The Biggest Big Deal (so far!): Reflecting on Narrating an Audiobook for the First Time

For those of you who may not know, in August 2023 I was fortunate enough to book my very first audiobook narration job, and it was with Penguin Random House! But to book the job – and to get through the job – was not easy. Continue reading as I reflect on the audition process, the recording process, and working with an amazing team.

It was a random Saturday in July, and I was working the register at my barista day-job. The day was rather slow and we hadn’t seen any customers come through at all for at least a half-hour, so I decided to do something I don’t normally do at work, and that was to go on my phone. In the natural course of opening and closing apps and looking for a way to kill time, I opened my email app. That’s when I noticed that my professional email inbox had an unopened email that I had missed just sitting there. The sender? Penguin Random House.

I almost deleted it right then and there, thinking it just had to be spam.

But instead of throwing it out, I decided to open it and verify whether it was spam or for real, and I’m so glad that I did! The email stated that Penguin Random House was looking for a Bosnian audiobook narrator for an upcoming release of a book that told a Bosnian story. They wanted to invite me to audition for the opportunity. After doing an excited little dance, I quickly emailed back confirming my interest and waiting for their response.

That kicked off the audition process.

For the first round of auditions, I think I delivered the requested audio sample in less than 12 hours, such was my eagerness for this job. However, after about a week, they emailed me back asking if I could do the sample in a Bosnian accent, since the narrator was Bosnian and she was speaking in English. This definitely made me nervous. At the time, I was able to do an ambiguous Eastern European accent that didn’t quite belong to any specific Eastern European nation. This was passible for theater and in classes, since most Western people cannot tell the difference between the various Eastern European accents, but I knew that I had to up my game since this would be a recorded medium available online in perpetuity. Essentially, I didn’t want another Bosnian to listen to the book and say, “That’s not what we sound like.” I would consider that a personal failure.

Thus, I took a couple of days and listened to several different Bosnian celebrities doing interviews in English, and even had my dad record himself reading an excerpt. Through that, I was able to further refine my knowledge of the differences between the Bosnian accent and other accents of that region. Once I was able to point to the differences, I was able to apply them. I sent the second audition round sample to the producer on the deadline day that they’d given me.

Then, I waited.

One week. Two weeks. Finally, I sent them a follow up email. Usually, as an actress, I do my auditions and then forget them; assuming if I got the part, they’d tell me, and if I didn’t, they wouldn’t. But this was different. I really wanted this. Not only would this job look amazing on my acting resume, but it would provide me experience in a subset of acting that I was unfamiliar with, and it would be my first SAG contract. Being an audiobook contract, it would automatically make me eligible to join SAG (the actor’s union).

Soon, I heard back from them. And I got the job! Then came a flurry of document signing, and emails back and forth trying to schedule the recording sessions. All the while, I was Google-ing and asking around to actor friends of what I should expect in an audiobook recording session, and how best to prepare. My friends really came through for me. I got loads of advice and soon the prospect became less daunting.

Inside the studio

I was also deeply entrenched in the analysis of the character voices. For this book, I had to be able to differentiate characters in both the Bosnian and English accents. There was NO Standard American English (except for one character near the end) because the story was based in London. Yeah. I was overwhelmed. I reached out to a former speech and accents teacher for any tips he may have, and I watched a lot of Youtube videos on accents! Slowly, I started to create each individual voice in preparation for the recordings.

Then, almost too soon, came the recording sessions.

The morning of the first session, I was a nervous wreck. What should I wear? How early should I get there? Did I prepare enough? Is my voice too dry? Would I end up embarrassing myself? The anxiety was churning away. There was only one thing I could really do: my best.

I got to the session and was greeted by such a kind recording engineer. He made sure I had everything I needed and, when I told him this was my first audiobook, he assured me that all would be well and that he had no problem helping me through the process. The director – May Wuthrich – couldn’t be there in person, but she was patched in through my headphones. She also assured me that she’d worked with many first-time audiobook narrators and that she was there to help bring out the best in me.

That day, we didn’t get through many chapters. And, while I left feeling confident about my work, I was feeling self-conscious about how long it was taking me to get through the chapters. The next day, I expressed this concern to May, and she assured me that that was a common thing with first-time narrators, but the important thing was that my hold-up wasn’t issues in the actual accurate reading of the material, rather how to do it. Basically, I wasn’t slow because I was making mistakes, I was slow because this was new to me.

Thankfully, however, I learned quickly and warmed into it much quicker on the second day. It was very satisfying to see my progress because we had recorded for four days, and each subsequent day I recorded more pages than the previous.

During those four days, I was very anxious. I really wanted to do a good job and honor the work that the author put it, I wanted to come across as a good person to work with professionally, and I wanted to ace the accents. After each session, I would go home, review the chapters we would likely be doing the next day, and be completely on voice rest so that my voice wouldn’t get fatigued during the next session.

When the last day came around, it was like a weight off my shoulders.

On that final day, we had gotten feedback on the first day’s recording, and we had to do two pick-ups. (A pick-up is when you go in and rerecord a line or two because you dropped a word or mispronounced something. Since audiobook narrations have to be word-perfect, this is common practice.) After we said our goodbyes that day, I went home with the assumption that I would be back to do more pick-ups.

However, that wasn’t the case! I don’t know if it’s my ego or what, but it made me so proud to see the email from the producer saying, “No pick-ups needed.” To me, it meant that I did the job accurately and I did it well. Furthermore, it made me even prouder to receive an email from the producer, thanking me for the work I did and inviting me to apply for the Penguin Random House Audiobook Narration Mentorship. I applied and am currently waiting to hear back. But, even if I don’t get in, I’m proud of the work I did and of the application I submitted.

This project certainly taught me a lot of things.

Firstly, it was a challenging project but I learned that, as long as I put in the preparation, I would most likely be fine. Secondly, I learned how to apply my skills and knowledge to the best of my ability, even in a brand-new, unfamiliar environment. And, lastly, I was reminded that doing good work gets you far and, when facing something that looks like a behemoth, just keep your head down and focus on the work. You might find that, when you look up again, that behemoth was only ever a dwarf.

If you want to check out the audiobook, you can get it here though Audible, here through Barnes and Noble, or anywhere audiobooks are sold.

Always thankful,

xx Selma