Audio Books?

Tristan Thinks · February 23, 2008

Relatively recently I discovered I prefer audio books to reading text.

Mostly it is because after long days staring at PC screens it is nice to rest my eyes and still enjoy a good story. I also find it much nicer to go to bed and listen to an audio book and fall asleep as it continues than try to stay awake with tired eyes reading a book because it's so entralling.

It also means I can 'read' a book whilst travelling, walking, or of course, with my eyes closed!

It got me to thinking how nice it'd be to have some of the nifty/gayauthors/awesomedude and other books available in audio format too. I began thinking about launching a project to do that but I was wondering how many other people out there would like the opportunity to listen to these stories too?

My primary audio collection began with, and consists of, 36 or so Terry Pratchett Discworld novels. Recently I began downloading from several of the free audio book collections and building the multiple mp3 files into one m4b file that the iPod can bookmark automatically. I've got a script that converts from the 20-50 individual chapter mp3s to the one m4b which makes handling the books much easier.

S.L. Lewis · February 23, 2008

It would make things easier for those who don't want to stare at a computer screen more, but it's still a huge undertaking.

Also, you would have to get written permission from the writers to even think about doing it. Some writers won't want this to happen, while others wouldn't mind.

Tiff · February 23, 2008

I think converting stories into audio books would suck the fun out of reading. Even though it's tiring at times to be glued to your computer screen reading and reading, I'd have major trouble listening to the story and concentrating fully on it. I know my mind would wander, as the words washed over me, sort of like music. I like reading because I really zoom in on the words and can reread it over again and at my pace.

And, as it's already been said, you do have to check with authors beforehand.

Graeme · February 23, 2008

A lot will also depend on the quality of the recording. Most of us don't have access to professional studios to do the reading in, nor are many of us professional speakers.

Having said that, I've record three of my short stories which are available from my home site. They are the first three stories under the heading "Short Stories". In each of those stories, there's a "play" icon on the page to allow the story to be heard. However, I've had several people tell me that it's easier to read while listening, because of my accent.... There's another site, Codey's World, that also has the first two recordings available as MP3 downloads.

Having gone through that exercise, the idea of recording a novel, or even one of my longer short stories is... daunting. Even those short stories (not much more than a page in length) took me a long time to record, as I mispronouced words, stumbled with incorrect words, used the wrong emphasis, etc.

I don't listen to audio books, but I'll admit that maybe I'm missing out on something by not giving them ago. It would have to be a labour of love to create them, though, because it's a lot of effort.....

Tiff · February 23, 2008

That's one thing I forgot: ACCENTS! I was born in Queens, and although there are a variety of American accents, I've been told on one of my trips to California that I have a bit of an obvious East coast/NYC accent and naturally some words and syllables end up distorted. I have no doubt some people would be confused over what I was reading! And I tend to speak very fast, especially when I get excited.

And I agree with Graeme, creating them would be absolute torture! Long and tedious and aggravating, especially if you mess up and have to keep going over it again and again.

Is bribing/blackmailing/threatening/begging someone else to read it an option? lol!

Lazy Tiff

Tristan Thinks · February 23, 2008

I was more interested in how interested others might be in the option of listening to erotic stories as audio books. I was surprised when I first started listening to them at how good they are. I find the stories somehow gain an added dimension from the richness of the voice of the reader which surprised me since I'd always thought making up all the voices in my head as I read couldn't be bettered. I first got interested in them when I realised I was really enjoying listening to BBC Radio plays and book serialisations., something the 'Beeb' does so well.

I'm fully aware of the legal and technical mechanics required to produce the books, and I have the resources, technology, and access to a large number of people with a variety of accents across many countries who'd both be willing to do it, and would be able to deliver a quality result. The essence is to have a paced delivery rather than it being as fast as regular conversation.

There's also an accessibility issue of making stories available to people who have eyesight issues, whether blind or just with reading difficulties like a former boyfriend of mine who would suffer severe headaches after reading about a page of regular text and therefore hated reading anything, due to the pain, not a dislike of stories.

What I find strange is that when I ask people about audio books there's almost an automatic negative reaction, but when questioned most have never tried listening to good audio books and are just making a knee-jerk reaction. I tested it out on several friends once, during a sleep-over, leaving a book playing when we went to bed, and I was amazed that the next few days all of them were asking to borrow the audio book and then all of them, independently, went out and got their own recordings of various books.

Tiff: You may be surprised, but recording them can actually be a hell of a lot of fun, really!

Tristan Thinks · February 23, 2008

You know what, I guess it'd help for those who want to try audio books, to publish a few links to free web sites where they are available. There are several projects around the world dedicated to producing them, staffed by enthusiastic and talented volunteers, and many of the voice actors are really good.