51–60 of 162 posts
Audible's greatest assault is on my wallet. So many audiobooks on that platform are exorbitantly expensive.
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How come audio books can be as or even more expensive than the same book in paper format? There's no production, shipping, and so on involved with digital products, and the recording itself is a few hours with the voice talent, often the author themselves, and a few more people in a small studio.
I can actually answer that (due to random quirks in my life). 1) Opposite my office there used to be an audiobook company. Whole office of people built around a sound-booth where an actor would spend a week or so recording a book. I used to see the famousish coming out for smoke-breaks day-after-day. Maybe a dozen people, for a fortnight, to make 'an audiobook' 2) My wife used to work for a publishing company for hir…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can actually answer that (due to random quirks in my life). 1) Opposite my office there used to be an audiobook company. Whole office of people built around a sound-booth where an actor would spend a week or so recording a book. I used to see the famousish coming out for smoke-breaks day-after-day. Maybe a dozen people, for a fortnight, to make 'an audiobook' 2) My wife used to work for a publishing company for hir…
So what's the approximate cost of recording an audio book then? Is it a lot more than preparing the text for print? How much does distribution cost compared to the paper version? My uneducated guess is that the profit margin on audio books are much higher than paperbacks, maybe hardbacks as well.
https://findawayvoices.com/pricing/
> An average audiobook created with Findaway Voices has about 50,000 words and costs between $1,000 and $2,000. We can estimate the cost of your audiobook by multiplying a per finished hour narrator rate with the estimated length of your finished recording. The longer the book, the higher the estimate will be.
Playing with the sliders, they seem to estimate that a 50K-word book will be 200 finished hours. Their narrators charge a $250-$500 rate per finished hour. ("Narrators charge by the length of the delivered audio, not how many hours go into preparing, recording, editing, mastering, proofing, etc.")
Famous actors can cost arbitrarily more, of course.
People complaining forget what the industry was like before audible. It was terrible. Audiobook cost an absolute fortune, and selections were very limited. Audiobooks in the late 20th century were, I imagine, simular to paper books in 18th century. Something most of the population could not afford to own. I have been listening, and loving, audiobook for a very long time audible was, and still is, a breath of fresh ai…
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”A few hours with a few people” is - often multiple hours in the studio because people make mistakes, they get tired, they want to re-do passages etc. - during recording you want at the very least a sound technician, the voice talent, and a director/author/producer to listen in and give direction/corrections/adjustments on the reading - after recording you need at least an editor, a director/producer to make sure the…
People do Librivox recordings free of charge as volunteers. Those recordings are just as good as Audible recordings. I myself, with rudimentary gear and a free DAW, can create an Audible level recording for the mere cost of my time. I'm going to have to totally reject your list of expenses. Sounds like a bunch of superfluous positions and bloat.
No. They are not. I tried listening to Don Quixote Librivox. While a couple of readers are tolerable, several are terrible, and none are close to professional voice actor level. Which makes it really hard to get through. Check out the comments here too if you don't want to subject yourself to listening to the reading itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLTTJo0E1ag
Audible recordings in general are vastly superior.
The San Francisco Public Library uses an app called "Libby." (I think most major US libraries support it.) It's free and convenient. No complaints.
People complaining forget what the industry was like before audible. It was terrible. Audiobook cost an absolute fortune, and selections were very limited. Audiobooks in the late 20th century were, I imagine, simular to paper books in 18th century. Something most of the population could not afford to own. I have been listening, and loving, audiobook for a very long time audible was, and still is, a breath of fresh ai…
* Chirp, from Bookbub: https://www.chirpbooks.com
* Authors Direct: https://authors-direct.com (from Findaway Voices, which helps indies produce audiobooks)
* Overdrive and Hoopla are bringing library-purchased audiobooks to people: https://www.overdrive.com https://www.hoopladigital.com
Audible tries to get people locked into multi-year exclusive distribution contracts, and a lot of people go for it given their current hold on the market. Hopefully, demand will start rising for these other distribution channels.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People do Librivox recordings free of charge as volunteers. Those recordings are just as good as Audible recordings. I myself, with rudimentary gear and a free DAW, can create an Audible level recording for the mere cost of my time. I'm going to have to totally reject your list of expenses. Sounds like a bunch of superfluous positions and bloat.
Isn't this the equivalent of "I can do Dropbox in one weekend"?