specific one said What was the biggest thing you took away working with Morgan Freeman? I got hired to do a screenwriting gig with Morgan Freeman 20 year 25 years ago The biggest takeaway I got Wasn't about screenwriting although I learned a lot. The biggest takeaway I got was about voice I'm sitting in a room with the Morgan Freeman and and of course, you know He's got the he's got the whole grandfather glasses let go and like he'll look down Then he's got that You know the the the glasses down at the end of his nose I'm like, hey Morgan, can I ask you a question and he goes Which scared the shit out of me. I'm just Oh my god. Oh, jeez, you know But I said, uh, may I ask you a question? I said, what is what do you think is your greatest strength as an actor? And he spoke about his voice But what he was what he said was my gravitas He says you can hear it in my voice He says I got a voice that sounds really well lived in a lot of miles on it And I went, yes gravitas. There's no faking that my god if I could fake authenticity. I would have it made but But I was like, okay, that's your greatest strength and just You know as he's about to go back to reading my script. I said, uh, follow up What's your greatest weakness? And he gave me the grandfather glasses again and he said my gravitas He said sometimes you use it Sometimes you use it and you rely on it And I realized that was the thing. Look, we've all known guys like You know live announcing you got Dave Fanoi, right? You've got uh, uh in audiobooks You look at a guy like uh, Stefan Riddnicki. These guys have got voices that sound like God is gargling with boulders and broken glass Right, they've got an incredible weapon and yet If that's all they're doing It's it's a failed experience. They've both told me the same thing. They've both told me independently I have never once booked a vote. I never once booked a job because of my voice I booked the job because I know how to tell a story with my voice And when Morgan Freeman said that I've got a I got a refrigerator on my uh, I got I got a magnet on my refrigerator. It says I wish my life was narrated by Morgan Freeman Um, but to hear him say that and to be so self-aware That that is both your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. I've oh, I just I want to have a class Every week where I can share that with with uh with newcomers Don't rely on it too heavily Great piece. That's a great story, you know If nor Morgan Freeman was narrating my life, it would be a lot more interesting It'd be a lot funnier for me, certainly All right Well, the first question in the queue because it was written into the guys at v obs dot tv Because they wanted to be in the front of the queue. It's from kreg roberts George you get it. Yeah, he says uh, hello scott back in the day long long ago when the world was holy monochrome and High-fi sound was a thing. I was a pretty successful vo actor and narrator I strayed into broadcast journalism and for some decades but returned to freelance voice work about a year and a half ago Primarily in audiobooks. I'm just finishing my 21st project But all all but all but six have been in this self publishing realm The other half dozen were first small a small specialty publisher So my question is how does one break into the major publishing world? And how is self promotion and marketing to the majors done these days? And what's the secret? great question When you were at the point in your career when you're not making as much money when you're working on projects that are, you know independently published and produced You have to be forward thinking I always I always say to people I'm playing the long game right or when I'm feeling a bit more uh, uh Cynical I say I'm playing the long con um By that I mean I have always known what kind of books I wanted to do And when people come into the industry Sometimes they will be offered a job that they might not ordinarily want to work on I worked with a woman once who's gifted British actress She needed to make money and uh, she Came to me for a business consult and I said well, what is it? You know, what are you looking for? What do you want to do? And she said I I want and of course in her plummy English accent She said I want to be the person that all of the publishers call when they need to redo Do another version of Jane Austen And I thought okay great and so uh, we finished our our meeting and I went I looked her up before our next meeting And when I typed her name into audible she had done about 20 books to Uh, maybe bring it back around to you know where you are in your career But she had taken the low-hanging fruit. She had done a lot of erotica And didn't realize that she should use a pseudonym And the very first title that came up under her name was Bend me over I'm not here. I'm not here to poke fun at her. She she took a job. She got paid for it all good um I will admit that there was a part of me that goes oh I know all the people at audible and I just looked this up. Oh, they're gonna see my search history But nevertheless, the fact of the matter is she took the low-hanging fruit And I had to tell her a very uncomfortable truth that You know if Simon Schuster or harper or penguin random house wants to do a new version of Jane Austen, they're not gonna hire the women who did bend me over So What you have to do is as you are doing these low paying gigs. Maybe it's a it's a revenue share You have to choose books that are the kind of books you want to be doing Because even if they don't sell what you do is you make sure that there is a Really good sample indicative of your best skills You put that up on your website and you Send it out to everybody and you let them know I did this book recently and I think it's more indicative of of Of my skill level than the last sample that I sent you You always lead with the work that you want to be doing Hilary Huber, I mentioned her before Hilary Huber had a wonderful saying she said the industry Opens up the door The industry lays out the welcome mat In a different place for everybody Your job is the moment the welcome mat gets laid out walk through the door and once you're in the door Go left go right go straight go You know diagonally whatever go towards where you want to be lead with what you want And that's typically how you if you can do that with the jobs Where you're cutting your teeth getting your sea legs under you Um if you can do that on those When you send a sample to publishers, they'll go oh And they will think of you for that kind of job in that particular genre Great answer Jeff Holman asks last time I saw you maybe this is a little personal But last time I saw you mentioned that you were having gastrointestinal issues that made it difficult to record sometimes Are you doing better? He also has issues with his stomach making noises sometimes How do you deal with that? lesson Yes, I did. I had this I had this bizarre syndrome. Nobody could figure it out for two years. It's called gastroparesis And your stomach just basically forgets how to do its work. I gained 40 pounds in all of this um I know that we deal with a a sedentary lifestyle But still it was like my stomach just wasn't doing its job and um, I've had a couple of uh Very encouraging meetings recently and I am not dealing with these stomach issues or these stomach upset I won't go into the details Um But I am not dealing with it as much as I was two years ago Uh, I appreciate you asking and I am grateful every day that Don't want to jinx it, but it's been for the last month. It's been in my rear view mirror So good good to hear George. It's good to hear. Yeah larry on YouTube with a question are audiobook narrations ever live recordings? And if so Do you have any advice for when an actor is struggling with the performance and needs to take a short break So they can reset during a remote recording session um Yeah, if you need to reset Um, you can handle it a couple of different ways um Why and by live, you know, I I don't know if he You know live means a few things does that mean Literally live streaming like a performance like we are at this moment Or does he mean live recording with a studio who's listening to him? I think he's right if that's the case then it's being done like an old-time radio show, right? And there's nothing really that you can do um But if if you if it's not going to be coming out for weeks or months After you do your work, um, my first recommendation is to lie and tell your your um engineer your producer your director Hey, uh, give me a minute. I uh, uh, sorry. I I've got you know, whatever it is I got my doctor calling on the phone I I got I have to run to the restroom forgive me and then when you come back come up with an excuse to start over But it's important that you do this early on Now I have done the opposite. I recorded an entire book by brad melzer um brad melzer's a thriller writer And I had never read any of his work. It was his third book. It was called the first council And they flew me to new york to record it 20 years ago And I had to do this new to me Uh recording technique called the punch and roll Which i'm assuming a lot of people in the audience know what i'm talking about But it's essentially editing on the fly I had never done it before I had no idea what the hell I was doing and I was so conscious of You know taking a deep breath like are they gonna have to edit that out? Am I gonna you know, are they are they gonna have to stop recording and then you know punch in from my breath? So like okay, okay. All right. Well, I'm listening to the three seconds of playback I'll take my breath And then when they're recording, I'm I just I just go into it without I had no idea I was concentrating so much on the technical side of things. Yeah, I lost track of Well, the authenticity to go back to I was I was striving for accuracy rather than authenticity to go back to my earlier metaphor and um The opening of this book was unique because it was it was a first person narrative and it was very funny and it was uh And at times poignant and it basically ran along the lines of i'm afraid of spiders I'm afraid of snakes I'm afraid of the evil clown that lives under my bed and only comes out at night I'm afraid of disappointing my father I'm afraid of the cancer that killed my mother On and on There was even I'm afraid of the cultural significance of Barbie dolls, you know It was all over the place. It was an entire page and that's how long ago it was It was an actual eight and a half by eleven printed out page And at the end of this long run-on sentence, which was a whole page a whole paragraph. It said But i'm not afraid of power Which is why I work in the white house And isn't that a marvelous setup, right? It's poignant. It's funny And it's it challenges you like oh shit. Where are we gonna go now? So I need to and to get back to the question I recorded that entire book And it was nagging at me all week long that that first day I was Worried too much about the technical aspect of things. So what I did and again You don't have this option if you're doing it live in front of a studio audience But because this was going to be edited I told our producer or director. I said Hey, uh, and he's getting up and he's walking out of the booth He's like, okay. Nice working with you and I said hey, no hang on hang on I need to rerecord the first page And he says to me no, you don't I say yes, I do he was no you don't You got it, right And I said you can die, right I got the I got the words Correct. I got them in the right order. I pronounced them correctly But I didn't understand the character. I need to rerecord that opening page And I swear to god. He gave me this big long drawn out Fine It's like Somebody wouldn't want to go down for lunch Right. Yeah, and and I because look it was friday night You know friday out late afternoon and he wanted to go home and and I get it But I worry about all the other narrators that he worked with over the years Because I was brand new but I wasn't gonna take shit from anybody. I don't do that now But I was the same back then at the beginning of my career. I'm like, screw yourself. I need to do this Okay, this is gonna be the best way to do this project Years go by and that author brad melzer Uh, we were at an event. It was about 10 years ago and somebody asked him Uh, he was up on stage speaking and they said, how did you choose your audiobook narrator? And he said I wanted to find somebody who got me He said I had two books Two different narrators. I wasn't really impressed with either one of them because it just didn't sound like they understood me But that one book that I did the first council I knew that that opening page was a challenge unlike any other and I knew that if they got it Whoever it was they hired to do it if they If they could get through that page Then they got me And that is the only reason that it's 20 years later and I've done 20 books by brad melzer He would have fired me like he did the first two if I had not Gone back and said and made a fuss and said I need to redo this Even if it was only at the very beginning just so that people's first impression The first time they hear my voice working with the author's words That it sank So that would be my advice again very long answer to a very short question That would be my advice make sure that you are happy with it. And if you need to redo something redo it We're not wasting tape anymore Yeah, no, no, it's really there's no tape. Uh, anyway scott. Thanks so much for for joining us again that we've been wanting to have you on for some time and uh The pandemic just gets in the way of everything but now we're getting back out Uh, if people want to get ahold of you for some of your training, where would they write or where would they communicate with you? scott brick.com scott brick.net um, if you go to uh My website in the upper left hand corner the little box that you click There's I think there's one for coaching and there's one for events like if i'm doing Classes or something like vo atlanta. Um, it's it's typically uh, those buttons have all the information for You know, whatever you need very good. Alrighty. Thanks for being here scott. Really appreciate it's a pleasure Just make sure to send me that uh that key because I might need your bathroom in another hour and a half or so Okay, well if you're driving by just you know, you know where I am seen a few days It's still in atlanta. Absolutely looking forward to it Alrighty, george and i'll be right back to wrap things up into a nice tight little ball Right after this and get set up for tech talk too by scott. 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Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your via website Shouldn't be a pain in the you know what We are the world voices organization also known as wovo We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent voiceover is a complex entrepreneurial business Wovo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voiceover practice And to those who want to pursue voiceover as a career membership benefits include a supportive and creative community A profile and demos on voiceover dot biz our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent our exclusive demo player for your personal website Our mentoring program business resources and our video library our annual wovo con conference a fun and Educational weekend with other members with the chance to learn and network Webinars and great speakers and weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voiceover make wovo part of it World voice is organization. We speak for those who speak for a living Yeah, hi, this is carlo zellers rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop I think it's always great when we run into scott brick whether we're it's in a restaurant or On the street or at a conference always always great to run into him because he's absolutely all the right answers Anyway, next week on this very show that you are watching right now. We'll be doing tech talk number 99 Believe I know Right, and if you've got if you've got a question a tech question for us Now would be a super duper time to throw it in one of our chat rooms whether you are in facebook or and youtube live or linkedin Right linkedin is now happening That's right. So uh, and then we've got some other great guests coming up And we maybe we may record a segmented in atlanta too because there'll be lots of great people there Oh, uh, let's see here. We need to thank Uh, our donors of the week by the way, uh, like grace newton robert ledham steven chambler crazy clack Casey clack even hazy clack pulling a trump there jonathan grant Oh, man, thomas bento greg thomas a dr. Voice ant land productions marcia con 949 designs christopher aprison sarah borges philips apyr brian page patty gibbons operator shawna pennington baird don griffith tray moseley diana birdsall and sondra andrew manweller Uh, I need to thank our sponsors to harland hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vo heroes dot com voice actor dot com and world voices dot org The industry association of freelance voice down. Yes, i'm president. Yeah, but that you don't have to worry about that Uh, I need to thank jeff holman for doing a great job in the chat room tonight Lots of great questions folks anacost, of course, soon we're lino our amazing director who gets it all done And it makes it all look like an actual tv show And before we go, I just want to remind you We have a coupon code at george the tech that expires at the end of march It's it's our biggest coupon. We do 20 off Everything on the website. So to get that it's gtt to numeral two point p o i n t oh h gt2 2.0 Gives you 20 off and that expires march 31st And there's three more spot slept at vo atlanta from my x session on thursday at noon If you want to get into my mic to mp3 training from start to finish three hours of 12 people Pretty intimate group Three hours of george would I I'm gonna have to poke my head in there when I when I arrive Anyway, uh Well, that's gonna do it for us this week and thanks again to scott brick for joining us and giving us his wisdom on audiobooks Uh, we're gonna re-rack it now for tech talk because you're here live You can stick around and you can ask your tech questions, which I think is really cool So stay tuned for that in the meantime, you know, this is not an easy business voiceover audiobooks all this stuff There's so much to know But george and I have really come cut it down to this if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan Leonard and i'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vo bs See you next week later