Hidden Gems: Relish for radio leads Maloney to symphony of work with his voice

Asked if he was the kid who hid under his blankets to read by flashlight, Mike Maloney says no.

Growing up in Kansas City, "I was listening to WLS radio in Chicago with a transistor radio late at night," the Cave Springs resident says. "I read as much as necessary, but listening to the guys on the air fascinated me.

"My parents bought me a reel-to-reel tape recorder one year for Christmas. I didn't ask for one and to this day, I don't know why they gave a 12-year-old kid such a machine," he adds. "But it had a microphone. I've had a microphone my entire life."

That, says Maloney, might be the title of his autobiography, should he ever write one: "Mike's Life Behind the Mic." But right now, his "seven-day-a-week job" is reading. His company, Mike Maloney Voice, produces audio books, and since April 2019, he's done a dozen or so, along with his "bread and butter work [of] one to five minute narrations, short documentaries and an occasional commercial production."

His career, however, started just as one might expect: In radio.

"We all wanted careers on the air," he says of studying broadcasting at Northwest Missouri State University. "My first professional job was at KMCR-FM in Phoenix. It was the public radio station and NPR affiliate. I had an on-air job but also was an instructor for Phoenix College.

"I bounced around radio in Colorado Springs, Vail -- tough gig where I could ski every day -- Jonesboro at Arkansas State University as the morning guy, and my last radio gig at KARN in Little Rock."

"My oldest BFF, Rick Stockdell, called me and told me he knew of an ad agency job in Northwest Arkansas," Maloney remembers. "He had just taken a job at this little radio station, KUAF. I was the morning guy at KARN and really wanted to do something else. I loved and still love radio, but I knew a bit about ad agencies and thought it might be a good change."

Maloney says once he joined a Rogers ad agency, he "fell in love with the diverse work -- writing, marketing, working with some very talented artists and at the same time, produced audio for commercials, documentaries, about anything behind a microphone." He later started Maloney Associates and ran his own company for some 20 years, was hired as director of the Eureka Springs Ad & Promo Commission and finally retired in April 2019 to start Mike Maloney Voice. He is a prostate cancer survivor -- diagnosed in 2017 -- and says that experience "basically tells you that the really big problems aren't so big. But it makes beautiful days look so much more beautiful. I am doing what I love ... so I guess I never really work."

Having experience in the voiceover world, "where auditions are the lifeblood," Maloney didn't have any trouble moving into the world of audiobook narration.

"I did an audition based upon a very interesting short chapter out of a book called 'Handbook for Drowning' by David Shields," he recalls. "It was a really unusual chapter that was just bizarre enough to get my attention. It was three or four minutes long. Couple of days later, one of his associates contacted me and asked if I would narrate the book. 'Sure!' I was rather thrilled as I never had thought about producing an entire book.

"I had produced the first couple of chapters for review, then was offered the opportunity to read three more of his books," Maloney says. "I've been working for David Shields for a couple of years. He's written 22 New York Times best selling books. An interesting man."

Producing a book, he adds, is like a marathon, not a sprint.

"It's a very discipline-oriented job; every word belongs in an exact place," he says. "To interpret what the author has intended takes serious time prior to turning on the mic. It helps to have read the entire book.

"My advice to those who ask about how to start is to understand that patience is paramount. It takes up to six weeks to narrate a 400 page book (for me). Of course a book by James A. Michener could take six months. The second thing is the technical work. That is usually where it can become very frustrating.

"There is an industry site called ACX.Com," he goes on. "It is the tech side of Audible, which is owned by Amazon. A narrator, or author looking for a narrator, can scan through a few hundred books. Narrators can post their auditions or selections and link with the plethora of authors.

"Listen to some of the audio books from Audible or iTunes," he advises. "Discover what makes a narrator stand out. Read out loud, record yourself and be critical. Get someone to listen to your work and offer suggestions. I personally love to listen to people like David Sutherland, Sir David Attenborough, Morgan Freeman. I listen for style, the pauses, the breaths, the enunciation and the communicative ability to tell the story.

"Individually, it's a people-to-people business. If you can start a relationship with an author (or any creative agency) work tends to follow you."