Narrate Your Story: Unleash Your Audiobook Potential
This is the EWN Podcast Network.
Cathy Worthington:Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating your third act with style, power, and impact. Hi. I'm Kathy Worthington.
Merry Elkins:And I'm Mary Elkins. Join us as we bring you conversations with successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, and people with vision who are making a difference in the world.
Cathy Worthington:Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the ride on each interview, recounting the journey our guests have taken to get where they are, inspiring you to create your own path to success. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome to late boomers. I'm Kathy Worthington, and I'm here with my cohost Mary Elkins today to introduce you to Robert a Lane, an audiobook coach and producer.
Merry Elkins:And I'm Mary Elkins. After working thirty plus years in the entertainment industry, Robert became a career and life coach and then created Your Book, Your Voice to help nonfiction authors narrate their own books. Welcome, Robert.
Robert Lane:Thank you. It's really great to be here. I'm glad to see you both, Kathy and Mary.
Cathy Worthington:Great. Tell us about your background and how you discovered your current career trajectory, and and please include a couple of stories about your earlier entertainment industry career adventures.
Robert Lane:Oh, love to. I've worked thirty plus years in the business, as you've mentioned. And I started off in radio. I've always been an audio guy. And radio just always attracted me.
Robert Lane:So my career started working, doing talk shows and music shows and production. Then that eventually led to a career working at twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles on the studio lot. My last roughly fourteen years of my career was done at the studio. But I'll tell you, it's been an interesting journey. It's been a very, very interesting journey doing a lot of things from scheduling for big production facilities to I've done some on camera work, off camera work.
Robert Lane:And then at Fox, I was the feature project manager overseeing post production for their current features and their catalog features. So what's interesting with my career and why it changed to what I do today is a few years ago, there was the big acquisition of Disney buying Fox. And that was a huge, huge deal. And we knew that we were all going to be affected. We sure were.
Robert Lane:So when they finally got around, when Disney got around to our department, I was on the first round of firings.
Cathy Worthington:Oh, brother.
Robert Lane:So my career changed, not by choice. But that was actually a good opportunity to reassess what I'm doing in my life and starting from scratch. So I gave it a lot of thought. And I wanted to figure out, Okay, what do I want to do? Do I stay in entertainment business?
Robert Lane:Do I try something new? Do I start a new business? Do I retire early? What do you do? So I decided to take the risky choice of becoming an entrepreneur.
Robert Lane:And as you know, it's
Cathy Worthington:a tough job. We talked to a lot of them. We talked to a lot of entrepreneurs. Yeah.
Robert Lane:But it is rewarding. It is rewarding. But as you know, when the ups are great, they're really high. And when they're not, it's down. It's a lot of ups and downs.
Robert Lane:But I decided that I wanted to do something that I felt would be more purposeful. And I didn't want to go back into the corporate world. I've done that for most of my life and my career. And I just wanted to do something different. So then I did start Robert Link Coaching as a career coach and life coach.
Robert Lane:And I figured taking a lot of the experiences that I had in the entertainment world, because obviously a lot of things that we experience in our job, whether it's corporate or any kind of job, we all experience the same things in regards to bad bosses, how to manage your time, how to be more productive, all those things. So I gave that a lot of thought. And also, were saying to me, you should write a memoir. You should tell about stories of working in the business. Probably have a lot of stories.
Robert Lane:So I gave that some thought, and I ended up writing a book called Lights Action You. And I wanted to make it a little more than just storytelling and giving behind the scenes. So with each experience and story that I share, I tied in a life lesson or a tool or a technique from the career coaching and life coaching aspect so that people could get more value from just reading a book about this is what it was like working in entertainment. And so, of course, being an audio guy had to do the audiobook.
Merry Elkins:Makes sense.
Robert Lane:And so then I had authors approach me saying, hey. You know, I want to narrate my own audiobook. How did you do that?
Merry Elkins:Well, I had a question for you about that.
Cathy Worthington:Yeah. I mean,
Merry Elkins:I have a few questions here. But on that note, why should a nonfiction author narrate his or her own audiobook?
Robert Lane:That is it really is a great question. And the number one reason is that, especially for nonfiction authors, it's your story. There is nobody on this planet that can tell your story better than you, especially if it's a memoir, or maybe you're a coach, you're an entrepreneur, or an educator, or a teacher, or even a poet. This is your story. And your story is about you and your author brand.
Robert Lane:And everything that encompasses your author brand is who you are, the way you were brought up, your belief systems, your habits, your personality, your sense of humor. That's all part of your author brand. So when you write your book, your voice technically is in your written word already. It only makes sense for the author to tell your story. Because again, no one can tell your story better than you.
Robert Lane:You lived it. You've breathed it. You put your blood, sweat, and tears into your book. Even the best narrator in the world, they'll do a great job, but it's still their interpretation, not yours. And there are subtleties, there are nuances about who you are and how you express yourself that another narrator is not going to be able to express, And especially if it's a story that that's traumatic or or very personal.
Robert Lane:Yeah. No one can express it better than the author. Yeah.
Cathy Worthington:That's get it. What do you think is the main main issue that you have to help authors with when they're creating their audiobook? Getting them to open up?
Robert Lane:Confidence. Absolutely.
Cathy Worthington:Confidence.
Robert Lane:Yes. A lot of people and it's understandable. I hear a lot of authors and especially authors who go through my program, they say, oh, I hate my voice. I don't like how
Cathy Worthington:I sound.
Robert Lane:I don't have what it takes. And that's a false belief because your voice is, again, part of your author brand. That's part of what defines who you are. So love that voice. Appreciate that wonderful sound that comes out of your body because that is your signature.
Robert Lane:That's what makes you unique. And a matter of fact, that's what allows you to stand out in the crowd because you're being your authentic self.
Merry Elkins:Yeah. That's true. But a lot of people don't hear their voice the way other people hear it.
Cathy Worthington:Absolutely. So they go out of shock when you record them, right? They flip out?
Robert Lane:Sometimes. Something they're like, Woah, wow, I sound like that. But then when they actually hear the final audio file for their audiobook, it's all cleaned up. It sounds great. It's EQ'd.
Robert Lane:And then they listen back. They're like, wow. I sound like that. I'm like, you absolutely do. You you really do sound good.
Merry Elkins:Well So a
Cathy Worthington:lot of these, you're recording long distance over Zoom or something? Or do you have to usually have them come in your studio or what?
Robert Lane:What I do is I provide the author with the professional equipment that they need to set up their own recording space. That way, the author can do it on their timeline without the pressure of having to go to a First of all, you got to find a good studio to do it in who understands about audiobooks and not just about recording, but about making sure that your audio meets the exact specifications for publication. Because I've had authors come to me and say, hey, I did my audiobook. I did it in a studio. I uploaded it for publication, and Audible rejected it.
Robert Lane:And you don't want that to happen because that's a lot
Merry Elkins:of Yeah.
Cathy Worthington:And a lot of money.
Merry Elkins:Yeah. And time.
Robert Lane:And time, absolutely. So again, I show them step by step how to set up your own space so that you're comfortable and that you do it on your timeline without the pressure of having to go to a studio. I mean, what if you're having a bad day? Or what if your voice isn't sounding the way you want it to? And then the
Merry Elkins:Oh, you have a cold.
Robert Lane:Right. Then the editor's like, well, kid, your time's up. Hit the
Merry Elkins:road. Oh. So you would not recommend using AI or another narrator?
Robert Lane:So, yeah, in regards to AI, my take on that is AI is cheapening your author brand because that is not an accurate representation of who you are. AI is not going to bring in the human element of your uniqueness as an author. Remember, your author brand and your voice and how you express yourself is unique to you. There are subtleties and emotions that are not going to be there. So AI, to me, is soulless.
Robert Lane:You've just removed the human soul out of your narration. And the other thing is, and I look at this as cutting corners, which you shouldn't do ever as an entrepreneur, because a published author is an entrepreneur, so embrace that. But don't go somewhere to, Oh, I could just clone my voice. Okay, so it's going to sound like you, but the emotion still won't be there. And I kind of look at that as, in a sense, being dishonest too because you're you're claiming that you narrated that, but no, you really didn't.
Robert Lane:You had a computer do it that sounded like you.
Merry Elkins:Kind of like a hell in the movie 2,001.
Cathy Worthington:No. It wouldn't even have occurred to me the thing about cloning the voice. That's really interesting. I I wouldn't Yeah.
Robert Lane:I mean, to me, it it it really is cutting corners. You're not
Merry Elkins:Do a
Robert Lane:lot of
Cathy Worthington:do a lot of people say, I want to just get a really good narrator that speaks better than I do?
Robert Lane:Usually, the authors that approach me really want to narrate their own book. We do talk about that if for some reason they feel that another narrator is better. Honestly, again, especially for non fiction authors, that author is the most qualified and best person to narrate their book. Hands down.
Merry Elkins:If you've written a fiction book, do the same rules in your mind apply?
Robert Lane:Yeah. That's a great question. It depends on what the book is. If someone writes a fictional story, and it's more of like a memoir type style, then why not have the author narrate their own book? A fiction book, that's fine.
Robert Lane:However, if you have a book and it's various planets in the galaxy with all these different characters and you want to have different dialects and accents, then that's a whole other ballgame. And that's where you would go and find a professional voiceover person who can do voices professionally because you want it to sound great to bring those characters to life. So that's a little bit different. Again, it's more memoir based where it's maybe one person or maybe one or two people, that author can still do the narration.
Cathy Worthington:That's good. Yeah. Of course, they could. Yeah. What do you think are the two main components to create a compelling audio book?
Cathy Worthington:We want it to be compelling.
Robert Lane:Compelling. First thing is authenticity. You need to be your true authentic self. You don't need to go, oh, should try to sound like this person or that narrator or this actor. No, be yourself.
Robert Lane:Because again, your voice is your unique stamp of what sets you apart. It's you. That's who you are. No one can replicate you, not the way that you can. So you want to preserve the integrity of your author brand, and authenticity is definitely a huge aspect of it.
Robert Lane:The other important element would be always be tapped into the core reason of why you wrote your book in the first place. Because when you're tapped into that core reason, that's going to come out in your narration, that's going to come out in your delivery. So always be tapped into that reason. You want to bring that purpose in because that pulls out the intangibles. And the intangibles are the secret sauce that makes a great audiobook because now you're bringing your emotion and your unique style to it and your unique energy to what
Merry Elkins:you People don't really know the purpose behind writing their book. They just they just had to write it, but they don't have a purpose really.
Robert Lane:I think, at least with the authors that I've dealt with, I feel that their purpose is they have a story or an experience that they went through, and they are compelled enough to write this story. And I believe that their purpose is that they have something valuable to share. And if one person who reads their book or hears their audiobook is inspired, or hears something and goes, Wow, I went through a similar situation, I'm not alone. If they're able to help one person and inspire one person, they did their job. And I believe that that is their purpose.
Merry Elkins:Mhmm. That's great.
Cathy Worthington:Well, that's interesting. It's almost like you become a therapist. Because if they say to if they say to you, I have no clue what what's my purpose in writing this book, and you and then you analyze it like you just did, they're gonna go, oh, I get it.
Robert Lane:Yeah. Yeah.
Merry Elkins:That's right. It's like
Cathy Worthington:a little therapy.
Merry Elkins:Your life coaching experience has paid off.
Robert Lane:Right. And it's not just, let me grab my book, I'm going to hit record and just start reading and narrating. The very first lesson that I do with the authors in my program is mindset. We start with mindset.
Cathy Worthington:Oh, yeah. We were
Merry Elkins:going to
Cathy Worthington:ask about that.
Robert Lane:Yes. You have to be in the right frame of mind before you even hit that record button because that's going to come through. It's like if you go to a movie and you're like, Oh, that was all right, and there may be something that just didn't quite click with you, it's the energy. Or maybe the actors didn't deliver their lines where they were believable. It's the same analogy when it comes to your audiobook.
Robert Lane:You just don't wanna just go through the motions. You wanna feel the emotion.
Merry Elkins:And you want people listening to feel the emotions.
Robert Lane:Yes.
Cathy Worthington:Yeah. So you get to be an acting coach too. Voice over. Voice over acting co but voice over is acting.
Robert Lane:It is.
Cathy Worthington:A lot of very fine actors do voiceovers. Yeah.
Robert Lane:Absolutely. Absolutely.
Merry Elkins:Absolutely. Well, getting back to the audiobooks, where's the best place to distribute them?
Robert Lane:The the best place is well, I call it the triple a. Audible, Amazon, Apple. The reason why all authors really should have their audiobook published on those three platforms is that's what the general public knows. And I see it all the time now. People aren't just saying, Oh, do you have an audiobook?
Robert Lane:Now they're saying, Hey, can I get your book on Audible? So they're asking for it by brand name. Now, are a lot of other distribution platforms out there. There's Barnes and Noble, there's other platforms that get you in libraries and just all different places. But one of the things that I discuss with the authors before we even get into the program is what is your marketing strategy?
Robert Lane:What's been working for you for your book now? Does it make sense for you to be anywhere and everywhere, kind of like throwing the spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. To me, that's not a valid marketing plan. Really do need a plan. But if let's say you put your e book on Barnes and Noble and it's selling great, then definitely have your audiobook distributed on Barnes and Noble as well because that's what's working for you.
Robert Lane:In addition to Audible, you really do need to be on Audible, Amazon, and Apple as well.
Merry Elkins:Do coach people on marketing strategy?
Robert Lane:Yeah, I actually talk to them about things that they can do to help promote their book, to put together a launch team. All those things that you would do normally for your book, you would apply the same to your audiobook. And again, another great thing that authors can do while they're recording their audiobook is pull back the curtain, let people see behind the scenes of what it's like, show them your recording space, sit at your microphone and take a photo and put it on social media because that creates excitement. It's fun to see behind the scenes. Sure.
Robert Lane:That's great. Now
Cathy Worthington:you've referenced several times this phrase you're using, author brand. So please tell us really what is that? What would you tell someone starting out?
Robert Lane:I would say that a simple definition of an author brand is really everything that encompasses who you are. Everything. That is your brand. And when you write your book and you publish your book, you are the brand. Your book, ebook, paperback, hardcover, audiobook, those are your products.
Robert Lane:And those are the various formats of your product, of your author brand. Your author brand is how you write, your style, your personality, your sense of humor. Again, your upbringing and your values and your belief systems and your habits. These are all things that encompass who you are as a person, but that also falls into who you are as an author.
Merry Elkins:Oh,
Cathy Worthington:yeah. Authenticity.
Robert Lane:Authenticity. Yes.
Merry Elkins:Exactly. Exactly. Mhmm. I think you mentioned earlier that you don't really need to have speaking experience to narrate your own audiobook. Do you recommend going and doing like a I don't know, speaking to people and I forget what they call it, the groups where you actually practice that before you do your own audiobook?
Robert Lane:Well, part of what I do as coach and producer is coaching. That's the coaching aspect. The coaching aspect is really getting into a deep dive of what does it take to be compelling? What does it take to bring out your authenticity? What do you need to do to be conversational?
Robert Lane:What do you need to do to keep that listener on the edge of their seat from opening credits to closing credits? Can you give us an example? One of the things that I share with the authors and this will really help a lot, especially even if you're just doing speaking, or maybe you're giving a presentation for your boss at a conference. Have in mind a very specific person that you're speaking to. So instead of saying, Oh, my genre is weight loss, or my audience is between the ages of 40 and 60, or that's too vague, that's too general.
Robert Lane:Have somebody very specific in mind your best friend, your partner, your coworker, a family member, somebody that you really feel comfortable and relate to. And I even say, put a picture of them up on your computer when you narrate because you want to be conversational, you want to bring out your true authentic self. So when you're reading your audiobook, it's like, imagine yourself, you're sitting at your favorite coffee shop, and you have this great story to tell, and you're with your best friend, and you're telling the story to them. That's what you want to get across because that brings out all the emotion, the energy, the authenticity, the conversationalism, because now you're talking to a specific person. And that actually helps authors even feel a little bit more relaxed when it comes to doing their narration.
Cathy Worthington:Well, it's making me think I have to write my memoir now.
Merry Elkins:You should. You gotta write
Cathy Worthington:it you gotta write it first. Yeah. There's nothing to narrate. You know? And you've you've referred to mindset playing a role in audiobook creation.
Cathy Worthington:So take us through that. How do you get into a mindset to record? Do you do you prescribe exercises for your clients? Or what are you doing for that?
Robert Lane:I think the first thing, which we touched on a little bit about being confident and loving your voice, that's the first step, is you have to love and embrace the wonderful voice that you have. So one thing to do is always be grounded. Before you hit that record button, be in the present moment. Don't worry about the past. Don't worry about the future.
Robert Lane:You've got to be in the now. You've got to be in the present moment, Because then you're focused on what you're going to do with your narration. And then of course, the other thing is just practice. For example, if you're going to record a chapter, just go over the chapter, get familiar with it, maybe read through it out loud so you can hear yourself. And you can maybe even record yourself before you do your official recording just to get an idea of how you sound.
Robert Lane:And oh, you know, jeez, my energy seemed a little off. Let me do that again. And and and maybe I'm not
Cathy Worthington:The danger in that is if people critique themselves so harshly, they might throw out a perfectly good reading. You might think it was good, right?
Robert Lane:That's true. And in the program, that's part of my coaching job is to make sure that perfectionism doesn't seep its way in. I get it. I'm one of those people where I'll just do it until I was like, oh. But again, I tell them, don't be a George Lucas and keep changing Star Wars every few years because you want to add another graphic to the blowing
Merry Elkins:of the death star. I'm very guilty of doing things like that. In order to get grounded, do you recommend meditation before they start? What do you recommend?
Robert Lane:Meditation is great. As matter of fact, I do a little exercise. It could take maybe five minutes or twenty minutes, however long you want to do it. I call it getting into your happy place. Your happy place is breathing is great because breathing does help calm your nerves if you are nervous.
Robert Lane:Some people are nervous about having a microphone in front of them. So you just need to relax, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and just imagine yourself in a happy place. Where's your happy place? I live in Sedona, Arizona, so my happy place is going out on the trail and hiking in the red rocks. Another person's happy Yeah, it
Cathy Worthington:could sitting
Robert Lane:on a tropical beach with a warm breeze and curling your toes in the warm sand and just hearing the nice soft waves crashing on the shore. But the goal is not just only visualizing it, but how do you feel? Tapping into that feeling, feeling joy, feeling contentment, feeling empowered, feeling confident. Whatever those feelings are, tap into those feelings and really feel them. Because when you feel them, then your subconscious is going to feel them.
Robert Lane:And then your subconscious is going to believe that you feel that way about yourself. And then that's starting to get yourself into your zone, your focus. And then now you're focused, now you're in the present moment, you went over the chapter you're going to read, now you feel good and confident, hit that record button. Now you're ready to go.
Merry Elkins:Just by listening to you, I'm going there. I'm like, I'm feeling, oh, yes. Nice beach right now.
Robert Lane:That's good. Beach.
Cathy Worthington:Just you you do that tropical beach. You just add a drink in there, and you've got a Zach Brown band song.
Robert Lane:You know what? I even say that's sand.
Cathy Worthington:I got my toes in the sand. Yeah.
Merry Elkins:Yeah. And the warm the warm sand, and you can hear the waves. And and it just and you lie there, and maybe you're out on the water, and you're floating, and it's just sounds wonderful. Mhmm. So what is the process of recording your own audiobook?
Merry Elkins:What what do you actually go through?
Robert Lane:So the actual process is recording an audiobook is done in sections. So you don't have to grab your book and then read for three hours or however long your book is in one sitting. That's too much. It's not going to be a good narration, so you don't want to do that. But it is actually broken up into sections.
Robert Lane:So for example, my book has 14 chapters. Well, that's 14 audio files right there. But then you also have opening credits, closing credits, introduction, prologue, epilogue, acknowledgments, dedication, all that are separate audio files. So everything is recorded separate in pieces. Now, in the big picture, it makes it so much easier for the author to do it because now you don't feel pressured in trying to record so much material in one sitting.
Robert Lane:And again, you don't want to do that because the voice gets tired, the energy starts to drop, and you want to be consistent with your energy all the way through. So you record one section at a time. Now, the next phase is as you record, at least in my program, the author sends their audio files to me. And that's where the coaching hat comes off and the editor's hat comes on. And that's where I go through each audio file in real time with a fine tooth comb.
Robert Lane:I listen for everything. What's the ambience in the background? Is it too loud, too soft? Is there something there that shouldn't be there? And I listen to what's happening between words, between sentences, what's happening during the narration.
Robert Lane:Are there mouth noises I can remove? And I'll cut them out and remove them and clean them up and make everything sound the best that it can possibly sound. And the most important aspect, of course, is again, making sure that all those audio files meet the exact specifications for publication. And then the next phase after that is once I've mastered their audio, I do the uploading for them. So I will upload their files to Audible, Amazon, Apple, and any other distribution platform that they want to be on.
Cathy Worthington:Oh, that's a good bonus.
Robert Lane:Absolutely. Because in that way, if for some reason there's an issue and sometimes it happens. I'll get a notification from Audible saying, you're 0.3 decibels too low. It's just something really minuscule. But it's like, Okay, no problem.
Robert Lane:I know what the issue is. I know what adjustments I need to make. I re output a new file. I upload it and make sure everything's accepted because I want that author to not have to worry about all this stuff that happens behind the scenes. The author's job is just to do a great narration.
Robert Lane:That's it. I'll do all the heavy lifting. I don't want the author to have to worry about that. Do you
Cathy Worthington:ever get an author that wrote a terrible book, but now you're trying to coach them to narrate it? What if it's, like, horrible and you can't say anything because they already wrote the book?
Robert Lane:Well, let's just say I have been fortunate to have some incredible authors who've told some incredible stories. So I've enjoyed every book I've worked on so far.
Cathy Worthington:Oh, well, that's good because I don't know how you backtrack and say, I don't know if I wanna do this one. Yeah. Well, you real awkward. If a
Robert Lane:book that if subject matter that I find very controversial, and that it doesn't align with my moral standards and beliefs and all that, then I them on.
Cathy Worthington:Oh, yeah. You can read it first before you decide.
Robert Lane:Yeah. It's not about companies are just all about, I'll take the client. I don't care. I'm in it for the business. No, you've got to have boundaries and you have to have standards.
Robert Lane:And those are mine. It's like, I won't take a client if their book is so bad that it's not going to help them
Cathy Worthington:I signed
Robert Lane:up narrate it or not, then I will suggest I know some great book coaches and story developers and say, hey, may want to me refer you to these people and talk to them and help you develop your story.
Cathy Worthington:How long does it usually take you to or take the author to produce an audio book?
Robert Lane:That's a really good question, Kathy. So my program is six weeks. So you can actually set up, record, and have all your audiobook done and ready for publication by the end of the six week program. That's the goal. But let's be more detailed.
Robert Lane:So let's say your book is 40,000 words, for example. So people can narrate on an average roughly about 9,300 words in an hour. So you divide that 9,300 into 40,000, and you come up with roughly four point three hours of actual audiobook narration.
Cathy Worthington:I don't know word counts. So is 40,000 average?
Robert Lane:It's bit on that's a book that can be maybe 130 to 150 pages roughly. A lot of the books that I work on are usually maybe 50,000, 60 thousand, 70 thousand words. So that's a book that's maybe 200 pages, two twenty five, two 50 pages roughly. If your audio book technically, let's say it's four point three hours long, double that time, at least, when it comes to the actual recording of it. So give yourself nine hours or ten hours of actual recording time to complete it.
Robert Lane:Because again, you're going to get tired, your voice is going to get maybe it doesn't sound quite right. You're going to make mistakes because we're human beings. That's what we do. It's Okay. That's a part of life.
Robert Lane:It's all right.
Merry Elkins:And then they rerecord.
Robert Lane:Yeah. And also, the process is when the author sends their audio to me for editing, as I go through it, I also listen for mispronunciations. Maybe there's a slurred word. Maybe there's too long of a gap between a sentence or too short. I can fix all that.
Robert Lane:If there's something or maybe there's a sound that happened that I can't remove, then I just make a list and timestamp it and say, these are the fixes that need to be made for this chapter. It could be five or six sentences. They go in, they just record those sentences, send them back to me, I insert them in.
Cathy Worthington:Want me ask if you can just cut in like they do on music music recordings. You're always cutting in.
Robert Lane:It's the same same concept.
Cathy Worthington:Oh, wow.
Merry Elkins:Your editing experience has worked for you.
Robert Lane:It has. Have to say, being an audio guy, I've always loved audio. And I love helping people. I love coaching on what I do. This is like the perfect marriage of two things that I love doing.
Robert Lane:It just took my entire career to figure it out.
Merry Elkins:Brings me to my next question for you because you were talking about reassessing your life and your career. I mean, curious how long it took you to do that and how you did it. And then I have another question about baby boomers and those going through a shift in their careers. Are they the ones who frequently write the non fiction books and they come to you as clients for audiobooks?
Robert Lane:Let's see. I'm thinking about the clients that I've worked with so far. I think the average age of the authors that I've worked
Merry Elkins:with
Robert Lane:are mid-40s to mid-60s. Yeah. And a lot of the books that I've worked on are memoirs.
Merry Elkins:And what about reassessing your career? How long did that take? What did you go through? How did you do it? A lot of people are doing that these days.
Robert Lane:Yeah. I'm glad. I really am glad. And it was a huge blessing that I was let go when Disney took over. The beauty about it was that if you were let go, part of the Disney Fox deal was that Disney had to make sure that those that were let go got a decent severance.
Robert Lane:And so I had a few months of finances to live on to figure out what I wanted to do. But Mary, I really remember the day it was a specific day when I made the decision, I'm going to do this coaching thing. Going to do it. I'm going to go 100% in, and I'm going to make this work. And as an entrepreneur, I m sure any entrepreneur can tell you, there have been many times where you thought about throwing in the towel and quitting, because it's tough.
Robert Lane:And I've had those moments. But I would tell myself, did you exhaust every single possibility that you can do to make this work? And it's like, no, no, I haven't. So continue to be resilient, continue to be tenacious. And don't give up because you may be just 5% away from hitting that success that you've been seeking.
Robert Lane:It's like that old story about the the miner who's digging for gold, and then he gives up, and then he leaves, and he was, like, just inches away from hitting the mother load.
Cathy Worthington:Yeah. Mhmm. I'm hearing some takeaways I'm hearing some takeaways of what you're saying, but what else would you like our listeners to have as a takeaway today?
Robert Lane:Well, I think number one is, of course, being your true authentic self. Again, if you're making a change in your life and your career, especially later on in life, it is possible. So believe in yourself and find something that really drives you, that gives you passion and purpose. Because that just makes it even it may not make the journey easier, but it makes it a lot more enjoyable when you're doing something that you love to do.
Merry Elkins:And that's what it's all about, isn't it?
Robert Lane:Yeah. Really. It is.
Merry Elkins:Thank you, Robert. That's great. Our guest today on Late Boomers has been Robert A. Lane, audiobook coach and producer and editor. And I could go on with what you said you did.
Merry Elkins:But you help people find their authentic selves in their voice. You can get in touch with him on his website, robertlanecoaching.com. That's r0bertlanecoaching.com. And you can book a consultation with him, a free consultation call. And it's regarding the next step to record your audiobook.
Merry Elkins:And Robert, is there anything you'd like to add to that?
Robert Lane:Well, first step really is just to have a conversation. So if you're a non fiction author and you've considered turning your book into an audiobook, let's have a conversation about it. It's a free call. I don't charge for consultations. And that's the first step because I want to make sure that not only that I resonate with you, but that you resonate with me because we're going to work together to create something awesome.
Robert Lane:And your audiobook is awesome, and it is a great accomplishment when you do it. So, yeah, that's the first step.
Cathy Worthington:That's great. Yeah. Thanks for listening today, boomers, and tune in next week when we will have a stuntwoman who is still working in Hollywood in her eighties, Sandy Gimpel. So please subscribe to our late boomers podcast on YouTube and take us along in the car and on walks on your favorite audio platform. Let us know what gets you inspired.
Cathy Worthington:We are on Instagram at I am Kathy Worthington and at I am Mary Elkins and at late boomers. Please share the late boomers podcast info with your friends who may not yet be listening to podcasts. Thanks again, Robert.
Robert Lane:Oh, you're welcome, and thank you so much for having me on your show.
Cathy Worthington:Thank you for joining us on Late Boomers, the podcast that is your guide to creating a third act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at lateboomers.biz. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of late boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry Elkins:This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use of the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful third act with your own style, power, and impact.
