Establishing and maintaining a relationship is the key to gaining work with any producer or publisher.
You’ll want to research people and companies before you contact them. It’s important to learn and follow each producer’s preferences for communications.
If you have a 6-month or yearly membership, you’ll find I’ve done much of the research for you! I created company listings loaded with producer names and lots of valuable info like producer interviews in the exclusive Casting Directory.
This article offers some additional tips and links to help you discover publishers and producers so you can make and build connections.
Please know that most producers will want to see a body of work before they are willing to take a chance on you. Refer to this article and learn about how narrators earn or abuse the trust of publishers.
AudioFile Magazine is the premier publication of the audiobook industry and lists publisher info in the Advertiser Directory found at the back of each issue.
You can search by company or service (check Independent Producers) in AudioFile’s Talent & Industry Guide.
Look at a genre you’re interested in on Audible.com and make a list of the publisher names producing work in that genre.
Once you know the company that produces the kind of audiobooks you want to narrate, you can search for producer names in LinkedIn or the APA directory below.
- The Google Site: search in this Tuesday Tip shows how to search LinkedIn for a name.
- Once you have a name with the company, this Tuesday Tip has 3 tactics for discovering a person’s email address.
If you’re a member of the Audio Publishers Association (APA), you can search the member database for producers’ email addresses. As with the AudioFile guide, most publishers don’t list a particular casting person and may not even designate someone as a producer. That’s another reason why researching LinkedIn can be so helpful.
APA members will find several “Ask a Casting Director” webcasts under Resources, then Webinars after logging in to the APA site. These videos enable you to learn all sorts of good stuff straight from the casting directors, including how and when to contact them. Many casting people give their email address.
You can follow my Twitter list of audiobook publishers. The link and instructions are in this article.
Follow my Twitter account because I often announce new audio publishers, such as in this tweet.
Other resources on this topic:
- On a related topic, you may want to research indie authors. Site members will find lots of info about prospecting for authors in the Create Your Own Path Video Course. Narrator Hannibal Hills has written this article which explains many tactics for finding an author’s contact info.
- In addition, I’ve written a couple of articles about finding rights holders: