Voicebank.net’s VoiceRegistry Blog

Instant Guts! Audio Producer Continues Her Gutsy Story

Audio producer Joan Gale Frank continues her “Gutsy Audio Producer Tells Her Instant Guts! Story.”

-Tracy Pattin

T: What were you looking for in your voice talent for your audio book, “Instant Guts“?

JGF: I was looking for warm, friendly, energetic voices who could read my script perfectly. I went through a lot of work creating it, so I wanted narrators who would take the exact words and breath life into them. I also wanted voices that didn’t sound too young or too old. If they sounded too young, listeners might say, “Hey, what do these kids know about intelligent risk-taking?” And if they sounded a little too old, I was concerned I’d lose my 20 to 30 year old audience . So I wanted to be sure my narrators sounded somewhere in the middle.

T: How did the talent do?

JGF: What amazed me the most about the production process is how my voice talent made the script their own. The male/female thing worked beautifully.

T: How did you distribute Instant Guts! ?

JGF: I first released Instant Guts! Through some sort of miracle, a massive mail order catalog got a hold of a copy and asked to distribute it. The catalogue, called “Things You Never Knew Existed” had a mailing list of millions. Through that catalogue I was able to sell thousands and thousands of copies over the span of several years! I also got Instant Guts! into NPR’s Wireless Catalog, where it did well too. These days Instant Guts! is distributed as an audio download on Amazon.com, Audible.com, iTunes, and a few other places, as well as still being sold as an audiotape on Amazon.com.

T: Your audiobook was written up in The Dallas Morning News business section. How did you get that write up?

JGF: I was at one of the national book fairs and met a business journalist who told me he wrote for the Dallas Morning News. He interviewed me there at the book fair and a few weeks later his article appeared in the Dallas Morning News, The San Jose Mercury News, and the Minneapolis StarTribune.

T: Your audiobook is on Audible.com. What is that?

JGF: Audible.com is a website that sells downloadable versions of audiobooks, audio entertainment, magazines, podcasts and newspapers in every subject - from blockbusters and classics to business, self-help, news and comedy.

T: Why do you think Instant Guts! lives on after 15 years?

JGF: It seems that almost everyone wants more guts at one point in life or another. Needing courage never goes out of style. Courage makes the difference between living a so-so, pushed-around-by-others life, or creating your own happy, meaningful reality. There are times when we don’t need that much courage, and we can reach comfortable plateaus, but, then bam! We’re thrust back into circumstances and transitional phases that require courage and inspiration to get to the next level - or sometimes just to survive.