Do you understand how your creative industry works? Do you know who the key players are, and do you have an understanding of how artists in your specific creative discipline get projects and are able to do the work that you do? Do you have a firm grasp of the current style trends and changes that are impacting the creative work of your colleagues? How much do you know about the behind-the-scenes businesses and decision-makers that run your creative industry? Today, let’s talk about why it’s important to have curiosity about how your little corner of the artistic world works. Let’s discuss together why you need to investigate your industry.

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Hello, thriving artists, and welcome to Episode 62 of the Starving Artist No More podcast. I’m thrilled you’re here with me today.

This episode is a really special one. I was recently able to interview Erick Black, Director of Production at the award-winning audiobook production company, Dreamscape Media. Erick is going to be one of the faculty members at the upcoming Thriving Narrators Retreat taking place in Cincinnati, OH, August 22-25, 2024, and he agreed to join me for a conversation to get a sneak peek of the expertise and insight that he’ll be sharing with attendees at the retreat.

Like my conversation with Jonathan Pennock several episodes ago, today’s conversation is a discussion with one of the key decision-makers in the world of audiobooks, and while a lot of the specifics Erick and I share are from the audiobook industry, the concepts are universally applicable regardless of your specific creative industry.

As you’ll hear in our discussion, Erick is unequivocal about the importance of artists (1) knowing their industry, and (2) treating the people in that industry as their valued colleagues. And these two tenets apply regardless of what kind of artistic work you do.

The one thing that is constant in life is change, and so even the most established artists need to continually approach their creative industries with a mindset of curiosity and continual learning if they want their work to stay relevant and in-demand. Investigating your industry and staying aware of changes in your industry over time are vitally important to your artistic business’s survival over time. That’s why “a plan for ongoing artistic growth” is one of my six components of a thriving creative business:  if you don’t continually grow in your creative process, and in your understanding of the creative industry in which you work, your business will not be able to thrive and grow and adapt over time. The world is always changing, and if you don’t allow your creativity to grow and change along with it, you won’t be able to thrive in the long run.

Just as important as investigating your industry is how you treat the people in that industry. Having a “diva” reputation isn’t going to do much for you other than get you talked about behind your back. Even though I’m the voice behind the microphone in the audiobooks I narrate, I am far from the only creative working on those projects. There is of course the author, who makes my work possible in a very literal sense. There’s also the casting director or producer on the project, and if you don’t think that’s an artistic activity, then I suggest you take a listen to any of the interviews with casting directors on my other podcast, Crafting Audiobooks. One listen through any of those episodes will make it very clear that choosing which artist is the right fit for a project is an inherently creative act, and following that project through to completion only continues the artistry and creativity. And that doesn’t even get into the post-production professionals and the audio engineers and the cover designers and … and … and. My voice may be the one in the listener’s ear, but no listener will even get to listen to my voice in the first place without the creative input of everyone else in the entire production process.

And because of the interconnectedness of this whole production process, any action I take on my portion of the work will have a ripple effect that touches everyone and everything else.

The image of a solo artist creating alone in a siloed studio is simply not true. No man is an island, and no creative entrepreneur is an island. What you do impacts your creative colleagues, and being cognizant of that fact and treating those colleagues with respect and courtesy will allow you the opportunity to be part of more projects in the future. How you treat your colleagues matters.

Let’s turn now to hear this information directly from the source: Erick Black, Director of Production at Dreamscape Media.

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Jennifer: I am so thrilled that today I have with me Erick Black, who is Director of Production at Dreamscape Media. Erick, thank you for joining me today.

Erick: Thank you for having me.

Jennifer: I am so excited that you're here today and that you're going to be a faculty member for the Thriving Narrators Retreat, and let's just dive right in. So, Erick, I know your background is in audio engineering, and I would love to know what led you from working on the engineering and sort of post-production side of things, to working on the casting side of audiobooks.

Erick: Yeah. So I yeah, I was recording and directing here at dreamscape for a little over a year when Tammy Foxall, who was our head of a handful of years back, just came up and said, hey, I want you to start casting these. So it's a pretty quick story in that as far as that goes. But it was something that I started doing more and more of. I really enjoyed it eventually. It's tiring, you know, being in a studio recording people sure, nearly every day. So it was I was ready for the move out. And I've managed to keep a little bit on hands on with some of our projects, which scratches that itch, but otherwise I, I just love, the whole industry: the casting portion of it, the production portion of it, planning, things like that.

Jennifer: Sure. So some of the things that we're going to be talking about at the thriving Narrator's Retreat is how a new narrator can know that they are ready to start reaching out to publishers. So I'd love for you to share some of your thoughts about that with us now. What advice do you have for new narrators who want to take their careers to the next step and begin working with publishers? How do you know if you're ready?

Erick: Yeah, I think the very first and maybe over Compassing pointer there is is really knowing the industry. You need to make sure you're reaching out to the right person and what they're expecting to have from you, you just really need to know even who you're reaching out to. You probably want to know the specifics of how they work, because that's going to, you know, Penguin Random House is going to be different than Tantor is going to be different from us. So I think the more you can, the more knowledge you can gain from things like workshops or, I mean, articles online really understand the business side, not just the technical aspects of narration. And I would say that's kind of the biggest overreaching advice without getting too granular on it.

Jennifer: Yeah, sure. Yeah. So it's it's an idea of studying the industry, not just studying your craft.

Erick: Yes. Yeah. I think that's pretty important here, at least in audiobook publishing. I think it just it's going to give more confidence. It's hard to give someone their first book. It kind of is, you know, you're taking a chance. You don't know what it's like to work with them. You might have an idea of what, you know, the quality that they can produce if you've heard or other things they've read. But I think that basic understanding of the industry and what's expected of you can shine through, especially if you're reaching out with that information and install some confidence. Like, I think I can trust this person with the first book. Sure.

Jennifer: Yeah, that makes sense. If if it's your first time stepping up to a new level in your career, you want to make sure that you're showing that you're capable of that in as many ways as possible. And if it's your first time doing it the thing, then you can't show it by doing the thing, but you can show it by doing other actions.

Erick: Right. Yeah. You can't say, hey, look at all these people I've worked for. If they don't, if they're if.

Jennifer: They don't exist.

Erick: But yeah, that preparation, you know, that goes a long way and kind of makes me think you're going to attack the whole process of making an audiobook with you with confidence. And sure, checking all the boxes and attention to detail, I think all that really helps.

Jennifer: I can absolutely see that. So let's move a step ahead in that process. So they've reached out to you. This new narrator has said, I'm ready to start working with publishers. I would love to work with you. And you send them an audition. We're actually going to also be talking about auditions at the thriving Narrator's Retreat. So again, let's let's get some of your thoughts. Now, what are the biggest mistakes that you see narrators make during the audition process?

Erick: Well that's tough. It's it's kind of tough, you know, to say, don't do this. Sometimes you don't know until you hear it and it's just not working. Okay. But I do think some people might be maybe play it a little safe, which isn't going to really help you stick out at all. That may very well change on the specifics of the book, like some of these. You're obviously not going to be too bold on. But I would say, you know, this is an audition. You're trying to show your stuff. These go to the author, what's going to grab them. So keeping them in mind really thinking I know it's tough because sometimes you're going in with just a very basic outline of the character, or maybe almost no idea of what you're reading at all besides a few notes, but we can adjust it, right? If you impress them. And we get notes like that often where they go, oh, I loved, I loved Jennifer's audition, but so and so wouldn't would sound more regal or, you know, they they'll pass notes along. So I think it's that you're giving this first impression and only a few minutes is all you have. So make those big choices. I think if the text calls for it and you want to stand out a little bit.

Jennifer: I think that big choices phrase that you use is a very apt one. Don't be afraid of making the bold choice and doing the big thing, if that's what feels right to you. Yeah.

Erick: Yeah, it's definitely going to make you stand out a little bit.

Jennifer: Mhm. Now something else that we're going to talk about at the thriving Narrator's Retreat is kind of the next step in that process. You know we're following things through after that audition comes. If you win it as an audiobook narrator then you have to prep that book. And what suggestions or ideas do you have for narrators as they're embarking on this creative project of creating the audiobook?

Erick: Yeah, I have some bullet points here.

Jennifer: I'd love for you to share. Yes.

Erick: Start early enough. And I know sometimes it's last minute we can be demanding of timescales and things we need. We need it quick. So, but as soon, you know, as early as you can prep. And if you try to work that into your, your schedule of books, I think it's only going to serve you well to have those word lists or questions as early as possible. Some authors are are very quick to get back. Some were going through like three people to get to the author, and any one weak link in that chain can mean a delay. So if we have a, you know, a word list a day or two before, they might not be back to us by the time you're ready to record. So give yourself plenty of time for prep is probably the big one. And I know people have different levels of how they're scouring through the text, but you're really looking out for anything you don't know. Obviously, how to pronounce is is going to be a big one because you can get that up front, or you can wait for someone you know. It slows the whole process down. You really think about that domino effect. The Proofer is now looking up this word like, I don't think that's right. The the editors having to put together that in the pickup packet. Then it comes back to you and you're spending your time to hook everything back up. So kind of back to that I think more time you have more time to spend on those little individual pieces, character questions, notes, looking things up is really just makes a whole process more efficient, even if it's a little more time upfront.

Jennifer: Absolutely. And I think also part of that is understanding that as the audiobook narrator, the artist, you know, in that stage of the process, we're not working on the project by ourselves. We also do have the proofers and the editors and the engineers and the agent for the author and the, you know, casting director. And, you know, there's all of these people involved, and it's an idea of just making sure that we're treating everyone involved in the project as colleagues. Yeah. And understanding that the way that we work will influence how they're working, whether that's positively or negatively.

Erick: Yeah, I like I like that too. You do? Really I think it's very good to keep that mindset. We're working on this together. If you're giving the editor a hard time or heck, if the editor is giving you a hard time. I've gotten feedback both ways, and you want that process to go smoothly, and maybe someone is being is hung up on something, but there's that communication just treating each other with respect. And we're in this together really goes a long way, at the end of the day.

Jennifer: Yeah, I think a lot of times we're working in sort of siloed individual spaces and maybe not working at the same time, which can make it hard to remember that we are actually working together. Yeah.

Erick: And I think in some cases we try to connect, you know, various pieces. But I think sometimes you're working through a lot of communications going through, say, the producer, and you never have access to the editor or this or that, but sure.

Jennifer: Yeah. And that goes back to what you were saying, that you have to understand the industry enough to recognize that there is a process for getting those questions answered. Right. It's not the sort of thing where you can send a word list, and the casting director can necessarily respond themselves. They have to check with other people. So part of being a responsible business owner as a narrator is understanding the full process of the project.

Erick: Right. Yeah, I know some producers give you a word list up front. Some are doing some. Some are doing a portion of that prep for you, too. So that makes you even more efficient rather than working with them. You know what to expect from this person and that not only what they're expecting of you. That knowledge is important. You need to keep a spreadsheet of each publisher. I heard someone say they're like snowflakes. Each one's, you know, a little bit different. So, yeah.

Jennifer: Very true. Understanding the differences between what different clients expect is part of our job as, again, small business owners. Yeah.

Erick: Yeah, I would agree.

Jennifer: I would love to find out if you have any thoughts about the role of self-promotion and marketing in how commercially successful a narrator is From your perspective as a casting director, what are some effective strategies that narrators can use to market themselves?

Erick: I think it is great to see how people are pushing the books that they're recording. I'm not a huge social media person myself, but I know a lot of people are streaming on discord and and TikTok. If you know you have permission to do things like that, people really enjoy the audience, right? Really enjoys kind of putting a face to the name and seeing people doing what they're doing. So I think that, you know, showing you're a real person is huge. For listeners of audiobooks. I think promoting what you're working on goes a long way for. Yeah, like publishers and production houses like to see like to be tagged in those. It helps our social media and it kind of grows that network by association. So I think I think it is important I don't necessarily use that as a point when I'm casting something. How popular, you know, how many followers do they have on this or that? I don't really care personally, but I do know authors are probably if I send three people and they might search their name and if they see them, or if they're already familiar with you, which has happened to authors are quite active on those social media platforms, too, and I know they like to connect with narrators. So I think a lot of it is just growing that network, showing your real person and doing what you're comfortable with.

Jennifer: I think finding that comfort level is very different for each narrator. I know I personally have struggled sometimes knowing how much I am comfortable sharing on social media, but yeah, finding a way to do that that feels authentic to me is is something I'm still working on.

Erick: Right. Yeah. I don't even like I don't even like taking a selfie. You know, I like candid photos. This feels weird, right? Right. Yeah. I imagine it's very hard for some people to turn a camera on you and start to try to shine through all of this.

Jennifer: I do think, though, thinking of it as a business activity can be a little bit helpful. Recognizing that this is something that matters. Having that social media presence is something that's become expected of narrators, right?

Erick: I think that's yeah, that finding that comfort level, playing on your strengths or who knows? What do I know, right?

Jennifer: Sure. Erick, I would love for you to put on that casting director and producer hat for a moment and share with us what you see as the aspects that set a successful narrator apart in terms of their approach to the business side of things. So we've already talked a little bit about some of those aspects of the business side of things that you see as really helpful, but what do you see as the most important ones that narrators should be focusing on.

Erick: To immediately jump to mind? Communication? If there's question, I mean, sometimes there aren't any and sometimes you you know, people we work with bam bam bam, everybody knows what's going on. But communication is huge. I want to see questions again. Somewhat timely goes a long way. Communication with co narrators. How often I find later like people didn't even touch on something like they we pronounced names wrong. That's huge. Also what's going to feed into that second issue. A big one that comes up is deadlines. Like, you got to either have to hit them or you have to communicate that you're going to miss them. We bake some time in, but it is sort of from a business side. It's showing me you're not able to manage multiple projects or deadlines when you just it whizzes by and the editor goes, hey, where's that audio? Sure. You should know that's on your calendar, right? You need to let them know, hey, I'm going to be a few days late, which probably isn't a deal isn't a big deal. We build time in on these projects. But again, there's that ripple effect down the line. The editor has a proofer lined up. Now the proofer is sitting there twiddling their thumbs, and that causes this whole chain reaction down the line that we could easily have planned for if we knew to expect things a little late. And so it's it's so much better to address that up front or any issue up front. So absolutely, those are two things. Despite you can be the best narrator in the world and still be terrible at those two things. And it makes it hard to cast you in something. Especially some of our best projects are probably quicker turnarounds, and there isn't room for that kind of play in the in the schedule. Yeah.

Jennifer: So I certainly have experienced that myself that this huge, amazing, pretty big budget marketing book comes through and it's got to be turned around immediately.

Erick: Yeah, yeah. Especially people, publishers, production houses like dreamscape where we don't have these huge timelines, those good books, the audio rights go up for bid and we're they're fighting with other people and contracts, all sorts of things can take a long time to hash out. And then we're really talking about down to the wire to get it out there for simultaneous release with the print book. Yeah.

Jennifer: And again, I think both of those things that you mentioned, the communication and the awareness of deadlines boil down to that treating the other people who are working on this project as colleagues and recognizing that our actions directly influence them.

Erick: Yeah, yeah. If you say you're going to be at the restaurant at this time, you know, you don't want to leave.

Jennifer: Right, right.

Erick: Around waiting for you.

Jennifer: For sure.

Erick: Yeah. It's just yeah, it's just a good practice in everyday life, not only even professionally but. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Stick to those commitments.

Jennifer: And now let's go back again to sort of the beginning of the process a little bit. Someone, a new actor, a narrator who's new to the industry, is wanting to reach out and start forming relationships with casting directors and producers. What are your biggest pieces of advice for narrators who want to be better at doing that?

Erick: Yeah, I think it takes time. So understand that's building that relationship. Isn't those five minutes you get face to face at AIPAC? There's been people I know that have emailed for a long time, and then I finally meet them years later. And now, you know. Yeah. Now this now we really start to grow. So I think you need to keep in mind all the different aspects of it. It's it can't all just be face to face. But the more events you're at, the more opportunities you're going to have. And it it can take time. I mean years to, to really get to know people. I guess I couldn't speak for everybody, but I know I really appreciate those those moments. A quick one here or there, sometimes you're at something like a retreat that's maybe multiple days in, say, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Jennifer: In, say, this coming August.

Erick: Yeah. Say that, you know, that's a really great opportunity in smaller groups, more time. Nobody's feeling rushed or like they have to butt into, you know, a conversation or a moment here or there to. That's a terrible way to say it. But, you know, break into a conversation, to really get that face time. So, sure, I think there's a lot of different levels and it just takes time. That's the end of it.

Jennifer: Yeah. There's that old marketing concept that, you know, if a, if you're a business marketing to consumers, the consumer needs to know of your product and have eight touches with your brand before they're going to consider buying. And it definitely is different when, you know, we're talking about a human to human relationship that narrators have with casting directors. But that concept, I think, still stands, that there needs to be a lot of opportunities for interaction before the casting directors may be going to be ready to work with a new to them. Narrator. Yeah.

Erick: Yeah. And I think back again to knowing your relation or, you know, knowing what different people do and how different people want. But I know I've had people reach out and say, hey, do you have ten minutes to jump on a zoom call? And if I do, generally I will. Yeah. Tell me, you know about you. I've got ten minutes here. It's a nice break to my day And, you know, I wouldn't suggest you do that. You know, go down your list of everybody and start doing it. But you kind of know you're I don't know. You're gonna have to figure that part out, right? How sure. Who's who would be receptive of that? Who? You know, maybe you have met somebody and you wanted to talk more about something. So yeah, you got to find those opportunities. Those eight those eight touches. Yeah.

Jennifer: And like you said, with, you know, someone reaching out, asking for a zoom call if if you can't find them, maybe create them.

Erick: Oh, sure. Yeah.

Jennifer: Great. Well, Erick, I want to move on to our final question, which is something that I ask pretty much everyone that I interview for the Starving Artist No More podcast, and it is this I would love for you to share a tool or a resource that you use in your creative work that makes you awesome at what you do.

Erick: Well, there's one answer for me right now, I will tell you is Airtable. Oh, okay. All the time. And if you're not familiar with it, at a glance, it kind of looks like a cloud based Excel. But it's a very powerful database. It's worth the time. It's very flexible. So you sit down in front of this thing, and it seems it can seem a little intimidating, but it's worth learning enough about it because it is quick once you start to pick it up. The way, for instance, we can have our all the details for a project laid out in in a row and it's there like dynamic links to other records. So I can once we assign a narrator, I can click on them. It pulls up their information, all the titles they've done, all the invoices. I can click on the invoice and see what happened here or the narration agreements, which are all hosts hosted in in Airtable itself. Our scripts are located there and attachment fields are credit scripts are automatically generated from other data in Airtable. So by sort of jumping in all in on this efficiency is unbelievable. I think we do it, dare I say, better than many people or, you know, in the industry. It really allows us to one person to manage a much larger workload. It allows, if someone else is stepping in to see all the details of a title. The efficiencies are unbelievable. From shared views, interfaces, if you if you're not familiar with Airtable and you feel like your system isn't quite working for you, I would highly encourage you to go watch some YouTube videos.

Jennifer: That is very neat. I was not necessarily expecting you to answer Airtable, but I know that I have interacted with dreamscapes. Narrator. Portal that has the audition information. You know, the audition listings there. And it's also, as you said, where I go to get my scripts, where I go to see the credits, how I submit my invoices when I work for dreamscape. And it does make for a very seamless process. And then I also know quite a few narrators who use Airtable themselves to manage their own projects, sort of similar to the way that dreamscape manages all of your projects. A narrator can use it themselves, and I'll link some resources in the show notes for listeners if they're if they're curious about how this works. ( You can learn more about Narrator.Life's Airtable template here, and you can see Rachel Jacobs' Notion templates here. )

Erick: Yeah, I know people that'll have a whole base for each book, and they can save their character voices in their, their, their scripts, all kinds of records, information. So like, say it's a series. You can go back. Yeah, have all that information. So yeah, I know again, it's so flexible. You can really tailor it to whatever your need is. And you can keep it as simple or as complex as possible. You mentioned the portal is. Yeah, that's all the backbone is. Airtable with just a different third party skin over it. Yeah, but all the information is there. You know, once it's all in there, it's like, check a couple boxes. And that's what we want, you know, to send out to you or to a narrator or to our editors. Use it. Sure. Fantastic tool.

Jennifer: That sounds great. Well, thank you so much for sharing that tool, AI tool and resource with us. And thank you also for sharing your thoughts about how narrators can best interact with casting directors and producers and all of their colleagues on the project. This has been a wonderful discussion.

Erick: Yes, this was fun. Thanks for having me again.

Jennifer: My pleasure.

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Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Starving Artist No More podcast, and for spending time with me and my special guest today, Erick Black. I hope our conversation gave you a new appreciation for the value of curiosity as you learn and grow in your creative industry, and that our discussion encouraged you to treat your creative colleagues with courtesy and kindness. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast in your podcast player of choice, and I’d also truly appreciate you leaving a review. Reviews and subscriptions help new artists find this creative little corner of the podcast world. And if you know a fellow artist who would enjoy my conversation with Erick, please share this episode with them. Sharing is caring! If you have any questions for me, if you’d like to learn more about how you can work with me, if you’d like to learn more about the Thriving Narrators Retreat that’s taking place in Cincinnati in August 2024, where Erick will be a faculty member, if you have a topic suggestion for me for a future podcast, basically if you want to reach out to me for any reason or if you have any questions about my work, you can get all that info and contact me via my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com. Everything you need is there. A huge thank you to Erick for joining me for today’s episode, and an enormous thank you as well to my husband, Arturo Araya, who handled all of the sound engineering for this episode, as he does for every episode of this podcast. Thanks, Arturo!

Regardless of whether you’re an audiobook narrator, or you work in a totally different artistic medium, the truths remain: you must know your creative industry if you want to thrive in that creative industry, and kindness to your colleagues will always matter. Keeping these two points in mind will help you understand how your artistic work interacts with others in your industry, giving you the knowledge you need to build a creative business that truly works and that continues to thrive over time. I can’t wait to see what you create.