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Susannah Jones | Narrator

Tango with Text
May 7, 2017
4 min read

Approximate reading time: 7 minutes

For a sample of Susannah Jones narration skills, click here.

I’m so happy to have snagged an interview with Susannah Jones. She is a multiple award winning actress and book narrator. Welcome, Susannah!

Thanks Kim! So happy to be doing this.

You have narrated comedy, romance, mystery, real life stories etc – which genre has been your favourite?

I like them all for different reasons! I really love first person comedy because I get to play a fun character for an entire book instead of just certain lines. Rock Chick was super fun to narrate for that reason. I also love fantasy because there are always a lot of colorful, and sometimes even magical characters that I can do interesting things with vocally. I loved narrating the witches in Craig Schaefer's Revanche Cycle books for example.

Most of the books you have narrated are around the 8-10 hour mark. How long does it take for you to narrate an 8 hour book?

Industry standard is about two hours in the booth for every one hour of recorded audio. Having done eighty books, I've gotten to a point where I can record a finished hour in about an hour and a half.

You currently have 38 books listed on audible.com. You started narrating in May 2013 and this works out to about 9 books a year! You are also an actress, so how have you managed to find the time?

I have actually narrated over eighty books but some are under a pseudonym. So I record about twenty books a year! Audiobooks make up most of my bread and butter as an actor so I have to find the time! Also, I consider them acting work, so it's basically just doing what I love on a regular basis. But I do take months off to go on tour or for out of town contracts.

Tell us about the team involved in the narration of a book – or do you have a home studio?

I usually work with an engineer, and I have three that I particularly love collaborating with at a company called Password Studios. Those guys are so professional and fun. I have recorded by myself, but it's a lot more energizing to work with another person. The Password crew also edit and master the books for me so I only have to worry about prepping the book and performing which is really nice.

How do you manage the parts that have to be re-read; surely it is difficult to get the tone to match?

It's not very hard at all! You do something called "pick-ups" where the engineer will play back the part with the error so you have the tone of that part of the book, then you'll read it correctly, and the engineer splices it back into the final audio.

When you do narrations, how do you prepare not only your voice, but also for each of the characters?

I definitely figure out character voices before starting the book, and get used to how they sound in my voice before I go into the booth. And I prepare my voice in general by doing a good warm up and drinking something hot to loosen my vocal cords.

How does the process work when there are multiple narrators?

In my past experience, each narrator takes chapters that the author assigns to their characters, so I end up just recording the chapters that are assigned to me and record them by myself as I would a book where I was the only narrator.

Of all the characters you have narrated, who has remained in your mind?

Nessa from The Revanche Cycle books by Craig Scahefer and Indy from Rock Chick by Kristen Ashley

Are there foods / drinks you have to avoid during the time it takes to narrate a book?

Salty foods and caffeine are good to avoid because they dehydrate you and make your mouth sound sticky.

With your acting career, you have taken many roles – which has been your least favourite character?

In college I had to play God in a morality play, which was so boring and hard because God is pretty two dimensional (and holier than thou!). Human characters are three dimensional and struggle with things. God doesn't actually have problems that he can't solve. Or at least he didn't in this play.

What occupies your time when you are not working?

I write a lot! I'm writing a musical and a web series at the moment.

Tell us about the awards you have won.

I have won an Audiofile Earphones award for a sassy romance book I recorded under my pseudonym. And Rock Chick was named one of the top five romance listens on Audible in 2014. For acting, I won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy at the LA Webfest in 2014 and was nominated for best supporting actress in 2016 at the NYC Webfest for my role in the web series Plant.

Please add any other information you think readers would be interested in hearing – we LOVE to hear all about the people involved in the book industry.

Well, I got my love of books from my parents, and especially my dad who reviews books for a living. I highly recommend checking out his pieces on The Daily Beast!

Click here for one of the many articles by Malcolm Jones, Susannah’s father.