Please welcome narrator Emma Wilder to
Audiobook Lovin'!!
Emma Wilder’s
5 Top & Bottom Things About Being an Audiobook Narrator
1. Working from Home Sometimes
- Top: Sometimes you get to work from home! You can wear pajamas all day and not have to shower or look like a grownup or talk to other people!
- Bottom: Sometimes when you work from home too often you lose track of all your clothes that aren’t pajamas, and you forget how to put on makeup and style your hair and talk to other people. And then when you need to come out of your little booth, you look like a bedraggled, sweaty cave-dweller seeing fresh air and sunlight for the first time in months. Sad but true. The last time I did a promo video for an author it took me an embarrassing amount of time to make myself look even borderline human.
2. Fun Accents
- Top: I LOVE an accent. I’ve never met an accent I didn’t like. Give me all the accents.
- Bottom: Have you ever had a friend who just like, can’t turn it off? They’re always making jokes, always doing a bit or a funny voice, always *on* in a way that’s fun but kind of exhausting, and you love them but maybe wouldn’t want to live with them, because man does it get kind of tiring? Well, get one drink in me and IT’S ME!! OH, you didn’t WANT to have this entire conversation about what restaurant to choose in a NEW ZEALAND ACCENT? Well, am VERY SORRY but I actually CANNOT STOP. Pls send help (or rather, “SIND HILP”).
3. Different Genres
- Top: On my own, I’m a very boring reader. I just reread old stuff I love, in genres that make me comfortable. Left entirely to my own devices (i.e., on vacation, which is the only time I’m not reading for work) I mostly just re-read Agatha Christie mysteries until they all blend together and I forget who the murderers are so I can start them all over again. EXTREMELY boring. Work forces me out of my tiny little comfort zone, into genres I’d never have developed an appreciation for on my own (romance! Sci fi!).
- Bottom: I have an overactive imagination, and am not great with scary stuff or sad stuff. I refused to watch Teen Wolf until I was in my TWENTIES, because I thought it was a horror movie. I am still haunted by a Stephen King book I mistakenly picked up one summer (FYI guys, Thinner is NOT, I repeat, *NOT* a diet book), and if you want to see me cry, ask me to tell you what Where The Red Fern Grows is about. Recently, I’ve been narrating a lot of sad books and horror (new genre: sorror? no, no good. I’m sorry, I’ll show myself out), which has involved taking embarrassing cry breaks in publishers’ studios and sleeping with a nightlight. If you’ve ever listened to me narrate something scary and thought “wow, she’s really acting her heart out here!”…uh, no. I’m just terrified. #SufferingForArt
4. Playing All The Parts
- Top: You get to play all the parts! Obviously, this is the dream of every frustrated theater nerd everywhere. I acted in plays for a long time, and did a lot of classical theater and Shakespeare specifically, and while those plays are wonderful, the parts for women are sometimes a little…skimpy. In books, I get to fall in love, and be funny, and be the bad guy, and catch the bad guy, and be the silly kid and the wise old grandparent. I get to play all the parts, and I love it.
- Bottom: You have to play all the parts. It can get a little lonely, playing all the parts yourself. You start to miss…you know…other people. Which leads to my final point:
5. Other Narrators
- Top: They really are the best. In some ways it’s an extremely solitary job, but I think that just makes us work harder to connect with each other and value those connections. I have made some of the greatest friends of my life in this industry in which I work mainly alone in a little padded cell. The women of this industry (including producers, editors, engineers, publishers, bloggers, and authors), in particular, are freaking powerhouses, and I love them.
- Bottom: UGH, they’re the worst…just kidding they’re the best, I can’t even fake it here. I love sending jokey emails back and forth with co-narrators, and did you know there’s a bunch of female narrators who have Bachelorette fantasy league that’s been running for years now, and we do things like go roller skating together? It’s true. We love each other. When narrators get to work with each other in person, on multicasts (like Lauren Blakely’s upcoming Instant Gratification), it’s an almost unreal amount of fun.
Thank you Emma for sharing your 5 Top (and Bottom) Things about being an Audiobook Narrator! Check out the audiobook samples below, learn more about Emma, where you can find her and don't forget to enter the giveaway!
Audiobook Samples
About The Narrator
Emma Wilder is a classically trained actor and narrator who has worked all over the world on everything from steamy romance novels to Shakespeare. When she isn't behind a mic, she can be found rescuing and training animals, sipping fine bourbon, and watching home renovation shows.
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