Hi, my name is Andi Arndt (most of the time, but that’s another article) and I’m an audiobook narrator, have been for nearly a decade now, with nearly 300 books completed (including nearly 200 in the romance genre). It’s my full-time job, and I love it. When I’m not in the booth working on a book, I’m running my audiobook production company, Lyric Audiobooks, or coaching other working narrators who want to keep learning and growing in their craft.
Often, working narrators are asked how we got into our line of work, and what it takes to succeed. Any narrator will tell you that it takes far, far more than simply a “good voice” and a love of reading. Like many of my colleagues, I came to this work with a firm grounding in theatre and as far as preparation for this career goes, there is no substitute for the hours spent in classes and rehearsals, confronting habits, fears, and assumptions, learning how to research a play’s context and break down a script, a scene, a moment, always expanding the menu of options for telling a story faithfully. I’d also spent a dozen years teaching acting and voice to college students, challenging them to prepare thoroughly and then get out of their own way and just play, just tell the story, wherever it led them.
When I first set up my home voiceover studio, I didn’t set out to become a narrator, but every time audiobook narration came up, I found myself paying close attention. It seemed such a pure transaction. Rather than trying to manipulate someone into buying some unnecessary product, narrators’ work is the product. Tell me a story? Sure. It’s as old as humanity itself, the telling of a story and the listening.