When you’re facing a problem or a difficult situation in your creative business, what is your first reaction? What do you do? Do you feel frozen? Do you feel frantic, like you have no options? Do you beat your head against the wall? Or do you take a step back and find a way to walk around the wall? I know that, personally, my initial reaction is always either to freeze or to feel frantic and stuck. But that’s not the only option. Even if, like me, that’s your first reaction, you don’t have to stay there. When you’re up against a problem in your artistic work that’s standing it your way like a giant, immoveable brick wall, you can find a way to walk around the wall.

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Hello, thriving artists, and welcome to Episode 60 of the Starving Artist No More podcast. I am so glad you’re here.

Today’s podcast episode is a recent conversation I had with author and audiobook producer Amy Rubinate , owner of Mosaic Audio. Amy is one of the most generous people in all of the audiobook industry. She has a wealth of experience in audiobooks, and she is always open and willing to share that experience if it will help smooth someone else’s path. I am so grateful to Amy for spending her time chatting with me, and I’m excited to share our conversation with you.

For all of the audiobook narrators in my audience, Amy will also be sharing her experience and wisdom at the Thriving Narrators Retreat, which I’m hosting in Cincinnati very soon, August 22-25, 2024. Amy will be one of five casting directors on our faculty, and we’ll have an additional six faculty members representing other aspects of the audiobook world, including directing, engineering, and, of course, narrating. I’m so excited to share the wealth of information these incredible faculty members are bringing for the retreat attendees. I know it’s going to be a transformative experience for everyone involved.

If you’re listening to this podcast anytime in July 2024 and are interested in attending, it’s not too late to register. I anticipate that registration will stay open through the end of July, and we’d love to have you. All of the details can be found on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com.

And if you’re listening to this podcast episode and July 2024 is long past, I still encourage you to visit the Events page of my website. You never know – the exact event that you’ve been looking for might be coming up! That url again is www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com.

Amy Rubinate is the very definition of a multi-disciplinary creative. She is an actor and has worked on stage and in voiceover, both general VO and audiobooks. She’s a singer and has performed professionally in that capacity as well. She is a traditionally published author of several novels, including Annie and the Unsinkable Ship [ https://amzn.to/3xFhRpW ], a children’s graphic novel which will be released on August 1, 2024, just a few weeks before the retreat. And she is the owner of the audiobook production company Mosaic Audio, where she casts, directs, and produces award-winning audiobooks.

To put it mildly, Amy’s creativity manifests itself in a lot of different ways and in a lot of different creative industries. Part of what has allowed her to work in so many different creative arenas and to do so with such success is her willingness to make changes when she recognizes that something about her creative process isn’t working, to do what she calls pivoting. In other words, if something in Amy’s creative process or creative business isn’t working for her, she won’t let that problem block her path. Instead, she’ll figure out a way to walk around it.

Let’s take a listen to my conversation with Amy so that you can hear for yourself how powerful this problem solving mindset can be, and how it’s helped Amy thrive in her creative work.

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Jennifer: I am so thrilled that I have with me today Amy Rubinate. Amy is the owner of the audiobook production company Mosaic Audio, where she produces, casts and directs. She is also the author of several middle grade graphic novels, Kate and the City of Fire, and a new one that's coming out on August 1st, Annie and the Unsinkable Ship. Amy, thank you so much for being here with me today on The Starving Artist No More podcast.

Amy: I'm so happy to join you. Thanks for having me.

Jennifer: Absolutely. So as listeners can tell, just from that brief little introduction I gave you, you work in a lot of different areas of the creative world. You're an accomplished audiobook narrator. You are a traditionally published author, and you own a production company and do all sorts of work there. So can you give me a bit of a rundown about how you branched into all of those directions in your creative business? I mean, what led you to work with such skill in so many different creative areas?

Amy: Thank you. Um, you know, the skill, I think the the the initiative and the excitement and the sense of urgency and the longing to do these things is sometimes the easy part and the skill and the growing ability to really inhabit those roles fully is the hard part, but it's also a joyful part. It's also the part that, um, makes me not want to go to sleep at night and finish that crafting, that last perfect email that will, that will, like, exceptionally express what I'm trying to say or, you know, to listen to one more narrator's work before I, you know, cut off for the day or, you know, to to go back and get my MFA in writing for children and then write for children. Um, I think it's just that I have. I have a lot of interests, and I think I have a lot of sort of talents. And I remember as a kid. Really wanting to be a professional and to have credibility and, uh, to be good and and to excel at the things that I loved to do. It was it was important to me, even just like as a kid, not just to have fun singing, but to be a professional singer and to to make my audiences feel things to like, have an impact upon the people experiencing my creativity, to benefit their lives, to to have a level of excellence that made people want to hear or see or experience me doing this thing. And so I think I must I. Okay. Erin Bennett and I always talk about this and we laugh because we were both really taken by Mister, Mister Rogers' opera about a potato bug. And you can find it on YouTube.

Jennifer: Oh my gosh, I will link that in the show notes.

Amy: I want to be an opera singer. Uh, and then, you know, at various points in my life, I would see people doing things that I wanted to do, but I knew that I wanted to do them well and that I wanted to do them in impactful ways. And so I think that that's what drives me, and the desire to express myself is extremely strong. I would say that that is a an essential life goal for me, and the desire to to look at the broken bits of life and work and make them better for other people, even if some and even if and especially if I'm not able to do so for myself. These are just like driving and motivating factors for me, I also don't. I'm an I've been an insomniac since like birth and so. I have ADHD, which is, I think, a helpful thing to know about me up front. Um, because it's like I have a little motor in my brain that's going, ooh, this is exciting, I want more, and I don't need to sleep. I can just keep going with this. Um, and I know people sometimes see it as a, um. Oh, sometimes people view that as a superpower. For me, I don't like to think of it as a superpower, because I really do view, at least for me, ADHD as a very debilitating disability. It has been an extreme hardship, all the things that that entails in my life. And it's hurt me greatly. And I it's been an absolute hurdle that I have to overcome. So when I people hear people kind of dismissing the hardship by saying, oh, but you get a superpower, I'm like, even the superpower hurts. You know, not sleeping for years at a time is damaging to your body, you know? So, so there's but it is an essential, I think, component of what drives me.

Amy: Like last night I was up, I was planning to go to bed at 11, but I've been working on my cartooning because I'm a graphic novelist writer. But I also would like to build my art skills so that I can be an author illustrator for my graphic novels. And I'm a little bit at a deficit because I got a really solid arts education, um, up until about 18. And then I stopped cold. I did some artistically creative things, but I didn't continue to pursue it as a livelihood. And I understand that that may not be possible, but I realized that I that this is my next grand passion and I love it so much. I love graphic novels so deeply, and I have some really, I think special ones that are I'm about to create and I kind of go all the way with them. So like last night at 11, I was like, I can go to bed now. I'm feeling a little tired. And then I was like, oh, but there was this one thing in this book that I really wanted to find that he was talking about how to make this particular thing with inking. And so I went and looked for that, and I went down the rabbit hole, and I ended up going to bed at three. Okay, I but at every step when I thought, oh, I should or could go to bed, I was like, no, no, no, no, that reminds me of this, this thing that I wanted to learn. I just let me just set up all these things for tomorrow, you know, so I can remember to look for them.

Jennifer: So it seems like a pursuit of ongoing growth and creative excellence is something that's really driving for you.

Amy: Definitely. And and sometimes it impedes my ability to be a person in the world or to be healthy. But I kind of don't care because I got put on this earth to create some things, and I'm I'm damn well going to do it. Sure, sure. And I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit for that. Right? Right.

Jennifer: So one of the things that you're going to address somewhat at the thriving Narrator's Retreat is this idea of pivoting. And you have done that a number of times in your career, which is somewhat represented by the fact that you do work with such excellence in so many different areas. So why do you think that idea of pivoting when something new creatively draws your attention? Why do you think that's been successful for you?

Amy: Well, I think it's been successful because I do strive for excellence. So when I became a producer, um, that was more accepted, I think, by my clients, for whom I had only been a narrator, um, because they knew that I cared about my work, that, you know, I tried to get everything in very perfect that, you know, I mean, I would watch, I would watch the people that engineered me when I was in a pro studio. In fact, when I was in the the studio that I now own that I bought from Zach Harris when he was engineering me, I'd be like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What is that thing you're doing? I see you whizzing by with this stuff. What are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm adding the heads and tails. I'm like, what does that mean? How do you do it? And so and this is like ten, 15 years ago, he would teach me, he'd be like, oh, well, they want this, you know, a head to be, you know, 2.5 seconds and the tail. This is the for those uninitiated, this is the the room tone that you would put in at the beginning and the end of each chapter file, and then you would consolidate or mush them together. Um, and, and then he'd say, oh, and I'm putting these, this little spacing and so and then I'd say, well, what are these markers that you're setting? And he'd say, well, whenever you're making kind of a mouth noise or there's an extra big pause, I'll attend to that.

Amy: So from really early on, I was watching and paying attention and, and like kind of wanting to do all the things that made it better, the tiny, tiny little things that, you know, would, would make my work excellent. And so that that became and people knew that about me and they'd worked with me and, and that also became. My in to being a producer because I didn't know. I mean, I was a really good engineer, but I didn't at that point. But I didn't know a lot of things. And so because I didn't go to ProTools school or, you know, college for, for this work, I didn't go to music production school or anything like that. So I would say, I said to him when I bought the business, like, how am I ever going to learn all the things? Because, Amy, you know what, the same 20 things go wrong every time. Make a list, keep track. And so it would always be fun when I'd see on, you know, some of the Facebook groups, you know, they'd say, what do I do when this weird line appears? And I'd be like, hang on, I'm going to my spreadsheet. It's on.

Jennifer: My list.

Amy: Yeah. And so then I started working with just really great engineers over the years, and I would hire these people who really cared as much as I did who. And so my mission was to to not just get the job done, but to do it to the best possible capacity that we had and to keep the client happy and to make the narrators feel like they had a safe and healthy and happy and supportive place to be. And so the people who washed out were the people who didn't like spark to that mission. And the people who stayed were the people who cared as much as I did. And then you can really add some fun, because it's a little lonely to be embarking on a new creative or business pursuit on your own, even if you're taking it over from somebody who helmed it very well. But once you have a team around you that cares about the same things that you do, it's like then you sort of feel like you're charging into battle with a with an important and positive mission that, you know, you're waving the flag of excellence and absolutely, you know, and it's it's fun. But I've been thinking about your question of the pivot. And there was something that someone said on I can't remember somewhere in Facebook, I think the other day, and they were talking about feeling desperate and what a hard feeling that is. And how what do you do with that feeling? It's so uncomfortable. It's like it's like having rocks in your pants, you know, like walking around with them, like poking you and weighing you down. And it's uncomfortable. It's itchy and it's yucky and you don't feel good about yourself. So what do you do with that feeling? So let's say you're a narrator who has, you know, you've devoted your life to being someone who performs every day. And that's like the pinnacle to get paid to perform every day and to get to play all the parts in audiobooks, which is so much fun.

Jennifer: Narrating is pretty awesome. Yeah, it's.

Amy: A really fulfilling place to be. But then you see somebody getting something that you maybe wanted or thought you were perfect or even better for, suited for, or you see that you may not be getting the volume that you want, or you see that you're getting the volume of work in areas that maybe you don't particularly care for. How do you handle that? Um, and, and it's interesting because I'm very uncomfortable with discomfort. And so some of the pivots that I make in my life are, are based on my unwillingness to feel a deep level of discomfort, like, am I empowered to solve this? Yes. And so how how can I solve it? Then I go through the ways if I can't change, if I'm not satisfied with my circumstance and I'm not satisfied with my circumstance for an extended period of time and I feel stuck, then my only option is to change my circumstance. So I was thinking about this when I read this comment, and I remembered back to when I was, you know, a singer and voiceover actor in my 20s and early 30s. I would be so desperate for jobs and I would have these amazing jobs like I was, you know, I was at Leapfrog twice a week for a year doing a bunch of jobs, and I was like, paying my rent, and it was great. But what happens when that line of work dries up? Through no fault of my own, that line of work came to an end. What happens next? So instead of getting all desperate all over my clients or my agent or my husband or my friends, I thought, well, what? What else do I have to bring to the world? What what else can I contribute? What are other areas where I have talent and skill and energy and ideas and inspiration that are unfulfilled? Um, and so every twice this happened where I got to really kind of like desperate, I could feel the desperation, like, welling up and I'd, I could feel myself getting weirder, you know, because it it makes you it it leaks out your pores, you know?

Jennifer: Sure.

Amy: And so I signed up for this, um, this week long children's book retreat, um, children's book writing retreat in Oregon. And run by David David Greenberg on the coast. And I would take myself there and I would learn about how to be a children's book writer. And I wasn't ready at that time. Um, I just needed some maturity. I needed to develop my writing, but it helped me. The term I use is it helped me siphon off. Desperation. I don't know if it was because I was building a craft, a different craft, a different area of my creativity, or if it was accepting that maybe this wasn't the only avenue for me to be fulfilled, happy, make money creatively and pursue my goals. I'm not sure exactly the the what of it, but the why of it was to siphon off the desperation and get myself back to center. So I didn't reply to that post because I was working on a bunch of stuff, but. And I didn't have time. I was I've been really thinking about that, and I think that that may be the essence of the pivot. When you sense this dissatisfaction or you feel I can go farther, something's not working, I feel stuck. There's more. How do I get to more? Sometimes the answer isn't to keep pushing. Sure, it's to to explore within yourself.

Amy: What are my other talents and skills? How can I use this skill in another way? The best advice I well, some of the best advice I ever got was when I was a cabaret singer and there was really no there there at the time, like cabaret was drying up as an art form and I wanted to, like, make a living at it, you know, and, and it just, it didn't exist. Sure. And I remember my friend, um, saying to me, you know, stop hitting your head against the wall, go around it, find another way to use your voice. And that's when I became a voice over actor, which from there I became a casting director. From there I became, um. Well, I, you know, I wrote for a little regional kids TV show at a college. I, I did, you know, and I became an audiobook narrator, producer, director. So it that advice, I think, holds true both for me and for everyone. It's like start because we're all multi-talented. We're all multi, you know, broadly creative. There's there's nobody I think that was just born with one ability. Right. Or one desire. It's sometimes you're tapping into something else because that is truly the avenue you need to go forward in. Sometimes you're doing it to siphon off the desperation of the way it gets you somewhere new.

Jennifer: Absolutely. I love that advice of stop hitting your head against the wall.

Amy: Go around it. It's such obvious advice. Yeah, it was so. And I've really used that as a kind of a beacon and a guiding light. Now, for me, in audiobooks, being a full time narrator was not my right path. I have a number of, um, disabilities. I have very severe asthma. My ADHD is is a nine out of nine on several counts, you know, so there's a lot of there's a lot of ways in which it's it's physically uncomfortable for me to be in the booth for long periods of time. Sure. I developed a high level of skill as a narrator, but that only gets you so far. If your legs are twitching and your mind is wandering right? And you're coughing. Yeah. And gasping for air. So for me, doing narration less but still keeping my hand in. But not saying this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And, and I also remember I got to a point where I was like spending because because of all those limitations, I would get the job done, but it would take me 12 hours to do it, or 9 hours or 12 hours to do what it took somebody else six hours to do. As a narrator, as a producer, I'm great director, great, but as a narrator, that was a problem. And so I remember thinking to myself, like, this is what they do to prisoners in solitary. They put them in solitary confinement. When you've been bad in prison, your punishment is to go into a sound booth by yourself for 6 to 9 hours.

Jennifer: Yeah. I joke to people that my my day job is that I talk to myself in a small room all day.

Amy: And it is an apt description. Yeah, it really is. And so the things that were harming me, the things that were hard for me. I set out to solve for other people. So I think one of the components of the pivot is. Can you siphon off your desperation? Can you use a skill that you that is deeply held, that you have a gift to give to the world? Can you use this pivot to better the lives of other people? I couldn't find a way to fix what was broken for me as a narrator. But I could find a way to fix some of the things that were broken for me as a narrator, for other people when working.

Jennifer: As a producer. Sure, yes.

Amy: And so, like one of the things is for many years, up until the pandemic, I did not take any jobs where somebody had to record by themselves because I because it hurt me. You know, it was hard for me psychologically. Physically. I just needed to spend less hours in the booth and I needed the support. And so I thought, well, gosh. And my my friends were struggling with that. And there was a huge pool of narrators in LA. And I was like, let's do it. And so one of my things was I just shut the door to people rent. I didn't want people to rent my studio and self record. I didn't want them to self record from home unless they truly wanted to. But even then, that wasn't my gig. What I wanted to bring to the world was the support and the community. Um, and that pursuit of excellence. Because when you have an engineer supporting you, um, who cares about the book as much as you do, they're going to be like, hey, can we look up? I think it's "minutiae."

Jennifer: Right? Right.

Amy: You know, can you just give me a second to look that up? You know, all those things create excellence, you know? And so what I was trying to do is not just serve the publishers, which I wanted to do at a high level, but to make the lives of the narrators better. Now, after the pandemic, when the technology became different, and we used a lot of that time that we were shut down to like, perfect that technology and to add aftermarket tools that made it superior. We are now able to support people by doing remote recording, and there are some circumstances in which we do. We let people solo self, you know, self record, but mostly we're still trying to provide that same service and preserve a way of creating audiobooks that I think creates a very, you know, not only a good experience for them. I always think if the narrator is having a good week, so is the listener.

Jennifer: Sure, sure, yeah, I've recorded several books. I've recorded several books for you, and having the engineers who are so invested in the project is a delight.

Amy: Thank you. I'm so. We were so glad to have you in. Well, virtually.

Jennifer: Yeah, sure.

Amy: Virtually in in your house right over the airwaves.

Jennifer: Exactly. Well, I want to pivot a little bit, if we may, in the conversation and let's say so we've talked about how to siphon off that desperation. If you're wanting to maybe look at a new creative medium. But let's say that we've got an artist who's wanting to work in the same creative medium, but feels like they're being stuck in a box or pigeonholed in the types of projects they're getting. And this is something else that you're going to be discussing with us at the Thriving Narrators Retreat. How do we find a way around the wall when that wall is a little box we've been stuck into?

Amy: I think everybody can do it. I think it takes a really kind of hardcore level of self-assessment. One of the things that you have to do is identify. It's just the same on camera, you know, it's the same with voiceover. Um, same with stage work. You have to find. The sweet spot or many sweet spots where your sense of who you are as a product commodity, um, how you present to the world matches what what the available work is and matches the work that you truly want to do. So like, okay, so I started doing, um, kid stuff because I'd done so much, um, children's voices for voiceover before I came into this world. And I had a very young voice at the time. You know, it kind of sounded like this. And my, I don't know, it's early 30s and, um, so I actually it was more like this, you know, so naturally lay in that realm. And so I remember when I came into this business, I had some opportunities to kind of show my show my best, put my best foot forward. And so I, I did that in a way. I thought, oh, I'm going to get lost in a sea of middle aged women. So I, I purposely framed myself as, oh, and, you know, I specialize in children's voices, authentic children's voices. And I have a particular passion for children's literature. Um, and so almost all of my first books were middle grade and young adult.

Amy: Now, because I was sort of asking people to focus in on that. And so you never really want to tell people how to cast you, but you can tell them how to cast you without telling them. So I would say every email, I didn't care if I'd done a million books. And, you know, I specialize in children's books, you know. Oh, you know, I used to be the voice of Ted, you know, for leapfrog and, you know, that kind of thing, or I'd sit or you can do it even more subtly by saying things like, oh, I just did a dubbing job where I played an eight year old boy, you know, for whatever. For Netflix, use the you use what you're doing. It gives that third party endorsement, right? Someone else saw me as an authentic eight year old boy. You can too. Anytime you have any kind of credibility. Like I did that for Netflix. I did that for Penguin Random House. You know, someone desirable and well regarded in the industry as someone to work with that says to them, oh, you. Oh, oh, Harper and PR are hiring you for that. Oh, I could too, you know. Oh, you got you just got an earphones or AudioFile earphones award for that. Excellent. That means that not only are you doing it, but you're doing it credibly and with authority.

Jennifer: Sure, you're using your current clients and the current work you're doing to showcase the kind of work you want to continue doing.

Amy: Yeah, it's like a tacit third party endorsement. Yeah, absolutely. Social proof. People see me here, they like me here, and I'm doing good work. Um, but let's say you don't have let's say you don't have a lot of that under your belt. You might say, you know, as a someone who plays video games, who played video games every day of my childhood and young adulthood, I'm especially suited for lit RPG books. Sure, I have a wealth of character voices from my time in voiceover. I adapt them very well for the audiobook format. Here are some examples of. Here are some links to my two latest books that I did for Harper and Dreamscape, where the clip shows character voices you know, from audible, or you say, I'm a big fan of that. I mean, we're actors. We've been patting our resumes for 100 years. I'm I expect you to like I expect you to like, you know, fluff it up a little bit, you know, make it look its best, put some hairspray on it, you know, maybe, maybe a little mascara, you know, so it's so, you know, if you said, let's say you did, I don't know, a romance book for dreamscape and a women's fiction for Tantor.

Amy: I've been doing a lot of romance and women's fiction for companies like Dreamscape and Tantor recently. That is fine. That is arguably my husband has a a quote he always says, uh, it doesn't have to be right. It just has to be arguable. But, you know, what you're saying is, I do this thing, but you're saying it in such a way that you're really saying, I do a lot of this thing. And who's to say that one is not a lot for you, right? For sure. Now, the other thing I would say is I would definitely try and get face time with people. However it is that you can do that. I am a huge fan of joining the APA which is audiopub.org is the website, that is the Audio Publishers Association. For those who don't know, when when somebody comes to I don't um, I do some mentorship privately for free. Like if there's somebody who I feel connected to, maybe they came to my studio and they're not working as much as I feel they should be, and they're really great. Or a friend of a friend says, can you help somebody or whatever, you know, I'll I'll take on a certain amount of people to mentor each year.

Amy: Usually it's people that I, I just feel like are really worthy, but they're not getting there. And it always comes from like, I don't hang out a shingle. And I don't do paid work. But there are times when I feel like I can help this person get over that line. You know, I can help them get to the finish line, or I can help them get over that little hurdle or that little speed bump. And so I try and, you know, help get them there. But a lot of times when maybe they're just not even to the first speed bump yet, they're just approaching the first speed bump. Um, the things that I would tell them would be join the APA, join PANA, the Professional Audiobook Narrators Association, which is pronarrators.org. I love that website. Uh, pro narrators. It means so many things. Um, and I would urge them to not only join right away, but to start really looking at the emails and looking for opportunities to do, um, I don't know what they call it now, but it's essentially speed dating producers.

Jennifer: Yeah, it's the quick pitch now, but yes, quick pitch, thank you.

Amy: And then also be happy. Be satisfied with what you get. You may not pull the biggest producer at the biggest company, but I would see people being like, oh, I only got this person. They're just a director. I was like, dude, just a director. They're directing for the best publishing houses in town. And you don't think they're friends with the producers who hire them, right? Think again. You know, and you don't think that if you make a good impression on them, they're not going to be so excited to introduce you to their friend who is looking for this person, you know, and so, so like, have a as you're coming in, come in with a little awareness of the humility or the kind of the gratitude that a novice in any industry needs to walk in with, because that attitude makes people want to help you. Yeah.

Jennifer: Every person you meet has something that they can teach you and has something that they can share with you to help you grow and help you learn and.

Amy: Has something to offer so you have something to offer them too. Like this. This guy that I, I always wanted to work with him for years. Mark Touretzky is one of my favorite children's narrators, and I finally got an I finally had the right project for him. And then I had a couple more and we were talking. And he's involved in graphic novels in comics as well, and I was looking for a teacher to get to teach me this certain thing. And so he went and found me a teacher and, you know, introduced me. And so there's just like, there's I think this is a real community of, of generous people. Mhm. Not everyone, but I would say like 80% of the people here will help you as soon as they will help your help themselves, rather than stepping over their dead grandmother to get something that you want and rip it out of your hand. Right. I don't think there's very many of those people. They are surely there and you need to keep an eye out. But I would say that more often than not, they'll walk you across the room and say, hey, come meet my client. You'll really love them. And if they aren't in a position to do that because maybe they just had their one touch point for that event, they might say, the best I can do for you right now is just point him out, go over and talk to him, and that's okay too. Like there's. People are going to be generous towards you, but you also have to have that air of generosity toward them. Sure, give people grace. They're doing as much as they can to help you or to help themselves or to help their friends, but there's also limits to that as well. So it's all I guess it's it really comes down to having grace. And and and to look for opportunities to both help and to be to be someone who people want to help. Yeah, for.

Jennifer: Sure, for sure. Amy, I would love for you to put your producer and casting director hat on for just a minute. What do you believe sets successful narrators apart in terms of their approach to the business side of their careers and what they do?

Amy: This is such a good question. I've been actually thinking about it a lot lately as I prepare for the workshop that we're going to do in Cincinnati together in August. Um, and all the panels that you that you put me on, that I've been thinking a lot about that process. When I think about wildly successful narrators from the business side, you can't really separate that from the performance side, because you can only be successful in business if you're also good at the job, right? Right. However, there are when when I think of success, successful business people in the job. Um, I think of, um, Ronnie Butler and Erin Bennett come immediately to mind. They are wildly talented and successful and accomplished, um, narrators, but they at every turn, they're. Professional, calm, easy to work with. I always joke that they're there. They're like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way. And I was thinking about this in terms of, um, I was trying to parse out for myself what the things are that they do that set them apart. Now, it could be that they're both they've both been in my studio for so many years, so many weeks out of every year. Sure that we've just that that they just really stand out, that their perfection stands out. But but I also think that when you're when you spend so much time with someone and your whole organization spends so much time with them, that is also an opportunity for the cracks to show, because there's no way to spend that much time with the person without the flaws coming out. And there are no flaws. So.

Jennifer: So they're really committed to excellence. Kind of like what you're saying at the beginning.

Amy: Committed to excellence and their work. They're constantly growing and changing and exploring and asking questions. Erin, I've noticed her performance has broadened and changed over the years as styles have changed, and then Ronnie has taken on different lines of work. So like I directed him on, I think it was his first or maybe second children's book where it was first person and he really had to do a very kind of, um, young, a little bit fragile voice. This person was, um, uh, this person was beset by a demon and, you know, was like in dire straits. And he had to really stay in this much younger voice than is his natural pitch and like, tonality the whole way through. And so we really worked on consistency for like, we found a good placement and worked on consistency. But what made it work for him was that he embodied the spirit of this kid so strongly and so completely that. You could have a little fluctuation in tone. It didn't matter because he was inhabiting this person. Then we did another book in that same vein where it was a little more restrained, a little bit older kid, and again, he delivered like on that. And these were at that time out of his comfort zone. They've since become his stock in trade, successful award winning book. But I remember watching the transition, how open he was to a new style, how easy he was to direct because there was, again, generosity of spirit.

Amy: There was a generosity, an openness to play, to explore, to grow. But beyond that, he does a lot of nonfiction for me, too, and a lot of just regular fiction and adult fiction. And, you know, his prep is always perfect. His communication is always great with Erin. She's really actively explored not only different genres, but different styles as things change, as things have, you know, and she can do a number of things, like if I, I just gave her a really complicated, um, young adult nonfiction book, and I knew that she was going to really have to do it very conversationally, but also to really attend to the serious topic of the book. That's a that's a hard line to write. And she and she was willing to do the exploration and to to think about her performance as she was doing. Hey, do we need to adjust that, you know, constantly thinking about how to nail it right through the middle? They don't ever let up in a performance that attention to the heart of what they're trying to communicate to the audience. Now, that extends to how they behave with us. They never let up on trying to communicate effectively in their interactions with us.

Amy: So they're always prompt, even if a reply isn't necessarily required. They'd be like, yep, thanks. Got it. You know, some people will consider it. I know in some business settings that's considered like, um, oh, it's an extra step you don't have to do. But here where people need to know that you got the message that's incredibly important. That last thanks got it right. Sure. Incredibly helpful. But there was something else too. It was interesting. My my husband was kind of laughing. We both got a good laugh that you put me on the panel about business etiquette because as someone, someone who considers himself kind of a, a broad, you know, with, uh, a dame, uh, an old fashioned 1940s dame, uh, you know, I and someone with severe ADHD. I don't feel like I have a good grasp of etiquette, but I but I was thinking about it, and I was like. But actually, I have quite a bit to offer. That's substantial. Like, I've built, like I took this business from, you know, 165 jobs a year to 400 to 600 jobs a year. And, you know, we're working with major, I'm directing, um, A-list celebrities, and we're directing major authors, and we're working with experienced narrators, and I'm directing brand new narrators. And all of that takes a certain amount of finesse, again, generosity of spirit.

Amy: So I was thinking about about how. How? I don't really think in terms of etiquette. I think in terms of communication and relationship building. And it came to me today that, that, that, that is in some ways. An extension of or an enhancement of etiquette, right? Because etiquette is doing the proper things. To be polite, but there's also. Doing the thing that is going to help the person that is going to solve their problem, that is going to be most effective way to communicate. And that also entails meeting your making sure your own needs are met, so that you can continue wholeheartedly in the relationship with the person or the work at hand, and communicating that in a way that's non-threatening, that shows that you care about their project, but also drawing a real firm boundary for what you need and communicating why you need it. And and it was funny, we had, uh, something came up with an author the other day, and I got on the phone with one of my clients and I said, hey, here's what's come up. Here's how we've approached it. Here's how I think we should approach it. I'd love to know what you think. And he was like, this is why we work with you. Because not only you, but your and I.

Amy: And I read him an email that my engineer had written me with his proposals, for sure. You know, how to go forward. And his assessment of the, you know, whatever it was that needed to be done. And he said, because you and your team are both you, you'll take the time to communicate with me, but more because you want to communicate those things to me. You want to solve the problem in a deeper, more meaningful way. And I was thinking about that in terms of so as someone who doesn't think of myself as particularly proper, but someone who I think has effective and precise communication, like I'll stay up all night, how do I craft this email in such a way that the person really understands what I'm going for and what I need, and how I can give them what they need? And this idea that I had that will make this all work. You know that sometimes that takes hours, and sometimes I have to run it by a couple of my people. Hey, did I convey this right? No, no, no, no, you got to tell them this. Oh, okay. You know, it could take a team to write an email. Yeah, that's how important this stuff is. And when I was thinking about Erin and Ronnie, I was thinking in terms of. They do have very proper classic business etiquette. But what takes it all the way and what endears them to me and makes them the two people that come up above everybody else is, you know, they're at the tip of my tongue when you talk about, you know, how to communicate with clients, is that they take it beyond just the the preciseness of etiquette, because the generosity of spirit is there and the willingness to make the job work, and sometimes in ways that are uncomfortable to them. And they might even convey, oh, this is uncomfortable for me, but I'll do this for you. Or, hey, I can't do this, but could we do that instead? And so even when it comes to a time when somebody gets sick or somebody has something where they have to take a day off when everybody was counting on them, they've built such a wealth of goodwill. Right. Um, and they communicate it in such a way where it's not just polite, it's conveying the why of it. It's conveying the how of it. It's offering a solution. So everybody feels good about the interaction. It's a new way for me of looking at communication and relationship building. And I just kind of I've been really delighting in parsing it out and trying to put my finger on exactly what it is.

Jennifer: I think it's a combination of excellence of skill, which, you know, you addressed that both Erin and Ronnie are great at what they do in spades.

Amy: Yeah.

Jennifer: And taking that excellence and that care into treating the people who are working with them as true colleagues on this creative endeavor rather than treating them as distant clients. These these people that I'm working with are actually my colleagues in, in this work. And it's not.

Amy: As an even an obstacle, you know, in their way. Sure. There's so many other ways you could approach this that are not as effective, like treating that person as an obstacle or treating that person as a means to an end. You're right. That that that is it's almost like, um, in the what's the agape love? It's like a loving way, in a way to, to approach your work and the people having love and generosity towards your fellow man, and also because you care about the work. It's like extending that love for the work to the people who are working on it with you. But yeah, this is the stuff that I've just been spending a lot of time thinking about and partly in preparation for your classes of like, what? What perspectives do I have to offer that maybe, maybe haven't been articulated or do they need to be articulated? I don't know, and that would be a good question. You may you may have me hone that message a little better. You know, when the day comes.

Jennifer: I think that that message absolutely needs to be articulated, that we treat the work with care, but we also treat the people with care. Yeah. Well, Amy, I want to pivot one more time and ask a final question that I ask pretty much everyone that I have on this podcast, which is I would love to know. Do you have a favorite tool or a favorite resource that you use in your creative work? Whichever avenue of that creative work you want to think of, just some tool or resource that helps you be awesome at what you do that you can share with us.

Amy: Oh, no. Um, I mean, I had to pick one. I don't know, I, I really use audible a lot of casting. Um, a lot. So. Okay, this might be helpful to people. So for everybody who might be sending me your website or your, your new demos don't care. I want to know what your professional work is. I mean, if you're new and I'm interested and you don't have any you don't have any books professionally done, then I will listen to your demos. But once you're established and you have stuff on audible, people are just going to go there. It is very hard to get them to go to your own stuff, and that's that's a problem if you're trying to pivot. Yes. For sure. So you may want to you may need to engage them with some some things that will make them curious. Like I've just been delving into the world of romance and um, here's a new sample link and it just link it to your link. It put it at the top of your, you know, your your website page for audiobooks and hope that they click on it. You know, here's a link and just, you know, so there's ways of kind of like. Tricking them a little bit into going there, when all they really want to do is go to audible and sort by most recent and see what you've done professionally. So it's I think it's all about, you know, there's some something a little little like magic about networking. It's like directing their eye to the thing that you want them to see, but you have to make sure that thing is actually there, right? Right.

Jennifer: For sure. So if you're wanting to pivot into a certain genre, you need to make sure that you've got demos in that genre and you've got something to represent that you can do, this thing that you're trying to pivot toward.

Amy: Well, and that's an opportunity too, where if you're doing, um, if you're doing more, the more traditional path where you're working for traditional publishers, um, that may be an opportunity for you to go and do a public domain book and put it on the market or to, um, go create your own work. Yeah, take that ass audition, even if that's not the track that you're on. Um, or to kind of reach out to your friends and be like, hey, guys, I'm really trying to pivot to I'm going to keep using romance, but it's such an easy, you know, a large category that I'm trying to pivot to romance. If anybody has a small part in a new book, they want to throw my way, you know, I'd love to take it. It's I know you kind of sometimes have to ease your way in, but here's my pseudonym and I'm ready to go. Yeah. For sure, for sure.

Jennifer: Well, Amy, thank you for sharing that tool or resource. And I think knowing that you use it can help us make sure that we as narrators are using it to our advantage as well.

Amy: Excellent. Thank you.

Jennifer: Thank you for your time today. This discussion of the pivot and the idea of not beating our heads against the wall, but instead just walking around that wall, is a really beautiful image. I appreciate your time today.

Amy: Thank you.

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Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Starving Artist No More podcast. I know how precious time is to creative entrepreneurs, and I will never take it for granted that you choose to spend some of that time with me, listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, I’d so appreciate it if you’d leave me a rating or review with your podcast player of choice. And if you have an artistic friend or colleague who you think might enjoy this episode, or any episode of this podcast, please share it with them. Sharing is caring! If you’d like more information about the Thriving Narrators Retreat, or any of my coaching programs or communities, if you’d like to reach out to me with questions or comments, or if you just want to know more about me, you can get all of that information on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com. A huge shout of gratitude goes out to Amy Rubinate for so graciously sharing her time with me, and with you, for today’s episode, and to my husband, Arturo Araya, who handles the audio engineering for this podcast.

When you’re facing a problem in your creative business, stop hitting your head against the wall. Find a way to walk around that wall. It might seem like there isn’t a way, but I promise: there is. If you’re willing to continuously grow in your artistic work, and if you’re able to cultivate a mindset of curiosity that allows you to learn, you will see the opportunities to pivot. You can walk around the problem so that it’s not in your way anymore. I can’t wait to see what you create.