Writers’ Mill Minutes September 16^th 2018

Around 12 of us braved the unexpected storm to hear a fantastic talk from Matt Haynes about books, writing, and especially narration. As we arrived, the sun came out, and we welcomed several new members who’d found us via Meetup. Someone suggested that maybe more time will be spent on indoor pursuits like writing as the weather turns cooler. If you agree, make sure you mark your calendars and save the date, October 21^st, for Beth Jusino’s next visit, when the library brings her in to share those all-important self-editing tips.

Matt Haynes spoke for the second half of Sunday’s meeting and notes from his talk are below. But first we introduced ourselves and the Writers’ Mill—an eclectic group of Writers Helping Writers, as it says on our website: http://portlandwritersmill.org.

One way we help each other is with writing prompts for our online contest. Entries are posted anonymously and, since the site is password protected, don’t count as previously published. The comment area provides a chance to give and receive positive critiques – positive, so we learn to read our own writing positively and critically, rather than telling ourselves to quit. We’re all writers. Let’s write!

The latest contest was Growing Old and awards (from Jessie, in England) went to

• First place Karin for “Growing Up Gracefully?”
• Second place Sheila for “When I Was Small” (poem)
• Third place Jean for “A Wise Old Girl”

Other Entries were:

• Jessie’s essay
• Sheila “Old Cats”
• Judy’s “A Pact For Growing Old Together” AND “He Once Walked Miles”
• Matthew’s “Carl Walks” AND “The Life of a Computer”
• Susan Apurado’s “Illusion” (poem)
• Robin’s “Preparing to Grow Old”
• Mary Jane’s “Salted and Seasoned” (poem)
• Joanne DeHaan’s “Spaghetti Bowl”

At present, all except Spaghetti Bowl and Carl Walks (by authors’ requests) are being submitted for the November anthology—the deadline to make changes, remove entries or send further entries is the end of this month or, more accurately, the beginning of next month—Since I’m so late sending out the minutes, I’ve extended the deadline slightly; entries received before October 6^th, sent to admin at portlandwritersmill dot org, will all be included if at all possible. PLEASE send more entries—pictures, poems, jokes, drabbles, drips, stories, essays, poems… Let’s make this as good and as varied an anthology as we can…

• Anthology Theme: Growing Older
• Anthology Title: Fine Lines, Shades of Gray, what other suggestions can you give? (Deadline for a title is October’s meeting).
• Anthology upload: Assuming the technology works, join us at November’s meeting (November 18^th) to see the process of uploading to KDP (kindle and print), and to order your print copies in time for Christmas!

Upcoming contests, with deadlines always on the 1^st Sunday of the month, all with 1,200 word limits, (entries to contest at portlandwritersmill dot org) are:

• October, Wired, Richard – lots of different meanings—find out more at http://portlandwritersmill.org/contests/october-2018-contest/ (password protected)
• November, Reunification, Matthew—find out more at http://portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-contests/
• December, Tangled Webs, Judy

Since Matt was going to talk about reading aloud, we took time for a short exercise in “listening” to the voices in our heads, translating what they said into a “writing voice.”

Looking at two of our recent contest entries in particular, Growing Old Gracefully by Karin, and Thoughts on Ageing by Jessie, we asked:

• What image do you get of the narrator?
• How quickly do you work out her age, gender, VOICE?
• What voice, or voices, do you hear in your head as you read?

Someone like Matt will convert this into audible voices, but first we writers have to hear the words in our heads… even if, as in case of youngest son, that voice is loudly saying “I don’t want to write a poem, Mom.” Once the voice reaches the page, you’re a writer!

Brainstorming our upcoming contest, we thought about “Wired” and came up with many wiry topics:

• ADHD
• Too much caffeine
• Wired for internet
• Hard-wired personalities
• Telegrams, money transfers
• Puppet on a string
• Relationships—is the boss pulling your strings?
• Landline phones vs cell phones
• Figuring out schematics
• Spaghetti of computer wires under the desk.

Rolling the story dice we ended up with a tree, a lightning flash and a computer. Combining this with the last wiry topic, we imagined a situation where grandparent and grandchild are dealing with the results of the lightning making the power go out (include the tree somewhere…) and proceeded to write two versions of the scene:

• From the grandparent’s point of view, paying special attention to:
  • What the character notices
  • What the character cares about
  • How the character thinks
  • What sort of analogies the character might make
  • What kind of speech does the character use?
• From the grandchild’s point of view—same issues. Did the voice change?
• Which version felt more natural? That according to the literature, is the point of view that should be used for the scene.

At this point everyone present had the beginnings of a contest entry ready. Don’t forget to finish writing those entries and send them to contest at portlandwritersmill dot org before the end of Sunday January 7^th. (And don’t forget to send more growing older entries to admin at portlandwritersmill dot org before the same date!)

After snacks from Judy and Sheila, we welcomed Matt Haynes, an internationally acclaimed audiobook narrator with over 37 titles to his credit. He has narrated books in a wide variety of genres including

• -Biographies
• -Fantasy
• -Science Fiction
• -Romance
• -Memoirs
• -Self Help
• -Business
• -Horror
• -Comedy and many more

He specializes in working with authors who are new to audiobooks and was able to give us not only lots of starter tips, but also lots of encouragement to KEEP WRITING. Please read on for notes from his talk. And please don’t forget our next meeting when Beth Jusino will return to finish her series. Meanwhile. Happy writing!

Notes from Matt Haynes Talk on Books and Audiobooks

Matt asked us to introduce ourselves and our experience with audiobooks. Some of us listen to them. Some are interested in having our work recorded. Some are vaguely aware of how important audiobooks are (an increasingly popular way for people to experience books), and some had to confess, no, they’re not for us ( but are they still the best way forward for our writing?). Similarly, some of us are published, unpublished, aspiring to be published… writers of short and long pieces, fiction and non-fiction… maybe just beating ourselves up for not writing. But all of us care about writing; that’s why we’re here.

Matt encouraged us to look more seriously at writing short stories (or long essays), pieces that would take around ½ hour to read aloud. Until recently, short pieces were hard to sell—they’d have to be selected for inclusion in something longer, or binding them into a book wouldn’t be cost-effective. But now, short pieces are increasingly popular. They’re e-publishable. And they’re audio-publishable.

So what do you need to “publish” a short piece of writing?

• A cover
• A way to format for kindle
• An afternoon to upload your piece to Amazon.
• And a narrator?

In a world of self-publishing, there are no gateways providing quality control. But that doesn’t mean you should wait until you’re sure your piece is perfect before releasing it. Today the old maxim—do it right or don’t do it at all—is BAD advice. Get into the habit of publishing a short piece, say, every 6 months—test it first (say at the Writers’ Mill); get two friends to proofread it; then publish. You don’t have a reputation to ruin, only one to gain. Activity breeds opportunity. And there’s only one way to ruin your writing career—by not starting it.

Matt told us to look for “How I made a hundred movies in Hollywood and never lost a dime” by Roger Corman. He released indie movies before indie was in style. He proved he could put stuff out there, and his success drew in newcomers to work with him, who became famous after him. We need to prove we can put stuff “out there” too.

Of course, there are also no gatekeepers in the audio world either. 20 years ago, a narrator would be picked up, taken in by a studio, directed and told precisely what to do. Now Matt sits in his own studio next to his kitchen, with a five-second commute from coffee to job. Does that mean we could “do it ourselves?” Probably not: A skill in writing what people want to read won’t usually include a skill in speaking the sounds they want to hear, or the technological skills to edit, cut and paste those sounds into a complete recording.

A short story will convert into about a ½ hour recording, which will take considerably longer than half an hour to record (just like it takes longer than half an hour to write). You’ll be charged around $50 or more for the finished ½ hour (narrators’ fees vary a lot; some will work for a cut of the royalties, but they may not be the most experienced. Others will charge from $50 to $1,000 per “finished” half hour—i.e. per half hour of finished product).

But why would we spend this? Why would writers invest in audiobooks?

• Would you invest in an MFA? Audio is cheaper.
• Would you hire a handyman? Paying someone might save money.
• Do you struggle to advertise? An audio clip is great advertising (on Facebook, Twitter etc)
• People love books, love podcasts, love stories, TED talks and more—like a return to old-fashioned ways of getting information, aided by modern technology. We’ve moved from pre-literate days where someone was paid to read, through newspapers, books and books on tape, to audio available everywhere at every time… It’s an essential platform of the modern day, and it’s worth investing in.

What do you look for in a narrator?

Matt asked us to brainstorm what we might look for: clever voices, accents; appealing voice; technical expertise; clarity of speech; variation in narrative speed, volume etc; reliability; ability to pronounce difficult words; facility with language… not stuttering?

Matt said we should look for STEADINESS:

• Technology is science
• Reliability is business
• Steadiness is art, the most important thing

Think of an advertisement on the radio: The speaker is dynamic, expressive. Or a news broadcaster: The speaker follows the speed of the teleprompter, no time to pause for breath (or water). Neither of these voices would be something you’d choose to listen to for 8 hours at once (about how long a novel is likely to be). You want someone who can tell a steady story. Their job is to “serve” your story to the listener. The narrator is NOT a performer. The writer has already done all the work—you’ve written a novel, not a play. An actor might interpret a play, but a narrator’s job is to read what you’ve written and let your words do what you wrote them to do. The narrator makes your words available to people at greater convenience.

• Steadiness is like the progression of your eyes from side to side with no stops. The narrator might lift his voice slightly for women, lower it for men, add a touch of accent, etc., but the listener’s imagination, aided by the writer’s words, facilitated by the narrator, projects the voices.
• Using two narrators, one male and one female, for dual points of view might result in distraction that outweighs the benefits; the listener listens to the reader instead of the words.
• Steadiness creates the sort of vocal environment where the narrator can still be heard above distractions—road noise, tires, horns; house noise, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner; 24-hr fitness noise… The listener must still be able to track, and that requires a steady narrator—one whose voice is predictable so they can listen to the words.

How would we find a narrator?

• First write your book; get it edited; get a cover; get it on Amazon.
• Get an account on ACX—audiobook creation exchange
• They will want to know:
  • You are the rights holder
  • How many words in the book
  • What do you want from your narrator (don’t ask the impossible – be flexible)
  • What payment model do you want (pay upfront, shared royalties… Better to pay upfront; more accountability, probably more experienced narrator, better understanding of the process. With a royalty share, the narrator gets 20%, author gets 20%, and ACX gets 60%)
• There are thousands of narrators and tens of thousands of books; ACX will pair you with candidate narrators and you’ll audition them
• Narrators will want to know:
  • What following do you have?
  • How much will you pay?
  • When do you want it?
• You’ll want to know:
  • How well established are they?
  • How much will they charge?
  • When can they do it?
• If there might be a match, you will send your manuscript to the narrator, who will scan to see if it should work:
  • Narrators might want to avoid alienating people by reading something overly political, overly erotic, or fake ad, etc.
  • Narrators can deal with diagrams, graphs, illustrations etc by describing them, or the audiobook might be released with a pdf file – “look at the graph on page 3, which shows…”
• Author might take the book off ACX while listening to the audition, then put it back on to make the agreement. Then the book goes into production:
  • Narrator sends clips to author.
  • Author is NOT the director; you might suggest what characters are like, but your only real job is to listen, check if all the words are there… maybe say how to pronounce the unpronounceable…
  • At around 6 hrs per finished hour—with editing, author feedback, time to combine tracks, etc—you’ll end up with an audio file that’s yours to publish, with clips you can publish anywhere
• Then publish your next one. Get into the habit and it will spill into success.

So write your short story, publish it, add a half-hour audio version, and then blog about the experience!

Matt’s voice can be heard at http://tinyurl.com/haynesnarration

Enjoy! And thank you Matt for a very interesting, encouraging and informative session.