Board Thread:General Wiki Discussion/@comment-3343231-20160227193037/@comment-4715955-20160227233555

Here are some general tips that bear highlighting for any youtube narrator, since they are common mistakes:

1) Rehearse. Don't do a cold reading with lots of stammering, stuttering, and mispronunciations. Only upload your best take. If you have to edit several takes together into a single, flawless take, so be it. Don't upload shit takes and go "oh well, it's a learning experience, lol". No one will take you seriously. They certainly won't sit through your videos.

2) Ask permission from the authors before adapting a story. Especially do this if you're a youtube partner who earns money from these videos. Some authors (like myself) have a CC-by-NC license on all their work, which means 'no commercial adaptations without permission'. That's a great way to get your youtube banned. Plus, asking first is common courtesy -- you'd be surprised how willing an author is for the free promotion if you simply ask them first.

3) Don't use background music, especially if it drowns out your voice. If you have to use background music, make it barely audible. The whole point is to do a reading: don't rely on music to do what your voice and the text ought to be doing for you.