Andi Arnt is the voice in your head

Andi Arnt is a Voice Over and Audio book narrator. To date, she has narrated nearly 200 books in both fiction and non-fiction. Her work in romance has earned her particular recognition, with nominations in the genre for both the Voice Arts Award and the Audie Award.

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Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            G’day and welcome to Write With Love. I’m excited today because I’m not interviewing a fellow author, for a change I am going to be talking to a professional narrator, Andi Arnt. Thanks for joining me Andi.

Andi Arnt:                     Yeah. It’s a pleasure absolutely.

Sarah Williams:            Awesome. I love listening to audio books and with audibles New Romance Package, I’ve been listening to a lot of American authors and I first heard you narrate a Lauren Blakely novel, which was just great.

Andi Arnt:                     Which one was it? Do you remember?

Sarah Williams:            The Knocked Up Plan it would have been. So you did a dual narration with a guy as well and I loved it. I just thought it was really good and I love entertainment and I’m a big fan of TV shows and movies and those sorts of things. So being able to listen to audio books, it plays out so brilliantly in my mind. I just love it.

Andi Arnt:                     I’m so glad. I love it too.

Sarah Williams:            So tell us a bit about yourself and your story, how you got into this career.

Andi Arnt:                     Well, I’ve always had an interest in both theater and broadcasting. I found my way to theater kind of on my own, but my dad really inspired me to try radio when I was in college because he was a college radio DJ. And so I ended up working at a radio station and also working in a theater department, teaching acting and teaching voice for the stage. And then I got interested in doing voice over work and I did all kinds of voice over work at first, commercials and corporate training and telephone systems and things like that. But when I found out about audio books, I just thought that would be the perfect combination of my theater background and my interest in kind of I liked the tech side of radio. So I learned about how to kind of get into the industry and went to do some workshops, made a demo, started to get into the community and go to mixers and go to things. And over time built up relationships and now I’m proud to say that I … I can actually show you, I am now in the audible narrator hall of fame.

Sarah Williams:            Wow, look at that. That is really cool. So tell us about how it works. Where do you work out of and all the technical stuff and the behind the scenes.

Andi Arnt:                     Well, I will show you. Allow me to give you a little tour. I’m going to around and I’ve got my regular desk and everything with my computer, and then steps away from my computer I have this booth right here.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent.

Andi Arnt:                     So it’s got a really heavy double pane glass door. It’s made by a company called Studiobricks. And inside the lights aren’t on right now, but I have a microphone, and I’m going to get a new stool. I’m actually going to get the kind of stool that drummers sit on. It’s comfortable for sitting for long periods of time and then there’s a second monitor in the booth that’s not on right now. And so I’m able to control the main computer from the booth monitor and I usually have my script in the lower part of the screen and the recording software window in the upper part of the screen. And so I just start the recording going and start reading until I screw up and then put the insertion point for the audio just before the screw up.

Andi Arnt:                     And there’s this really great bit of technology that actually plays me like about two seconds before the screw up to get me back into the rhythm of what I was doing. And then I just go on like that. When I’m done, I send the finished, what we go raw audio to an editor and the editor goes through and makes sure that I haven’t misread anything. So if I said ‘he’ instead of ‘she’ or something like that, then they’ll point it out to me, which is always every narrator’s favorite part of the job. “You got this wrong and this wrong, this wrong.”

Andi Arnt:                     And also they edit out things like nose noises or loud breaths or long pauses that don’t make sense or things like that. And then they send me my corrections and I re-record just those sentences and they can drop them into those files and scrub out the transition point so it sounds good. And they master it, which is important for the listener because that means that the volume is steady across the different [inaudible 00:04:52]. And also if I have a co-narration and my co-narrator’s studio is not the same volume as mine, you can understand if they didn’t master it then somebody chapters might be at one level and you’re used to that and then you switch chapters and you’re like, …”[crosstalk 00:05:12]

Sarah Williams:            It’s a good fight.

Andi Arnt:                     Yeah. So all of that care is taken through your listening experience, and then we upload to the platform that’s going to distribute it, whether it’s audible or Authors Republic or Find a way, and it makes its way to your ears.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Wow, that’s amazing. I’ve always wondered what the behind the scenes was like. And it’s funny too saying your screw ups because I never pick anything up. I’m just like, “Wow.”

Andi Arnt:                     Because they already fixed it.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. I just think you’re sitting there and you’re just talking and it’s so beautiful. That’s how good it is, and definitely a lot better than my editing studio here in my little downstairs basement. So that’s brilliant. I love to see all your sound proofing too. That’s awesome. So what kind of narrating have you done?

Andi Arnt:                     I have done a little bit of everything. I myself like variety and so I’ve done biographies, I’ve done amazing memoirs, recently did a memoir by a woman who escaped to a situation of domestic violence. So that felt very important to do that. Maybe somebody would hear it and be inspired to be able to take action on their own life. I’ve done sci-fi, I’ve done a lot of YA, including there was a YA Dystopian that I did last year that Leonardo Dicaprio auctioned the film rights from the author. So, we’re hoping that he exercises that option and I want to go to the premiere of the movie. [crosstalk 00:06:48] That one was called the Sand Castle Empire and it was really fun to do, it was very visual so I could see why somebody wanted to make a movie of it. And I’ve done cozy mysteries, and I’ve done thrillers and been the good guy and the bad guy and about half of what I’ve done is romance and erotica and that fan community is like no other. So I feel really lucky to be a part of it.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, absolutely. So different character dialogues within the same passage. I thought that was awesome how you can go from one accent into another one. Now tell me is it that you’re cutting in between and then coming into a different character or you’re just switching in your head?

Andi Arnt:                     I’m switching in real time. Sometimes I’ll catch myself because one voice will sort of drift into another voice and then I can feel that, that’s happening and I stop myself and go back and fix it. But once I get into a rhythm, it’s a strange sort of head space where it’s more like, do you know what audio description is with a movie?

Sarah Williams:            No.

Andi Arnt:                     It’s when somebody who’s visually impaired is able … Somebody audio describes the movie for them. So they’re “watching the movie”, the parts where there’s no dialogue an audio describer is saying, “And now he’s walking down the hall and picking up a knife.” But it’s a really strange kind of attention to be in, to do that because you really don’t have any room for your own thoughts. You’re just tuned in to what’s going on. And I think when the dialogue is underway and there’s a scene between two people, I get caught up in what’s going on almost as though I’m observing it and not worrying about performing it. That make sense?

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, right. And what you’re reading from, is it like more of a script rather than the actual story that you read from?

Andi Arnt:                     No. I’m reading the book.

Sarah Williams:            You’re reading it? Wow. So when it doesn’t do the tags, you know, the, “He said and she said”, and you’re still able to know who it is coming from, which character and everything okay?

Andi Arnt:                     The thing is every once in a while if there’s no attributions I will have to stop and count, count back to where there was one and also figure out, “Okay, that would have to be that person because every other, every other.” Sometimes the editor will catch me and say, “I think that’s supposed to be this other person.” And so I go in and record it. But with a good writer, I catch myself because their personalities are so distinct that it feels false to speak certain lines in the wrong voice because that character wouldn’t say that.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Absolutely.

Andi Arnt:                     So that’s always a sign of really good writing to me. It’s like that you know, these two people like, “Wait a second, he wouldn’t talk like that. She wouldn’t talk like that.”

Sarah Williams:            That said. [inaudible 00:10:16] Oh, that’s awesome. So what kind of accents can you do?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, not Australian, which I’m hoping to work on a little bit. I did have a character who had an Australian accent in the very first Kylie Scott book, because they had a friend, an Australian friend visit them. And it was mentioned very clearly that he had this accent. And I went, “Okay.” So I had to go do some research into how the vowels shift, and I know how to write in the phonetic alphabet. And so for those two pages I wrote out in a notebook every word that he said phonetically. And so in that case I did have to actually stop and like practice the sentence and then say it. And it took a lot of takes for each sentence and then near the end of his scene, the character actually says, “You know, well I guess we better be going.” And I was like, “That is a great idea.” You should leave this scene. It’s very difficult for me. You know, that show H2O?

Sarah Williams:            Yes, yes.

Andi Arnt:                     Okay. So we have that here on the kids’ TV network.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, it’s about mermaids or something.

Andi Arnt:                     Yes. And so my younger daughter was really into that show and I would just stop and watch their mouths. And when they say K-N-O-W, see like how would you say that?

Sarah Williams:            Know.

Andi Arnt:                     See, like I don’t understand [crosstalk 00:12:00]

Sarah Williams:            I was going to say because I’ve got a New Zealand accent, so that’s probably different again.

Andi Arnt:                     Well, yeah. And I have a friend with a New Zealand accent who is actually … I’m not going to say who it is because you would immediately know. It’s somebody from a famous rock band. And so I said, “Hey, is that a tattoo on your arm?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And I said, “What is it? Like what is the tattoo of?” And I remember he looked down and he said, “It’s just a stupid snake.” That’s my New Zealand now, like “Stupid snake.”

Sarah Williams:            Nice. That’s good.

Andi Arnt:                     I actually had to turn down a full length book that required me to be able to do the man’s voice with an Australian accent. Not to say I could never learn it, but the way casting goes, publishers really want somebody who can hold an authentic accent all the way through. So if you don’t have that accent from living there or studying intensely, they either want you to have it authentically or hold it so well that you’re fooling them into thinking you must be from there or lived there. So my specialty accents are more American regional dialects. I grew up in Minnesota and in Minnesota they talk like this. So I’ve got some books coming up that require me to talk like where I grew up and very … I don’t know if he ever saw the movie Fargo.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah.

Andi Arnt:                     It’s kind of like that in Minnesota right now where I live, I live in Virginia and Virginia has definitely like an upper, we’re the upper south. And we also have some Appalachian. But then you swing on over to Kentucky and it gets a little bit more twangy like that. We go down to Georgia, you can get a little bit more refined. And West Texas sound like ‘W’. And also I went to high school in New Jersey, so in New Jersey it’s just a little bit more like business-like, like get to the point, you know, “Where are we going to go?” Sort of that, more up in my nose.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. So, duo-narration with other narrators. So a lot of the romance in particular, it’s a 50- 50 male and female roles. So you often do the female roles and what I’ve been listening to, and then somebody else will do the male roles. So do you guys have to talk between each other and work anything out or do you just go and do your thing and he does his thing?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, ideally we coordinate. We will share a Dropbox folder and put in reference files and say, “Here’s how I did the dad, here’s how I did the kid. Here’s how the snarky girlfriend sounds.” We compare notes like if we share characters across our chapters or I’ve gotten to know Sebastian York well enough for example, or Zafree Weber well enough, we’ve talked on the phone about stuff, that I know how they talk and I know what they sound like. So in a way when I do their character’s voice, I’m just imitating that.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Are you kind of thinking about them when you’re doing The Saints?

Andi Arnt:                     I really like both of them and so it’s easy to pretend like I’m with them or I’m joking around with them or even flirting with them because they’re both very social friendly people. Yeah. And I once heard flirting described as just like people who are good flirts just know how to make people feel comfortable and feel good.

Sarah Williams:            That’s true. I guess that could go down a really dirty pathway right here, but I’m all right. [crosstalk 00:16:29] That’s true. So who else have you done some narration for? So we’ve talked to Melissa Foster and we’ve talked Lauren Blakely, who else?

Andi Arnt:                     I just did a Karen Michaels and Melanie Harlow’s first co-write. My co-narrator was [inaudible 00:16:48]Tom, who people are liking right now. I’m working on the third of Lauren Blakely’s new Heartbreaker series. So I realize I’m repeating because you already said lines lately. I’m working on a Kendall Ryan book right now, and before I head out on vacation I’m doing Penelope Ward’s new book next week, also with Sebastian York.

Sarah Williams:            Brilliant. And how long does it actually take you to do a full book narration?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, it all depends on, we could do it by the finished hour, is actually how we would … That’s how we’re billed, how we get paid is by the finished hour. And so it takes me about an hour and a half to two hours in the booth to finish one hour of what you’re going to listen to, with all the stopping and starting and drinking a glass of water. It always takes me a long time to start because I sit down and I realize I don’t have my water, I don’t have my lip balm, I don’t have my … My computer is not set to the right thing. I didn’t shut the door. It takes me a while to kind of land and settle down and concentrate. So if I’m very focused I can go like one and a half hours to one hour of finished. If I’m not so focused it could take me four hours to finish an hour if there’s a lot of interruptions or I’m just having a really spacey day.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Excellent. That’s very cool. And I’d love to hear a demo if you’ve got something ready that you can read for us, that would be really cool.

Andi Arnt:                     I do. I’m going to hope that … I’m plugging like this because [inaudible 00:18:34] So I think I look weird when I’m reading.

Sarah Williams:            I know the people watching this will notice.

Andi Arnt:                     [crosstalk 00:18:46] video of myself narrating and I think I look really weird. All right. So let’s see. So this is from the knocked up plan. I just pulled up the script. See? So now if somebody really likes the scene the way we did it before, that’s recorded and now here’s the way we did it, it’s not going to be the same. Because I’ve had people say, “Oh, that one scene in that one book, I love how you said …” And I’ll probably never be able to say it exactly that way again.

Sarah Williams:            Exactly.

Andi Arnt:                     Oh my goodness. I pulled up this, one of the first scenes. All right? Okay. So the thing to notice is that it’s not just differentiating between the man and the woman, but differentiating between when somebody is talking and when they’re not talking.

Sarah Williams:            That’s right.

Andi Arnt:                     Yeah. Balancing my laptop and notebook on my hip. I shove my copper colored hair off my eyes. Is that your way of inviting me to take your wheelbarrow out for a ride around the garden? His lips curled up in a mischievous grin. “Nicole, don’t you know you can ride this ride anytime.’ That’s where his teasing end. But holy smokes, the end of your show, he clutches his chest, he clenches his hand to his chest as if he’s in pain. “Were you about to cry too? Oh, it was awful. Wasn’t it? So sad.” He says, shaking his head. “Almost makes me want to take on the job to Rachel myself.” “How thoughtful of you.” “I’m considerate like that.”

Sarah Williams:            That’s awesome. That’s so cool. I love the way you do that with your voice and everything. That’s really great. Well done. So if anyone listening does want to be a narrator, do you have any tips for them?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, the good news is there’s a whole lot of information for free if you google how to become an audio book narrator. The bad news is the reason there’s a whole lot of information up there is because a lot of people want to be audio book narrators right now, and so it’s about as intense as saying that you want to be a professional musician. You don’t just like take a guitar and walk into a club and say, “Can I play?”

Sarah Williams:            I guess it’s the same with being an author as well, a lot of people, “I could write a book better than that.” I mean, we get it often, people who have read Mills and Boon novels and they go, “Oh, it’s easy, anyone can write a Mills and Boon novel.” But the truth is, it’s very, very hard, and there’s a lot of training.

Andi Arnt:                     My own kid said one time, she was waiting for me to be finished with the book and the very last part of a happily ever after is meant to be very sentimental and it sort of zooms out and we’re happy and everything’s great. And she said, you know, “I could write a book like that.” And I said, “Okay, go do it.”

Sarah Williams:            Yup. That’s it. I’d do that too. Yep, go on. I’d like to see it.

Andi Arnt:                     Because the thing is, if somebody wants to be a narrator and they know that secret of secrets, that they really are going to do it and they’re not going to let anybody stop them, just like a musician knows in their heart of hearts, they’re really going to do it, they’re going to figure it out, then they will. But there aren’t any shortcuts.

Sarah Williams:            That’s right.

Andi Arnt:                     Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Yep. Absolutely. Well thank you so much for that. And so you work with, publishes, traditional publishes, but you can actually be hired from someone like myself who writes and publishes their own work. So tell us if we want to do that, if we want you to narrate because you do such a fantastic job, how do we do that?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, you go to lyricaudiobooks.com and that’s my production company. So lyric, like song lyrics, audiobooks.com. And it’s actually getting an update but there’s enough there now to see who we work for and there’s a form to fill out to express interest in working with us. And then we usually have a conversation with you about what you are looking for and kind of where you are with your business and make sure that we’re a good fit. And talk about distribution for authors who are in Australia. I know that you don’t have ACX yet through audible, but there are distribution channels that will get you into the US market, including on audible. So we know how to advise about distribution and we coordinate production. We can do casting, so I produce things that I’m not necessarily narrating as well.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent.

Andi Arnt:                     And so we really pride ourselves in making it easy in sort of demystifying the process for our authors.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Fantastic. And I’m going to be lucky enough to meet you on the Gold Coast in September. You’re coming down for Romancing the Coast.

Andi Arnt:                     I am.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. That’s awesome. What are you going to be doing while you’re in the LC?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, I’m arriving in Sydney and touring around there. I have one night in Melbourne which is ridiculous, but I was like, if I’m going to be all that way, I have one day and night where I could fit it in. In Sydney and Melbourne I’m going to be doing narrator workshops through the Equity Foundation Actor’s association in both cities. So there they’ve arranged for a space and I’m going to be teaching a pretty intense narrator workshop in each city and just touring around and seeing what I can see because I’ve never been to Australia. Very curious. And then I fly to Gold Coast and the day before Romancing the Coast, I’m doing an author workshop that I’m really excited about where we can get into some detail about how it all works, what the author’s role is, how we can help and tips and tricks and best practices and things to know, and so we’ll be doing that. And then I’m going to the event itself and I bought tickets for the after party. And the day after I’m planning to just spend most of the day on the beach.

Sarah Williams:            Nice.

Andi Arnt:                     Trying not to get eaten by a shark.

Sarah Williams:            Good Luck.

Andi Arnt:                     And then I go to Brisbane and fly home.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Oh, I hope you have an absolutely fantastic time and I will definitely … I’m in the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane, so I will be coming down and seeing I’m already booked in to do your workshops. So I’m very excited about that. So that’s just awesome. Well thank you so much for everything today. And just quickly tell us what’s coming up next in case we have already listened to everything you’ve narrated?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, Kylie Scott, it seemed like a good idea at the time is the August release that I’m really looking forward to. I love this story, I loved the character. It’s typical like Kylie Scott has these awesome heroines who just take no crap, and the guy is cranky, lovable, and I had a blast recording that one. So that’s the one that I’m super excited though.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Oh, that’s fantastic. And you’ve already mentioned your website and you’re own social media as well in case we want a behind the scenes.

Andi Arnt:                     Yes. I’m on Facebook as me, the narrator. I’m on Facebook and Twitter and my Instagram that I’ve been having fun with this summer is @offmicandi. Everyone always thinks it’s, “Off my candy”. “Off mic Andi” And then lyricaudiobooks.com and we’re getting our social media up and running on that going into the fall.

Sarah Williams:            That’s awesome. Well thank you so much for your time today and I really do appreciate that.

Andi Arnt:                     Thank you Sarah.