Are you interested in narrating audiobooks?

I cannot recommend enough that read for Librivox.

Librivox is an audiobook forum offering free narrations of public domain works, as catalogued by Project Gutenberg. All narrators are volunteers, and projects can be as small as a single poem to as large as tackling an entire book by yourself.

Of course, the narrations come with varying skill, quality, and in some cases, serious background noise. But it’s a great place to build up your narrating chops and hone some editing skills. They do, of course, have certain quality and setting requirements, but I’ve heard children narrators, people with accents, narrators who make up tunes to poems, and more!

It you’re a complete and total newbie with a microphone and a dream, there is a wonderful video series by Librivox admin Phil Chenevert about how to match your open-source Audacity recording software settings to the Librivox recording requirements.

Reading for Librivox is really how I got the confidence (and practical audio editing skills) to finally go out and get my Narration Demo made. And it was also what helped me take the plunge as an ACX Narrator. To narrate for ACX, you have to be able to completely produce the audiobook yourself. This is a completely different experience than sitting in a studio to record and letting somebody else master the audio. That was all I’d ever done before I started learning to use my software and put together my home studio.

Everybody starts somewhere. For narrators, Librivox is a great chance to do some good for others while helping yourself out as well. I read a quote once (and I can’t remember who said it, or I’d credit it!) that every overnight success is the result of years of hard work.

Always remember that you should never compare yourself to others in your field; rather, compare where you are now to where you’ve been! Even if where you are now is just starting out, remember that starting is still further along than only dreaming, or not dreaming yet at all!