Return of the Book Thread

[NowhereMan]

Based on dramatic readings on Radio 4, it will vary depending on the reader. Some of them will change their tone or read the dialogue as dialogue but won't do 'voices' beyond that. Some will, it really depends on the speaker and the book being read. A comedian reading a Pratchett novel probably would include funny voices but Kenneth Brannagh doing Great Expecations probably won't.

[bhodi]

The rule of thumb is that the newer the audiobook is, the higher production quality it's going to be. If the age of the audiobook is in the last 10 years or so, than the speaker is a professional narrator and uses different voices for the different characters. If it's a male, he can do female voices and vice versa. He generally says "Chapter One <pause> The blah of bleah. <Pause> It was the best", but leaves out a lot of the "He said." "She said." bits so that it flows a lot smoother. Part of the prep for the reader is to decide on a voice for each of the characters with appropriate accents and to understand how to pronounce all the words in the book.

If the age of the audiobook is more than 10-15 years, you're probably going into 'reading for the blind' territory which tends to be lower/varying quality because they are more volunteer and less professional. Most of the stuff like this that hasn't been remastered are old sci-fi books and classic novels.

Another type of audio are radio plays and the BBC radio productions for stuff like Red Dwarf and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They aren't really audiobooks and are really more like listening to a play. It often has sound effects and dialogue only without descriptions and 3rd person additions. I don't like them NEARLY as much.


I HIGHLY recommend you try some audiobooks, especially if you can listen to talk radio or podcasts in the car. I used to have a 1.5 hour one-way commute and audiobooks kept me sane. You can get them at any library or if you're more of the yarr bent on various websites. Or, from friends. Or, buy them from amazon or audible.com and such.

[HaemishM]

This talk of audiobooks brings up a question. I have the opportunity to make and sell audiobooks of my novels online, using places like audible.com that will act as the Amazon for the audiobook. I just have to provide the audio. Now obviously I'm not in any position to hire audio talent for a self-pubbed book, so I'd either have to do the whole thing myself or have my wife do the reading since she has radio experience and a great voice. Meanwhile, anyone whose heard me on Vent/Teamspeak/Mumble knows that I sound like a goddamn hayseed. Is it worth the effort? I don't do audiobooks myself, but I recognize there is an audience for it.

[bhodi]

This talk of audiobooks brings up a question. I have the opportunity to make and sell audiobooks of my novels online, using places like audible.com that will act as the Amazon for the audiobook. I just have to provide the audio. Now obviously I'm not in any position to hire audio talent for a self-pubbed book, so I'd either have to do the whole thing myself or have my wife do the reading since she has radio experience and a great voice. Meanwhile, anyone whose heard me on Vent/Teamspeak/Mumble knows that I sound like a goddamn hayseed. Is it worth the effort? I don't do audiobooks myself, but I recognize there is an audience for it.

Funny you say this; I follow Scott Brick and others on twitter and there was a blog entry a while ago that one of them linked that answered this very question. Unfortunately twitter lacks basic search functionality so I can't pull it up, but the answer is essentially that there is a lot of mid-tier and up-and-coming talent that needs practice reading real books and going through the process and so are willing to do it very inexpensively. I think it's similar to your story with editors. If your wife has radio experience, that might be OK, but a professional voice actor can make a book come alive in a way no one else can. Assuming you can find the right fit, which is crucial.

A month or two ago one of them did a 'day by day' blog of what it means to be a reader, which was pretty interesting, taking you through the prep work, grunt work, and then actual studio time of reading a book.

I have no information on numbers or how it might expand your reader base, or in general how popular audiobooks are, sorry :(

[Margalis]

Based on hearing Haem in LoL Vent I'd say he has a very pleasing voice, sort of an understated southern gentlemen.

Now that said I was born in the south myself, so maybe this is a case of one rube not being able to recognize another. 

[Chimpy]

This talk of audiobooks brings up a question. I have the opportunity to make and sell audiobooks of my novels online, using places like audible.com that will act as the Amazon for the audiobook. I just have to provide the audio. Now obviously I'm not in any position to hire audio talent for a self-pubbed book, so I'd either have to do the whole thing myself or have my wife do the reading since she has radio experience and a great voice. Meanwhile, anyone whose heard me on Vent/Teamspeak/Mumble knows that I sound like a goddamn hayseed. Is it worth the effort? I don't do audiobooks myself, but I recognize there is an audience for it.

You sound less like a hayseed and more like the professor who looked like Col Sanders in Waterboy.

[Murgos]

This is probably a good place to ask this - how exactly do audio books work?  I mean, I get that someone (presumably a good speaker) is basically just reading the text for you, but do they do voices or try to distinguish different speakers somehow?  Does the narrator/speaker say "Chapter One, 'chapter title', It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." and just go into the text?

I've thought about audio books before because sometimes it does get boring listening to the radio during my commute (1-1.5 hours depending on traffic - WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING ON MY ROADS LATELY!!!) and a change might be nice.  Just haven't listened to one before.

It's not that complicated.  Go to the library, check one out and listen to it.  It's someone reading a book, if they are any good they read it in a way that you want to listen to.  Whether it's voices (Christopher Lee reading Tolkien...) or intonation or just a nice pleasant voice.

[ghost]

This talk of audiobooks brings up a question. I have the opportunity to make and sell audiobooks of my novels online, using places like audible.com that will act as the Amazon for the audiobook. I just have to provide the audio. Now obviously I'm not in any position to hire audio talent for a self-pubbed book, so I'd either have to do the whole thing myself or have my wife do the reading since she has radio experience and a great voice. Meanwhile, anyone whose heard me on Vent/Teamspeak/Mumble knows that I sound like a goddamn hayseed. Is it worth the effort? I don't do audiobooks myself, but I recognize there is an audience for it.

I say do it.  I personally listen to a lot of audiobooks in the car and still haven't had a chance to actually read yours.  If you would like, I would act as the audio talent.  My voice is awesome.

[Engels]

There are some really exceptionally great readers out there. Scott Brick is one I like, also Nick Podehl, specifically his reading of Name of the Wind.

[bhodi]

So, if you were wondering what a professional audiobook narrator sounds like, listen to this:

http://simonvance.com/the-story-of-my-heart-goingpublic-on-twitter/

[lamaros]

So I read Snow Crash for the first time. Was really great for a bit, then...

What is it with SF and really god awful endings?

[Ingmar]

What is it with SFNeal Stephenson and really god awful endings?

Seriously, that's pretty much his thing. He's notorious for it.

[LK]

Just finished Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It's done wonders for maturing my perspective on Nietzsche, nihilism, and other highly complex, nuanced subjects.

[Ironwood]

Oddly, Snowcrash was probably his BEST ending.

That tells you a fair bit.

[Paelos]

Oddly, Snowcrash was probably his BEST ending.

That tells you a fair bit.

 

[lamaros]

What is it with SFNeal Stephenson and really god awful endings?

Seriously, that's pretty much his thing. He's notorious for it.

To be fair, the middle was a bit crap too, so it's not like he just sprung it on me.

I prefer Hamilton's "oh fuck! what will I do to sort this!" huge deux ex machina in the last 10 pages style of ending over 250 worth of drawn out blather though. At least you get 90% of good stuff that way. Sadly even Hamilton has leant towards the latter more with his recent books.

[HaemishM]

I liked the ending of Snow Crash. The Diamond Age just sort of ended leaving me with a "WTF?" moment. Interface had a better ending than both of them.

[Ironwood]

What, a black person in the Whitehouse ?

Bit fucking unrealistic, no ?

[HaemishM]

VISIONARY, GODDAMNIT!

[Margalis]

Snowcrash was great conceptually and had a good first few chapters but the book itself is pretty bad.

[naum]

One of these days I will get around to finishing Cryptonomicon. It started out interesting, but after a third of the way through, I just lost all interest.  

But I got further in there than with Infinite Jest, where I put down after only about ~20% of the way through.

[Rendakor]

I liked Snow Crash a lot; I haven't read it in a few years but don't remember anything terrible about the ending. Someone wanna sum up (in a spoiler if necessary) why it was so awful?

[Abagadro]

Hard to believe Snowcrash was published 20 years ago.  I'm half way through Reamde and liking it quite a bit.

[lamaros]

I liked Snow Crash a lot; I haven't read it in a few years but don't remember anything terrible about the ending. Someone wanna sum up (in a spoiler if necessary) why it was so awful?

TLDR: It becomes more heavy, drawn out and incoherent. It's not so bad that the book becomes horrible, but it's a real drop from the magnificence of the start.

[bhodi]

It could have used a few more 'Here's the fallout' chapters. It just sort of 'ends'. What happened to all the people on the raft? What happened when they "invaded" the coast? I want to know :(

[Salamok]

Hard to believe Snowcrash was published 20 years ago.

This is the single most interesting aspect of the entire book.

[Khaldun]

David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years.

Fucking great economic history. Which happens to subvert most of what your standard economist-type would claim about human history, and does it based on some serious research. Very readable.

[naum]

David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years.

Fucking great economic history. Which happens to subvert most of what your standard economist-type would claim about human history, and does it based on some serious research. Very readable.

I 2nd that.

I highlighted / underlined a great many paragraphs in it too.

[WayAbvPar]

Hard to believe Snowcrash was published 20 years ago.  I'm half way through Reamde and liking it quite a bit.

Ditto. So far it reads almost like a really detailed screenplay than a NS novel- I haven't hit his inevitable 50 page tangent on his favorite esoteric subject du jour yet (if it exists). And I wanna play T'Rain!

[K9]

I just finished Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut; the book is well written, but it seemed like he spent 190 pages building up to an apocalypse and then actually skimmed through it in 10 pages or so. It seemed rather anticlimactic. Did I miss something?

[Chimpy]

Just finished Warbreaker by Sanderson. Was possibly the worst book of his I have read.

Time to randomly grab some other author off the shelf when I leave work tonight (the joy of working in a library).

[stu]

I just finished Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut; the book is well written, but it seemed like he spent 190 pages building up to an apocalypse and then actually skimmed through it in 10 pages or so. It seemed rather anticlimactic. Did I miss something?

It's been a long time, but I remember the human folly being more important than the inevitable apocalypse. The moment the main character finds out the girl he's put on a pedestal has slept with the entire island population is presented as more of a shock that the Ice-9 event-- at least to my fifteen-year-old self (kinda makes sense that I'd see it that way back then).

[Chimpy]

So I randomly thought the other day that I would like to read Airframe by Crichton again. So I picked it up as I was leaving the library last night and decided, as is usual, to read a bit before I went to bed which happened to be about 1am. Ended up reading it cover-to-cover and went to bed at 5am.

I think I like that book because, while it does do some of the usual pontificating about the core subject as most Crichton books do, it actually is less over the top about it and is a pretty timely commentary on the way that the media in general and more importantly television mislead the general populace to uphold some narrative. And the book was written in 1996.

[Sky]

This is probably a good place to ask this - how exactly do audio books work?  

It's not that complicated.  Go to the library, check one out and listen to it.  It's someone reading a book, if they are any good they read it in a way that you want to listen to.  Whether it's voices (Christopher Lee reading Tolkien...) or intonation or just a nice pleasant voice.

Thanks for the library plug. We were just talking about downloadable audio, if you have an mp3 player you can hook into your car, it's an easy way to check out (heh) a bunch of audiobooks for free.

Looks like we got the new Esselmont at some point, just noticed it on the shelf. Yay for my fiancee. Since she asked me for some recommendations a couple years ago, our fantasy/sci-fi has become really good. Looking at the new book shelf, it's loaded with stuff...from this thread 

[Murgos]

My wife and I use downloaded library audiobooks a lot.  You don't even need to go to the library to check them out, the whole process happens online.