Obviously I’ve neglected my blog. If it was a kid, it’d be taken away and I wouldn’t even get visitation. Sorry, those of you who have added this to your RSS feed, but I do think that over this summer I’ll be able to be a bit more diligent about SOME kind of update.

I have a lot of things I wanted to write about:
Audiobook Publishers’ Association Conference in NYC
B&H – ah yes, a sweet, sweet candy shop for anyone even remotely techie
Book Expo America (a few days later)
A personal trip to North Carolina and a week later a couples’ trip to Vegas (and my first time there!)
A shift is coming

So, I’ll be brief on most of these but want to get something posted, so I’ll start with my NY trip.

APAC was the single most amazing conference I’ve attended directly related to my career. I haven’t been to VOICE in LA yet, I think I’ll plan for next year, but otherwise APAC was phenomenal. The workshops were great, but several time slots were double-booked so I had to choose which ones to attend. Oh man, to have a little mini-me running around to those other workshops just to absorb it all! However, in lieu of a mini-me, I have great friends and we’ve shared notes on all the workshops. Specifically, there’s 4 of us from Pat Fraley’s Audiobook workshop called the Billion Dollar Read in ’09 (he’s offering another one in LA in July, if you’re considering it then jump on this!) and we’ve stuck together, encouraging, critiquing, sharing, and it’s just more evidence that people in the voice over industry are selfless givers. These awesome ladies are Rachel Fulginiti, Heather Henderson and Amy Rubinate. Together, when our powers are combined– ok no… just when we all reunited at APAC, we are a force to be reckoned with! That group has been my mirror in voice overs, showing me bits of myself and reassuring me that I’m in the right place and doing the right things. The workshops at APAC were eye-opening, networking and getting to actually talk to people who can use you on a book was an incredible opportunity, and between some very open and kind publishers and the awesome people I knew I’d see and the new ones I met, the best part was still the people. Oh please, stop rolling your eyes, I mean it!!

BEA was overwhelming. It was a book lover’s dream, and a strategic nightmare to navigate in the 6 hours I had until we had to head to the airport. The Javitz Center was filled with people from all walks of the publishing industry – from librarians, book club members and authors to presidents of publishing companies and the top tiers of management who were there to make distribution deals. It was totally nutty but Rachel and I were able to get around to quite a few independent publishers to tell them about our collective of narrators. A few seemed pretty interested, thankfully the ones whose books and general topics we were most interested in. We’ll see if there’s any love connections that form from BEA down the road. It was a great side-conference to attend on exhibitor day, but much like APAC, I could have used a 2nd day to take it all in.

I just skipped over the other fantastic thing I enjoyed while in New York: B&H Photo/Video. The best thing to me was the mic room. I was able to spend some time with 2 well-trained sets of ears, Tony Willson and unfortunately I don’t have the woman’s name handy, but they were awesome. I tried out many mics and we all agreed that while I came in expecting the Neumann TLM 103 to be a perfect fit for my voice, it was actually the TLM 102 that brought out all the best aspects of my voice, and gave me enough options to play around with distance and warmth. That’s been my new standard mic since I came home, and my poor RE20 has been stored in its case until I need it. It’ll still be the mic I use on the road, since it travels so well, but for daily use I can’t bear to take my new 102 off my mic stand. :)

I spent 5 days in or traveling to and from New York and Andy met with photo editors in NYC, so he was no slacker on this trip, and while he had to go home (he shot the midweek wedding of our talented massage therapist, Amy and her new husband Nick) I flew to North Carolina to see family and friends. It’s only fair, he was just in North Carolina a week or two earlier to shoot another wedding, so this trip would be just me and slightly less running around than last time I was there.

I’m doing some targeted advertising right now to build up other aspects of my business, and still finishing my follow-ups from APAC and BEA. I’m happy to be working on projects for new clients and to also have continued work from clients I’ve worked with for a while. I’ve gotten some good feedback from my contacts so far from APAC, which is very encouraging. I’m busy, but it’s that good kind of sustainable, manageable busy and I can fit a blog post in here or there. My personal life is busy with an attempt to shift my waking hours to accommodate for a grueling early yoga class, adding in some volunteer work to my day and Andy and I are grilling anything we can think of with our new outdoor grill.

I feel like we’re embarking on another big change or shift. I’m not sure what it is but I think I’ve turned a corner in the balance between my business, Andy’s business and my full time job doing voice and production work. I know, with all this going on, doesn’t it sound busy enough without a 40 hr/week job, too? Maybe it’ll be the addition of audiobooks and more station imaging to tip me towards going 100% freelance, maybe Andy’s wedding or commercial business will get too busy for him to handle without getting extra help in a bigger capacity. Who knows. As of yesterday, I’ve been in Phoenix for 3 years now, and I sense a positive shift is on its way. While change can be scary, I’m not closing any doors but I’m just watching for new ones to open. This blog post has been in my mind a lot lately.