Audible has been running classes at some of the most prestigious schools in the United States. Their mandate is to teach the next generation how to narrate an audiobook and consider it as a viable career path. Recently, Audible has announced that they are going to be expanding on education with a series of webcasts to reach a wider audience.
The Audiobook Creation Exchange is running a really exciting program called ACX University through which narrators can learn the craft from experts and professionals. In previous years, ACX has done this program as a one-day, in-person event for roughly 70 narrators. This year, the program has evolved into a series of six panels broadcast to narrators and producers everywhere in the world via the magic of the internet. The first session ran last week and the second session will ran a few days ago.
Audible has been involved in education for the last few years and they have learned a lot from teaching people in person. Audible runs workshops at USC, BU, Columbia, Juliard, NASDA, The New School, PACE, Purchase College, Rutgers, Stella Adler, USC, Syracuse, and NYU Tisch with 3rd and 4th year students. They work directly with the drama departments at those Universities to organize events in which Audibles producers, joined by seasoned narrators, offer a presentation about the challenging and creative medium of audiobook narration, how to find work as an audiobook narrator, and performance tips. The sessions either end in or lead to auditions in which final-year students can launch their future careers using learnings from the workshops.
If you are an indie author thinking of narrating your own audiobook or if you are a diligent young scholar considering a career in audiobook production check out the free ACX Education Portal.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
