Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Paige Reisenfeld. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Paige, thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I do make a full-time living now – it’s difficult to say if that will continue, considering the climate of the world, but then, that’s always up in the air for a gig worker.

When I first started narration, I worked three other part-time jobs as well – a cheesemonger, retail at a vintage clothing store, and singing at a church. I would record whenever I could, outside of these, and it was difficult, because I also lived in a place where bass was going constantly from surrounding cars, etc.

Eventually, I quit the church job (rehearsals were at night and I was getting up at 4AM to record), and I phased out the other two jobs to one day a week – mostly to keep the discounts and also, not be too much of a hermit. Then I was getting so much work, it was impossible to maintain where we were living and be healthy.

So we moved to a much quieter area, and my output vs time spent increased exponentially, and I have no other jobs now.

I don’t know that there was actually any way, financially, to speed up the process. We did what we could at the time – invested in sound booths, got up early, etc, but without the move….it couldn’t have happened.

Paige, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a classically trained vocal performance major and after I graduated, I went into musical theatre – touring children’s theatre to be exact, though I did do some mainstage stuff. Once the pandemic hit and theatre shut down, I was working for Amazon – first as a driver, then in the warehouse. To get me through those long days, I would listen to audiobooks. One day, in 2021, I went to visit my dad and it turned out he and I were listening to the same series – we got to talking about narrators and he stopped, looked at me, and said,”I think you’d be a great narrator.” So, Capricorn that I am, I did a deep-dive and researched it, reached out to a narrator with over 700 titles for a 10-minute consult, he said I had chops, and well…here I am!

I am very much a proponent of author education and accessibility for audiobooks. I try and keep my finger on the pulse of what is happening within the industry, track changes in distributors, and basically, be a go-to for relevant information.

Besides the actual narration part, I am very proud that I have created a free guide on indie audiobook production where I compare platforms, talk about important parts of the contracts, royalty breakdowns, etc, all in one place, because most authors don’t know where to start and the information is scattered everywhere. How can you research something you don’t know anything about? And unfortunately, there is a lot of wrong information or incomplete information out there about the whole process.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

The best support? Keeping the humanity in all of it. We’re seeing such a huge push from big business for AI-generated garbage, which has scraped the hard work of creatives without permission, compensation, or credit, and all in the name of money for people who already have money. And let’s be real, it’s an inferior product.

Yes, you might get something that looks nice or sounds nice, but it’s not RIGHT. GenAI can’t crack their voice, can’t take a certain pause, has no heart or experience – everything is regurgitated. That virtual voice might save you money, but nothing about the performance will elevate the work or give it something extra or brilliant.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I took a class once with a narrator who I adore and respect SO MUCH, like idol-status – and when I read my sample, at the end of it, the narrator said,”Your cadence makes me tune out.” I was absolutely heart-broken and I basically shut down; none of the corrections or suggestions they made resonated at that point, and it really affected my confidence and made me question what I was doing.

Then, one day, I said to myself,”Well, are you going to do something about it or wallow?” So I reached out to another narrator coach I deeply respect for a session to work on that, and that narrator said,”Put that out of your head, it’s not helpful, let’s work on the issue because you have the skills.” And that ONE session with another coach gave me so much, not only to put into action and get better, but filled my sails again. After that session, I booked my next four auditions in a row.

Do I still question? Of course! But part of creativity is constantly getting better and improving my craft, and it was a good reminder.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://paigevoice.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/paigevoice_official
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/788180376023187
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@paigevoice
• Other: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@paigevoice
  Threads: https://www.threads.net/@paigevoice_narrates
  Audible catalog: https://www.audible.com/search?crid=2c905a1a38cf401783f6fec111671b49&i=na-audible-us&k=reisenfeld&keywords=reisenfeld&ref-override=a_search_t1_header_search&sort=review-rank&sprefix=rei%2Cna-audible-us%2C311&url=search-alias%3Dna-audible-us&ref=a_search_c