In Real Life with Kate Follis—The voice of your next favorite book

Odds are, you’ve listened to an audiobook. Have you ever thought about how the words on the page become that narrated story? The narrator’s tone, speed, diction—and more—influence how we perceive the book as it unfolds. The narrator brings the story to life.

Our guest this episode enlightened me about the world of audiobook narration. Kate Follis is a senior content manager and prolific audiobook narrator. Kate told me she’s been a book lover her entire life, and as a child she already had a passion for reading aloud. A work event which required a voice over for a presentation sparked an interest in narrating audio books—something Kate hadn’t thought about until a co-worker suggested she was good at it.

Fast forward to today and she’s narrated more than 400 sections for Librivox, which has the mission to make all books in the public domain available in audio format on the internet. Volunteers read and record books in the public domain that are made available to download for free. Microsoft employees might even hear Kate’s voice in some internal presentations.

And with all that reading and learning, she’s had some full circle moments along the way.

“My most recent favorite novel is by Jules Verne, and it's called ‘The Begum's Fortune.’ It wasn’t popular when it was first released in 1879 because the translation was really poor. But I recently narrated it because even though it's written by a French author, the book is set in Oregon in the city that I now live in,” Kate said.

And like so many of our guests, Kate’s passion project doesn’t stop there. When she moved to the Oregon Coast last year, she began collecting rocks on the beach. A polished stone necklace given to her by her husband later sparked her creativity, and in addition to narration, Kate has taken up jewelry making in her spare time. She’s learned to work with silver and gold, acid and fire, and finds her two hobbies are complementary and help on her journey of lifelong learning. ?

“There's a lot of growth mindset involved in both. I've learned so much from the mistakes that I've made, and I’ve learned to lose my inhibitions. Doing a great audiobook narration turns into a performance project. And when you're doing jewelry, you're doing a creative thing and putting it out there in the world for other people to consume and enjoy.”

Kate told me her biggest lesson when creating is to not worry about what people think and just have fun with it—let yourself go. This is probably one of the most difficult life lessons to integrate, and the most crucial. Innovation requires a fair amount of suspending judgment and following new paths.

Kate, thank you for the work you’ve done keeping the past alive through books in the public domain and beyond. I can’t wait to see what you do next—keep creating!

Watch my interview with Kate here!?