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Commemorating Scott's tenth year in audiobooks.

Okay, I’m sure you all never thought you’d see the day. That’s okay, sometimes I wondered myself.

Fact is, we’re down to the final 25 contestants. As I’ve been tabulating the results, it’s given me an opportunity to listen to a great many of the entries; since I’m not one of the judges, I wasn’t entirely sure when I’d have the chance to, but given that this has taken much longer than expected, I’ve been working my way through all 408 of them, and have really enjoyed myself. So many of you have a great deal of storytelling ability, and it really shows.

Before we announce the finalists I thought I’d take a moment to thank some folks.

First off, I’d like to thank everybody who entered, not merely for taking the time to craft such great demo tracks, but also for your patience. I know this has taken far longer than anticipated, and you’ve got my sincere apology for that, but I hope you know how much I appreciate the patience you’ve shown. Even though you may not have heard from me as often as you’d have liked, I hope you know that I’ve been working this entire time to try and make the contest an even better experience for all of you. And in that, I’m happy to announce that I’ve been successful! But more on that later, after I thank…

Our judges. These are a wonderful group of folks who have all volunteered their time and expertise. As the people who cast audiobooks for the nation’s top publishers, they’re always on the lookout for new talent, but unfortunately their busy schedules usually prevent them from listening to as many demos as they’d like. After all, these are also the people responsible for publishing several hundred audiobooks a year, so it’s not like they’ve got tons of free time. Nevertheless, what little they have, they’ve donated to us, and it’s very much appreciated.

Lastly, I’d like to thank the folks here at Scott Brick Presents who’ve also put in more than their share of hours: my webmaster Den Shewman, my attorney Jessica Kaye, and my manager Gina Smith, who volunteered to serve as the event’s coordinator and judge wrangler. Their service has been terrific, and their help invaluable. And to further toot their horns, much of their time has been donated as well, which is just so cool that I can’t even describe it.

Okay, you’re probably chomping at the bit to hear the last bit of news, so here you go. As I said, since it’s taken so long to get even this far, I’ve been working with some people in the industry to add more value to the experience, and thus far we’ve come up with two ways of doing so. First off, we’ve given our finalists the option of having their demos posted online. The benefit here being, of course, that publishers who aren’t even participating in the contest will be able to hear their work, and hopefully get in touch. (And just so you know, I’ve had a number of publishers already check in with me to find out how soon they can start listening, which is a really good thing.)

Okay, our next big addition to the prizes: as you know, several of the participating publishers have offered to give the winner work. For the most part these were going to be short stories or spots in multi-voice narrations. (These are a great way to start out in the industry. It is, in fact, the way I started out.) The great news here is that one of our publishers, the good folks at Audible.com, recently told me they’re planning on offering an entire novel to our winner. This is more than I asked for, and very welcome news for our finalists, I’m sure. Personally, I was overwhelmed with gratitude when I heard.

Who will be the person to steal Scott's seat in the studio?

Lastly, our grand prize winner will receive one more thing: a ticket to the Audie Awards, compliments of yours truly, where I will personally introduce them to the Audiobook industry at large. With as long as this has taken, figure that’s the least I can do.

Now, just a little bit of business. Everyone who entered the contest will be getting an email from us, which is separate from the newsletter you may have signed up for. Please don’t discard it, thinking it’s an announcement that this blog has been updated and you can read it online or anything, it in fact contains quite a bit of advice for people who want to continue pursuing audiobooks as a career, whatever the results of this contest. I hope it helps. Lastly, what you’ve been patiently reading all the preceding for:

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to the finalists for the Share the Experience contest! Take a bow, kids, you deserve it!

Stephen Bowlby

Wendy Carter

Tony Craine

Jennifer Dixon

Joyce Feurring

Anthony Flacco

Kori Graves

Heather Hathaway

Janet Henke

Tish Hicks

Don Luce

David Marantz

Mozhan Marno

Shannon McManus

Donna McNeely

Debbie Munro

Janet Robbins

Amy Rubinate

Austen Sandifer-Williams

Robin Scali

Tyler Seiple

Summer Still

Bob Thomley

Patti White

Elizabeth Wiley

A huge congratulations to all the finalists, listed here in alphabetical order. Give them a hand, everyone!

Even better, you can take a listen to their entries by clicking right here.

Okay, enough for now. In the coming weeks I’ll have a few more entries to make here. My next blog is going to be about two series I recently completed work on, two of my favorite series in fact. After that, hopefully, will be the announcement of our winners.

It’s been a long time coming, and I’m glad to say we’re almost there, it’s the final step along the way! Thanks again, everybody, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening,

Scott Brick

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Commemorating Scott's tenth year in audiobooks.

Ah, December. My favorite time of year. The weather gets chillier, the mood of the country turns marginally warmer, and the Christmas carols — which have been playing in Target and Walmart for months now — suddenly have new meaning. (This particular year, I gave myself permission to do something I’ve never done before: listen to one of my own audiobooks. I couldn’t help it, I brought out A CHRISTMAS CAROL and plugged it in. Seemed the right time for it, right?) I’ve noticed that most people love the end of December, the week of Christmas itself, but for me, I truly love the time immediately after Thanksgiving, probably because it brings a lot of valuable things to mind.

First off, it’s when I reflect on all the things I’m truly thankful for this year.

Second, it’s when I start getting serious about what I intend to buy people for their gift that particular year.

And third, I’m reminded of my best-intentioned promises the previous January, all those New Year’s resolutions that have possibly slid by the wayside as we make our way back to winter again.

Well, with those three things in mind, I’ve decided it’s time I gave you all a gift, each and every one of you who subscribe to this newsletter and have been so good as to support our efforts here. But what could it be? What could possibly satisfy all the various folk who tune in to these blog posts with regularity? You don’t exactly all fit into one neat gift-giving category, after all. Some of you show up for the book news, others for the professional advice, and still others for the Share the Experience contest we’ve been running, lo these many months now. Could there possibly be something that would satisfy all those demographics?

Let’s just say that, after making my list, and checking it twice, I think I’ve found just the thing. Or things, plural.

Okay, no more suspense.

First off, for those of you who tune in for the books themselves, I’m offering our biggest discount of the year, should you find something you wish to download (or hardcopies, too, they’ll also qualify — the aforementioned A CHRISTMAS CAROL hardcopy makes quite the stocking stuffer). For the month of December only, anything and everything for sale here at Brick By Brick Audiobooks will have an automatic 15% discount. But I hasten to point out, if you’re in the mood to purchase an entire series, that will be in addition to our standard 10% trilogy discounts. So, if you want the entire PHOENIX LEGACY in one fell swoop, you’ll be getting it for 25% off. All you have to do is put “xmas2009” in the coupon box (without the quote marks) when you check out. (Hard copies will be automatically discounted. Also, the discount is only on the product itself; it doesn’t affect tax or shipping). Trust me, we probably won’t be running this kind of sale again.

Click here to check out all the titles on sale now!

Did a vistitation by Spirits engender this holiday generosity?

But then there’s the rest of you, our other primary demographic, the folks who’ve been patiently tuning in for months now, hoping for news about the contest. What I’m giving YOU is… wait for it… a new employee.

There will be a slight pause while everyone says, “Huh?”

I’ll explain. There was no way of knowing at the start of the contest what kind of overwhelming response we’d have on it, and our judges have understandably needed to take quite a bit more time slogging their way through all those 400 submissions. Most of our judges are lucky if they listen to a few dozen submissions a year, but four hundred? Well, I’ve said all this before, and you’ve all been patient to the point of sainthood, so instead I’ll say this: there was also no way of knowing just how much time this contest would take away from my narrating duties – or even the other way around, how much time my narrating duties would take away from the contest. I’ve done my best to keep people apprised of the little news we’ve had to share, I’ve answered several hundred personal emails with info and encouragement, posted dozens of updates on FaceBook and Twitter, but that hasn’t brought us any closer to the goal: the end of the contest. What we need around here is someone who’s got the time to devote to this here enterprise, and thus far, that clearly hasn’t been me.

So say hello to Gina Smith, everyone. A longtime friend and my long-suffering manager, she’ll be handling several new aspects of the contest from now on. Her job will be simple: to interface with the judges, and hopefully light a fire under them to get this assessment period of the contest finished as soon as humanly possible. I’ll still be here, working away, but it’s clearly time to bring in the big guns. If you’ve got any questions about the contest or its status, drop Gina a note gina@scottbrickpresents.com.

This is long overdue. For those of you who’ve been following our publishing schedule here, as you’ve no doubt noticed, there hasn’t been any as of late. That’s because I couldn’t in good conscience keep a commercial enterprise going (albeit one based on love and a passion for great literature) while so many people were waiting so patiently. I’m not running this contest to make money – obviously, it’s just the opposite – so I’ve refrained as much as possible from trying to sell anything else, even the books we always offer. Just didn’t seem right. That said, however, there are also lots of people out there waiting for the next series to begin (and trust me when I say we’ve been acquiring some AWESOME titles, stuff I know you’re going to love), so it’s time to get going with that again. The sooner we’re done with the contest, the sooner you dedicated listeners will have more to hear.

One last note, for those of you who want faster contest updates than I’ve been able to provide here, I hope you’ll check in with me on FaceBook and Twitter. Posts here on the website are fairly labor- and time-intensive, but I can usually dash off instant responses on either of those social networks.

And having said all that, okay, it’s time to wrap up, everyone’s got Christmas shopping to do, I’m sure. My thanks to all of you for your patience. We started this contest together and we’ll finish it together. It hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s still going, and hopefully, with Gina’s help, we’ll have a resolution in the very near future. In the meantime, however, I hope you all have a fabulous holiday season. As Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, everyone.

Thanks for listening, and merry Christmas!

Scott Brick

Commemorating Scott's tenth year in audiobooks.

Hi everyone, Scott Brick here, again, with more updates. I know, three in seven days, we’re making up for lost time, eh?

First off, remember a few days ago when I promised I’d be posting more contest updates soon? Well, here’s your first. We just heard back from another judge with their results, so at this point we’re about 75% of the way to having all of our finalists. Soon, we promise. Soon.

Secondly, I’ve been asked many times over the past several months about whether or not I’ll be doing any more audiobook classes in the LA area. Well, for those of you looking for practice and instruction, I’ve got good news: two classes in September and October.

Scott will teach in Los Angeles on September 26.

The first will be an audiobook workshop I’ll be conducting on September 26th, 2009. It’s part of the VoiceLympics Cruise, which, if you haven’t heard about it, you should definitely click on the link to check out their site. It’s a week-long cruise, sailing from Vancouver to Los Angeles from September 21-26.

Onboard, there’ll be instruction from some amazing voiceover instructors, including the legendary Bob Bergen. Once you dock here in LA, well, that’s where my workshop comes in; I’m part of the welcoming committee, clearly. We’ll be at VoiceTrax West in Studio City — on dry land, of course. Please note that class size will be limited to twelve.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You don’t have to take part in the VoiceLympics Cruise to take part in my workshop; people going on the cruise will have first priority for places in the class, however. If you’d like to sign up for this workshop, please email me by clicking here and I’ll forward you the pertinent information.

Scott will be teaching with Pat on October 10-11.

And if those dates don’t work for you, I’ve got a second class coming up in October. On the weekend of October 10-11, Pat Fraley will be teaching a seminar in Hollywood, at which I’ll be guest-lecturing. If you aren’t familiar with Pat, you should check out his great website, I think you’ll love it. If his October seminar isn’t listed yet, you can click here to email him for information.

Both of these classes will be similar: it’ll be you, me, and the mic. A bit of lecturing, some general knowledge you should be aware of, then hands-on training with you reading at the microphone, and me directing you. Teaching workshops like this are some of the best times I have in this industry. I hope to see you there.

Thanks for your time. More updates to come soon!

Thanks for listening,

Scott Brick

Hi everyone, Scott Brick here. Forgive the long period of silence, as I’m sure you’re all desperate to know the results of the Share the Experience contest. As originally laid out, we were supposed to have our winners chosen by this point, but as you may have read, the response we received was literally overwhelming: a staggering 392 entries!

Our judges, the casting people at the audiobook industry’s top publishers, were prepared for only about a quarter of that. So, given the stunning response we received, they’ve just had to work a great deal harder – and take a great deal longer – to listen to everyone’s entries, all in addition to the work they’re regularly paid to do, of course, such as putting out some fairly huge titles over these next few months. (Can anyone say The Da Vinci Code sequel, The Lost Symbol? And that’s just one example.)

The good news is that we’ve lined up several new judges to help out, and ultimately this will benefit all of you who entered, as there will now be a greater, wider array of casting folk listening to your demos. So whereas I’d love to be able to announce our finalists at this point, we’re still waiting on a few of the judges to get back to us. As soon as they do, we’ll post our finalists online (as well as list them in an email like this one), and begin working our way down to our winners.

My thanks to all of you for your interest in the contest, and especially for your patience as it takes longer than anticipated going forward. At first I was spending all my time hounding everyone involved to get done ASAP instead of keeping all of you updated, but it’s obviously frustrating when you’ve spent so much time and effort to enter and then don’t hear anything. That said, I’ll be doing both from now on: nudging our judges AND posting updates whenever possible.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll keep checking the site and our email newsletter, as we’ve got some other announcements coming very soon. I’ve been asked dozens of times over the last few months about the possibility of teaching classes in the LA area, and as it turns out I’ll be doing two classes in September and October. Dates to be announced in the next few days. Thanks for your interest, everyone, I hope you enjoy them.

As always, thanks for listening,

Scott Brick

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Okay, this is big, so pay attention:

Ever wanted to become an audiobook narrator? Ever had someone tell you you’re an amazing storyteller, that you’d be a natural at reading books for a living? Ever listened to an audiobook and thought, “Hell, I can do that”? Well, if so, then this is your chance. I’m officially announcing the beginning of my new contest: Share The Experience. The winner will find themselves plucked out of book-reading obscurity and dropped into the world of audiobook employment.

The reason for my doing this is fairly simple. See, it’s my tenth anniversary in about a month. That’s right, I did my very first audiobook gig back on June 10th, 1999, two short stories for Dove Audio that led me down the path to a wonderful new career. Well, in order to celebrate, I thought I’d do my best to help someone else get the same opportunity. That said, I’ve been working with the Audio Publishers Association to put this contest together, where, upon completion, we will have located – and employed – our industry’s newest audiobook narrator.

How does it work? Simple. Put together a demo — a recording of you reading one of your favorite books, no longer than three minutes — and email it off to me here at my site in mp3 format. On June 10th our judges, who represent the biggest audiobook publishers in the entire industry, will begin assembling the top contestants. The winner will be chosen from a final pool of twenty-five, and a total of five winners will be named. Our runners-up will receive free training in audiobook narration skills by Pat Fraley, one of the greatest teachers this industry has ever seen. If you drop by his website, www.patfraley.com, you’ll see he has a number of products available, videos, and DVDs devoted to teaching audiobook skills, and these will be handed out to our top contestants. Our second-place winner will also receive a personal session with Pat, invaluable hands-on instruction by a true master of the art.

But our Grand Prize winner…ah, that’ll be truly special.

First of all, the Grand Prize winner will get a personal instruction session with me in the studio. I know, I know. There’ll be a slight pause while everyone says, “That doesn’t seem truly special to me!” Well, that’s not the special part. See, when I said our judges represent all the biggest publishers in the audiobook industry, I truly meant it: they’re the folks who do the actual casting for the audiobooks you listen to. And as a result, a number of them have graciously volunteered some work on projects they’ve got coming out soon. Some will be short stories, some will be portions of novels that will be done as multi-narrator reads, and all of them will be offered to our Grand Prize winner.

That’s right: our winner will not only get free personalized instruction in the art of narration, but will immediately find themselves employed by our judges, working for publishers like Random House, Harper Collins, and Hachette.

Now there are a few caveats, some small print (or smaller, shall we say; definitely not tiny!). For instance, we’ve got two studios that have volunteered to host our recording session, one in New York, the other in L.A. Our winner will be expected to travel on their own dime to either location in order to claim their prize. (No free travel here, folks, sorry.) Another is that the contest is open only to true newcomers: nobody who’s received monetary compensation for audiobook narration in the past will be eligible to participate. Sorry, but that’s a sticking point. Now, if you’ve narrated in the past but have never been paid for it, that’s fine; if you’ve done work reading for the blind on a charitable basis, for instance, no worries, you’re still eligible. But no pros will be accepted. None. And submissions will only be accepted during the contest’s official dates; no early or late submissions will be accepted. (Which means please don’t email me any MP3s until June 10th: they’ll likely just hit the spam filter.)

Now, although the contest doesn’t officially begin until June 10th, there is a unique opportunity if you’re planning on attending this year’s Audio Publishers Association Conference on May 28th, 2009 in New York. APAC attendees will be able to do early, in-person auditions in front of all our attending judges. This is a truly rare opportunity: to have your voice assessed by all the major casting people in this industry, all at the same time. I highly recommend you take advantage of this opportunity if you’re able. You won’t regret it. You can click here to learn more about APAC, or email scott@scottbrickpresents.com with “APAC AUDITION” in the subject line to schedule your audition. Our contest page will always have the latest updates, and we’ll notify our mailing list when there’s news you can use (click here to subscribe). Official rules are currently being argued over by a gaggle of lawyers; we’ll email the mailing list once they’re up.

If you’re interested in all the contest details, I’ve got them posted here on the site on the Share the Experience contest page. I encourage you to read them over before entering, but don’t delay: submissions will only be accepted for three weeks, from June 10th to June 30th, 2009. If you’ve been itching to join the ranks of professional narrators, then now is the time. Or if you know someone who wants to become a narrator, then please, forward this information to them and tell them to enter. Our winners will be announced here on my site in July.

Trust me when I tell you, this is a rare opportunity. The world of audiobook narration is a tough one to crack, but once that door is open, it can be immensely rewarding. And everyone who enters, whether they wind up in our top five winners or not, will have their voice heard by the people who do the actual casting for audiobooks. That’s gold, people, pure gold. Do yourselves a favor and enter.

And lastly, one personal aside, something I find really special. Remember that first gig I mentioned earlier, the two short stories at Dove? Well, I met two amazing individuals that day: Stefan Rudnicki of (a partner in Skyboat Road), who hired me that first time around, and Dan Musselman, who left Dove soon thereafter and became Executive Producer at Books on Tape. Well, both of those men not only became valuable mentors, but close friends, and I’m honored that when asked to judge this event, they both accepted. It’s truly special to be working with the guys who had so much to do with my early development, here in a new and unique context. Then again, a number of our judges have been responsible for many of the blessings in my career, and it’s humbling to get to work with them again here. I’m truly grateful to all of them. It’s awesome, just awesome.

Okay, that’s it for the moment. Keep watching this site for updates. Thanks for all the support you’ve shown me over the years, it’s been a tremendous help. Here’s hoping I can return the favor here.

Thanks for listening, and good luck!

Scott Brick