Meet Eric Brown

We were lucky to catch up with Eric Brown recently and have shared our conversation below.

Eric, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I was once a sports writer for a newspaper for over a decade, and we had a very strict deadline to have each paper done before midnight of every day. I believe that time at the newspaper really taught me the value of managing your time effectively while also meeting a deadline in a very timely notice. That same rule applies to really any job or business you wish to create. And that same type of deadline also is important for meeting the contract deadlines for each audiobook narration that I have done.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I grew up in a very small town in Ohio named Homeworth. My father was blessed to have an excellent broadcasting voice of which I was also blessed to have inherited. My father never really utilized his voice and broadcasting, but pursued his dream in becoming a sports editor for the local newspaper. I also was brought on board the newspaper and started off as a photographer, videographer, and sports writer. With the changing times the newspaper industry went through pretty radical changes over the next decade that I was with them. Eventually, the newspaper was sold off and absorbed into a bigger newspaper in a neighboring larger city and most of the sports writing staff was let go, including myself.

After my experience with the newspaper, I ended up becoming a professional photographer for life touch in the northern half of Ohio region and photograph many local high school sporting events. And it was during this time that I began to take classes from Susan Berkeley’s great voice company. With her easy to follow lessons and prompts I was able to gather the right recording materials and eventually create a sound studio within my house and also learn pointers on how to stand out when auditioning for voiceover gig contracts. My next step was to create a narrator profile on one of the many different audiobook narration platforms. I chose ACX which is the parent company for Audible and began recording auditions. To my incredible surprise, I begin receiving contract offers at quite a fast rate. Even now I typically get one contract offer for every five auditions I put in for on ACX.

While it is very thrilling to get a contract offer, sometimes I do have to decline them because I don’t have enough time to complete multiples within a given time period. That’s really the biggest challenge when doing audiobook narration is the amount of time invested into completing each contract, especially when you also have to edit along with your recording. I’m currently working on getting an audio engineer to edit my audiobooks and potentially work up to find an agent to look into more commercial or voiceover opportunities.

If you’d like to see samples of my work, you can search me on Audible or even check out my website at www..ericbrownvoiceovers.com. I can also be found on Instagram at ericbrownvoiceovers and TikTok at EBvoiceovers.

In the middle of my audiobook narration business I have also created an international podcast. “It All Depends On The Situation” or IADOTS for short. It’s typically me and my wife and friends having a roundtable conversation about many various topics from hobbies to life and many other things in between. I also tend to showcase different character, voices in some of the episodes as well. You can find it on Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, and virtually any other podcast streaming service and be sure to follow the Instagram page, It all depends on the situation.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three qualities that come to mind are humility, perseverance, and determination. As stated before, I was let go along with other sports writers from the newspaper, and it was a job. We all felt was actually pretty secure., but clearly wasn’t. It was a tough pill to swallow going into that layoff meeting, but interestingly enough when that door closed many others began to open. I was able to pick myself up from the newspaper experience and utilize what I’ve learned into every job in business I would go onto to be part of or create and that road is sometimes not easy. It’s easy for a person to sulk in their misfortune and feel bad, but never let that overwhelm you because as much as people tend to fear catastrophe, there is also the chance for a eucatastrophe, the rapid change from a bad situation to a good one. And this is something I’ve really noticed in life that when I think something is a bad situation happening it really turns out to be a blessing in disguise in virtually every case.

One of the biggest life lessons that I have learned is how to overcome your fears and take a chance of something. I’m was the type of guy that would get caught up in analysis paralysis where you overthink everything and it basically petrifies you from taking action. I use this metaphor of “learn to jump” meaning “learn to take that chance at something you’ve been meaning to do“ the way, I figure it time is ticking regardless, and frankly, you’ve got everything to gain, so why not take that jump?

It’s truly one of the hardest things for people to get over, letting go of their fears and taking a chance at something. It’s uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and you question yourself quite often, but keep pressing on cause you never know where it’s actually going to lead you and perhaps the opportunities that come from that will be completely different than what you originally expected. Keep moving forward.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I’m currently searching for a good marketing person, a voiceover mentor, audio engineer and potentially an agent to help further, my voiceover and narration business. Marketing is key when trying to produce sales in really any kind of business. I have taken master classes and classes with Susan Berkeley about voiceover opportunities, but I would love to actually have a good voice mentor to help guide me through this landscape. An audio engineer would save me valuable time and editing down both short and long narration audiobooks which allow me to pick up many more contracts. And an agent will be helpful for booking, future, voiceover opportunities, and many more things..

I would also love to help collaborate with other narrators or narration teams, or even voiceover opportunities that require multiple voices and voice actors.

I’ve also reached out to other established voice actors and they keep telling me the same thing “take acting classes“. I was part of theatrical performances during my high school years and after. But I would love to get more hands-on experience which will definitely help me out.

Contact Info:

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Productivity
Where do you get your work ethic from?

We’ve all heard the phrase “work hard, play hard,” but where does our work ethic

Productivity
Tactics & Strategies for Keeping Your Creativity Strong

With the rapid improvements in AI, it’s more important than ever to keep your creativity

Productivity
From Burnout to Balance: The Role of Self-Care

Burning out is one of the primary risks you face as you work towards your