The Mic Guy: Adventures in Voiceover

I’ve encountered my first obstacle in choosing a text for my entry in Scott Brick’s audiobook narration contest…

…finding a good book that Scott Brick didn’t narrate.

That’s not as inconsiderable a task as one might think. It is, from my perspective, an important one.

After all, if you were a contestant on American Idol, you’d be foolhardy to select a Journey or Westlife song as your audition piece, or a song that Kara DioGuardi wrote, or a song that Paula Abdul had lip-synched (did I say that?).

Why? Because you’re being judged by people who are intimately familiar with the material, have an emotional connection to it, and most significantly, have a strongly developed idea about the way the song ought to be performed. A way that — good, bad or indifferent — probably will be different from your own.

Therefore, I can’t imagine that a tyro like me would be well served by trying to out-Brick the master.

The challenge is that Scott has previously narrated books by many of the authors whose works I’d love to read — Harlan Coben, Dennis Lehane, Rex Pickett, and Isaac Asimov, to name just four. Even the book I’m currently using for my daily workouts — Erik Larsen’s The Devil in the White City — was recorded by Scott. (I am assiduously avoiding Scott’s version until I’ve finished with the text.)

Never fear, though. I have a handful of solid prospects in mind. I plan to make a final choice in the next week, giving myself ample time to select a suitable passage in time for the contest’s June 10 kickoff.

I’ll just have to hope that, whatever I pick, Scott doesn’t get to it first.

This entry was posted on May 29, 2009 at 2:15 PM and is filed under Audiobooks, Narration, Strategy, Voice acting, Voiceover. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.