13143: Are There Print Books That Should Not Be Made Into Audiobooks?
Hey there, hero!
It might have been a book I narrated.
Or it might not.
I’m not sayin’ one way or the other.
But a listener brought up a nonetheless interesting opinion: that there are some print books that should not be made into audiobooks.
Too complicated. Too controversial. Too many pictures. Too outdated. Too boring. Too…whatever.
Do you agree? What kind of content would stop you from accepting a job to narrate a particular book? Let me know in the comments below.
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Raw transcript:
Raw transcript:
is it possible that there are print
books out there that have not yet been
converted into audio books or an
audiobook version made is it possible
that there are print books
that would not make a good audiobook
somebody offered some
feedback on a title that seems to think
so and we’ll take a look at that whole
issue
when we go into the full episode of this
the vo Heroes podcast
[Music]
so let me show you a review that I found
online maybe it was for one of my titles
maybe it wasn’t uh but it was from a guy
named Charles there it is on your screen
not good for an audio book two stars out
of five
too complicated to listen to perhaps
better in written form some books just
need to be read
2.0 performance 2.0 story
and I will tell you that if you had
asked me hey is this a title that you
think you know it’s more like a book of
maps or a coloring book probably not a
good audiobook uh I would have said no I
don’t I don’t feel that way at all
there’s lots of great information
there’s a story there there’s drama
there’s conflict it’s why wouldn’t it be
a great audiobook
but I do Wonder other than the obvious
prospects the obvious suspects like uh
you know I don’t know calendars like you
could you can buy there’s this concept
called Low content books
that are like planners and calendars and
notebooks and journals and things like
that there’s a whole sub-genre of books
that likely would not make for a good
audiobook
but not this one and I’m wondering if
people are just trolling
there were no other reviews like this on
that particular titles page
but are there books that you get into
and then you say yeah no I don’t think
this is nah not for me and I’m asking
this from the perspective of someone who
is narrating and producing audiobooks so
when you’re presented with an audition
are there books that you look at without
even looking at the audition sides are
there books that you look at and you go
yeah no not for me not gonna I don’t
think it would make a good audiobook and
certainly I’m not going to waste my time
doing it and if so why
I want to know because I’ve been
presented with this so rarely I I can’t
even remember the last time I looked at
something and said why would anybody
want to turn this into an audiobook why
is this audition even being presented to
me and I’m talking about ACX and I’m
talking about find a way because
certainly the big publishing houses the
big producers it would never get to the
point where they were offering sides for
an audition if the book was not
appropriate audiobook material
but I haven’t noticed that and certainly
in this case this was okay I’m gonna
come out with it this was a book that I
just finished called crooked
and it you know it was a book about uh
The Teapot Dome scandal in the very
first Senate inquiry into a scandal
today they’re pretty common but for a
while up until the 1920s there wasn’t
any such thing that that the senate or
the house they didn’t do investigations
and and uh you know hearings and so on
that were investigatory in nature anyway
you know there were there were senators
and there were there were uh government
workers and there were oil magnets and
uh there were whistleblowers I mean this
was a story yeah
so I’m wondering if you’ve ever done
that if you’ve looked at an audition and
said why do they want to do this why do
they want to do this
and if so why did you do that and and
you know because I’d love to know
if we as a community are telling
ourselves fairy tales and maybe giving
up opportunities and money
that you know maybe we shouldn’t be I
don’t know that’s why I’m asking uh so
let me know in the comments below uh
certainly if you want to be notified
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I’m David H Lawrence the 17th I thank
you so much for listening and for
watching and I will see you in the next
episode of the vo Heroes podcast
[Music]
(from YouTube)
Cook books are the worst! Unless you enjoy trying to pronounce, ingredients you’ve never heard of, French and Italian cooking terms and decoding abbreviations for measurements!
NEVER AGAIN!!!
Interesting, as one of my other clients specializes in them!
There is always going to be material that someone, somewhere would not feel comfortable to produce or read. That’s just human nature. But nothing available that is being produced should be unavailable to visually impaired or otherwise impaired just because someone doesn’t like the content. We should all have access to any thoughts or ideas that can be presented. We should even go so far as to seek out these materials so that all will have access and opportunity to weigh in. No one has the right or superior intellect to censor what the rest of the world should have access to.
I had a scammer make me a quick offer after my audition, and when they sent me the book, it was a very popular comic book. As you would expect, it had very little dialogue and the action was largely conveyed through the images. I would say comic books, for the most part, do not make good audiobooks.
The blind and low vision community benefits from all kinds of audiobooks being made. However, I did not enjoy an audiobook I bought about home organization because I needed to see the pictures and ideas they were talking about.
Kat, did you go back to your Audible library and see if there was a related PDF to download? If a related PDF was created for the title, any narrator with a properly prepared manuscript would have referenced that in the audiobook itself, but sometimes they don’t.
I recently listened to an audiobook that was a biography of a well known person. The audiobook came with link that had all of the photos referenced in the book. This was a case where the photos really added to the story, and I don’t think it would have been as interesting without being able to see them. So maybe that is an option to consider when deciding whether to make an audiobook version of a book.
That’s called a “related PDF.” We teach you how to create one in the VOHeroes Pro curriculum as part of the audiobook training.
Awesome! Looking forward to it.
How-to books that use diagrams and grids to illustrate a point but the author does not describe the information well enough to help the listener along.
Yes, any book that has more than a swear word a page. i would just say No and let one other voheroes do it. I agree with Trent Rose.
Sounds more like someone that did not care for the content. Also, he mentioned too complicated. That may be a red flag for the commenter that maybe his education level is not a match for the level of content. Honestly just sounds more like a typical internet troll and I wouldn’t put much weight on the comment. Especially if there were no other similar reviews.