8 Tips for Authors Performing Their Work
Audio Recordings, In-Person, and Virtual Author Events
These days, authors are expected to read excerpts from their work, whether in bookstore events, breakout sessions at conferences, or one of the many author reading platforms like the ever-popular Noir at the Bar. This can be a daunting experience for authors who have a hard enough time speaking in public, let alone reading their precious work.
Writers are notoriously introverted. We spend our creative time nestled in our cozy writing nooks, alone, or possibly with a comforting dog or a cat to pet. If we don’t have an interactive day job, we might not speak—and by that I mean voicing actual sounds with eye contact—to another human for days.
To suddenly be faced with an audience of potential readers who expect to be riveted or, at the very least, entertained, can shake even a veteran author’s nerves. The ones who seem most at ease, have experience with public speaking from current or previous careers. Actors, singers, reporters, and marketers have a definite leg up. The same goes for anyone in a business where they need to pitch or present their own work.
Having just performed excerpts from THE NINJA’S OATH during my book launch tour, I’ve been reminded of how my past careers in theater, television, and film have afforded me the skills to embody characters, engage an audience, and bring what I’m reading to life. Those past experiences have also helped me deal with performance anxiety.
Yes, my friends, stage fright is real.
I can’t tell you how many times I felt sick to my stomach as I walked onto a stage.
As with publishing a novel, no matter what doubts or insecurities arise as an author prepares to perform, they can always empower themselves with the knowledge of having done it before.
If you’re a debut author about to read your work for the first time, fortify yourself with the monumental achievement of having written and published your book!
Courage is courage no matter how it presents.
Any author who has conveyed emotion and intrigue on the page, can tap into that same headspace when they read.
Take a breath.
Lock into the characters.
Savor your words.
Evoke the same emotion to your audience that you felt as you wrote.
Experienced author readers may have noticed the differences between engaging an audience in-person versus entertaining them online. Both are nuanced and rely on slightly different techniques than narrating an audiobook or recording an audio-only excerpt.
8 Tips for Performing In-Person
Reading in front of a live audience, requires a higher level of energy, eye contact, and animation to keep them engaged. Sound systems often garble the words and make them difficult to understand. Added to this obstacle, most authors veer away from their microphone or talk over the top of it as if holding an ice cream cone instead of speaking directly into the microphone—angled toward the mouth— from a few inches away. Here are some tips to compensate for these issues as well as the echo and ambient sound challenges of the room:
1. Enunciation
When people become nervous, they speed up and meld everything together into one stream of thought. This makes it very difficult for an audience, hearing you through a microphone, to understand. Enunciate more deliberately than you think necessary and leave a little space between words.
2. Volume and Rhythm
An inexperienced performer will sink into a drone. This is great if you’re reading a bedtime story and trying to put a kid to sleep, but not so wonderful if you’re trying to keep your audience alert and engaged. If you notice anyone texting, you’ll need to up your game quick. Vary your pace, rhythm, and volume to build the suspense and convey the emotion of the characters in the scene.
3. Eye Contact
Nervous readers keep their eyes locked on the page, which gives the audience permission to look at or focus on their phones, snacks, or friends sitting nearby. This distracts them from your reading and takes them out of your story. Without context and engagement, your words meld together into an incoherent buzz. [Think of Charlie Brown’s teacher, and you’ll know what I mean.] Make eye contact with various listeners as you read to keep your audience engaged and alert.
Tips for Performing Online
Online performances are slightly different. Since the audience usually cannot be seen, the author is unable to make eye contact or gage their attentiveness and reactions. Some authors find this comforting. Listeners do as well. [How many times have you walked away from a dull reading to make a snack?] In addition to enunciation and varying volume and rhythm, an author needs to decide whether they will read from a document on their screen from from a physical book. Both have advantages, challenges, and techniques.
4. Reading from the Screen
Reading from a computer keeps the authors eyes closer to the and, therefore, closer to looking at the audience. The trick is to position and scroll the text so your eyes don’t track across the page. This can distract the audience and sap the emotion and drama from the scene. If you narrow the document to four or five inches wide and scroll upward as you read, the subtle tracking will not be noticed and your audience will feel as though you are, personally, reading to them.
5. Dialogue POV
Another trick of the actor trade is to designate a specific spot to the right or left of your camera when deliver the dialogue for different characters. If they would be at a different height in the scene—parent to child, standing to sitting—then you can adjust the focal point for the taller character to look lower on one side while the shorter character looks slightly higher than the camera on the other. It helps to angle your head slightly in the appropriate direction for the dialogue you can’t memorize and need to actually read. When narrating or offering character thoughts, return to the camera (audience) by reading straight from the text.
6. Holding a Book
If you choose to read from a book, hold it in your hand so the cover can be partially scene in the shot. This imprints your book onto the audience and gives something additional to see. It also raises your eyes to camera level. Find moments to look into the camera, as if you were giving an in-person reading. When delivering dialogue, choose focal points to the right and left of the camera—not the book—as described before.
Tips for Recording an Audio Excerpt
Unlike a live or video performance, where the audience has someone to see, an audio recording relies solely on your voice. It’s an intimate listening experience, improved by different techniques. To avoid the rustle of paper, the excerpt should be read from the screen. A nuanced delivery is a must. Here are quick tips to keep in mind.
7. Microphone
Use the highest quality external microphone you possess. Work with the gain and microphone distance and direction for optimal results. Raise or turn your mouth slightly when pronouncing Ss or Ps to lessen the sibilance and popping those letters cause.
8. Volume
Unlike a visual performance that benefits from volume, even when performing with a mic, an audio recording is a more intimate listening experience. Think of the audiobook narrators you enjoy. Listen to your voice in your headphones (or earbuds) as infuse your reading with nuanced emotion, energy, and suspense.
If you’ve read THE NINJA’S OATH, please join me Wednesday, September 27, at 5pm PDT (8pm EDT) to discuss all the juicy parts for a Virtual Book Club event. All of my registrants and attendees will receive an exclusive author recording of the climactic battle royale fight scene that Best Thriller Books said “would make Quentin Tarantino blush.
Save your spot now!
Mahalo for reading my impromptu musing!
If you’ve also read and enjoyed THE NINJA’S OATH, please consider leaving a Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble review! (Or anywhere else where you enjoy shopping for books.)
And if you celebrate the Moon Festival this Friday, I hope you are in the company of loving family and have delicious moon cakes eat!
Aloha,
Tori 🌺
:-) Greatest of luck with book.