Congratulations. You added ‘author’ to your list of bonafides. Despite marketing and promoting your paperback or e-book, it’s being ignored. What to do?
Just add audio.
Audiobooks are one of the strongest ways to hook readers. In the last decade, audiobook have enjoyed double-digit increases each year.
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One of a multi-part series on how our voice can serve, move and influence.
The sound of our voice and how we use it are important and make us feel good. A 2012 article in Evolution and Human Behavior reported just hearing the voice of our loved ones versus a text conversation reduces our blood cortisol levels and heightens the release of oxytocin, the feel-good hormone associated with bonding.
I received an email from someone I’ve never met and most likely never will. As a voice actor, aside from a client’s gratitude, I rarely know how my storytelling affects the listener. My delight and surprise at receiving the message was surpassed by how deeply their words affected me.
As a voice actor, I receive a lot of auditions that request a ‘conversational read’. The style requires voice talent to sound relatable, likeable and empathetic. It’s the voice of a good friend or trusted adviser. As if you’re in, you know, a conversation.
It strikes me that in a time when the marketing version of conversation is so popular, our real-world conversation is decidedly not. Genuine, engaged conversation – that give and take of ideas information and feeling – is often absent in a world filled with noise and hit-and-run commentary.
Over the last two years I have advocated better conversations to understand each other, to see each other as human beings rather than opinions. Or punching bags. Find common ground.
We have much more in common with each other than we think.
So, in the spirit of better, more connected conversations, I propose this solution: Get a dog. (more…)