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I am having a book that I love made into an audio CD. Do you feel there is a market for audio books? The audio book is being produced by a reliable production company and with a professional reader. The CD will be available from amazon.com or barnes&noble.com. The audio will also be able to be down loaded into Kindle or an iPad. Do you think this is worth the expense and time to produce?
I listen to audiobooks all the time when I work (jewelry artist). Primarily, current or classic fiction. It helps me pass the time with a story, where I don't have to look at anything other than my work.
The narrator is extremely important, in my opinion, and can make or break an audiobook. I have actually quit listening to a few books solely because I could not bear the way the narrator was reading it. Either too boring or (in the case of a recent murder mystery) overly emotive.
I listen to audiobooks on CD only, don't have a Kindle or iPad.
Whether it is worth the time and expense to produce, that depends on the book of course.
I also listen to audiobooks, usually on road trips (my parents live 6 hours away) or when I'm working around the house. I, too, only listen on CDs.
I agree that the narrator is important. I am listening to The Good Man of Nanking, the diaries of John Rabe, and the narrator is a woman. I find this very distracting. I'm pushing forward with it because it's a good book, but a woman shouldn't narrate a man's bio/autobio and a man should narrate a woman's. It's annoying.
I don't have a lot of choice, it's either audios (cassettes and CDs) or what I can get on a PC app because of the screen size. I enjoy both, but the reader is important - the wrong reader can either destroy a story or make it, also. Every once in awhile I get one of a series from the state library, and it will start with 'so and so was unavailble to continue reading this series' and then it might get dicey. I simply cannot imagine anyone other than Barbara Rosenblat reading the Amelia Peabody stories, for instance.
I am having a book that I love made into an audio CD. Do you feel there is a market for audio books? The audio book is being produced by a reliable production company and with a professional reader. The CD will be available from amazon.com or barnes&noble.com. The audio will also be able to be down loaded into Kindle or an iPad. Do you think this is worth the expense and time to produce?
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Ernest sure there is a market for audio books but if you think you are going to make any money at it you will probably be disappointed. Do you own the copyrights on the work you are recording? Unless you do, expect to get sued. Good narrators are difficult to hire and not cheap. Studio production costs are very expensive also. Remember it costs almost as much to produce one copy of something as it does ten thousand. So if you can't sell a minimum of 10,000 copies expect to lose money.
I don't, I actually loathe it. The few that I had listen to were atrocious, the intonation certainly affects what one might understand or perceive as something else; that's my beef with it.
But as it goes, I know plenty who do, so go for it. I guess.
The narrator is extremely important, in my opinion, and can make or break an audiobook. I have actually quit listening to a few books solely because I could not bear the way the narrator was reading it.
I used to drive long distances for work and would often get an audio book from the library to ride with me. I agree about the reader. There was a guy named George Guidell (unsure of exact spelling of last name) that was fantastic. I actually would search out for him to select a book.
And yes, the reader needs to be of the same gender as the protagonist. Even if it isn't first person, it just makes more sense.
Of course, you can't easily flip back to find something in an earlier passage, but audio books are a great time passer on long solo car rides.
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