IMO the coolest thing about this kickstarter didn't even get a mention in the fastcompany article.
One of the premiums is, for people who donate $10000 or more, an opportunity to commission another story set in this universe based on a mutually agreed writing prompt.
He's offering 5 of those, and 3 have been claimed. That's brilliant.
Think what a windfall that could be for some writers. This is the first time I've noticed anyone trying this model. It's easy to imagine that it could work well for some creators (not necessarily only writers) with a small but ardent and growing fan base.
I've long bemoaned the sorry state of English audiobooks in comparison to Russian audiobooks.
Audiobook interpreters like Игорь Князев or Александр Клюквин are household names to Russian speakers. Can any English speaker remember the name of the interpreter of their favourite audiobook? Only when it's the author himself, I guess. And only because of the abysmal quality.
There were once radio plays, but with the demise of radio, audio plays barely exist nowadays in English while they still strive in Russian.
This largely due to the difference in markets. English-speaking market is dominated by corporations and is severely policed.
Russian-speaking market is grassroots, uncensored and abundant in small producers / new names.
P.S. Aside from the hard-to-find recordings from 1960..1990ies, French audiobooks are even worse.
I fell like you're kidding, since my experience is pretty much the opposite, and precisely for the reason that narrators in English are professionals. Some names: William Dufris, Wil Wheaton, Nigel Planer (namely his narrations of ‘Discworld’). Scott Brick, mentioned nearby, is good—but his narrations of Asimov have the spirit of 50s' over-the-top actors and TV announcers.
Also narrators in the West are often voice actors by trade, or just actors of theatre and film doing voice work on the side. E.g. Steven Fry's narration of the ‘Harry Potter’ novels is gorgeous, Tim Curry's of ‘A Series Of Unfortunate Events’ is also very good, Jeremy Irons' voice and demeanor is a perfect fit for Nabokov's mood and writerly lyricism in ‘Lolita’.
Generally, I went through quite a bunch of unknown-to-me narrators, and had few qualms—whereas in Russian it's a gamble whether a reading will be tolerable. ‘Grassroots’ narrators sometimes have quirks that they apparently consider charming, but in practice are off-putting. Or narrators break into stereotypical kitschy voices, especially with old-time material like Dostoevsky: e.g. for orthodox priest characters. Or the production is just crappy.
Notably, best narrators in Russian seem to be either professionals hired by proper publishers, or straight up actors. Namely, Mikhail Gorevoy, Alexey Bagdasarov, Evgeny Ternovsky (Михаил Горевой, Алексей Багдасаров, Евгений Терновский). And for example, the magnificent many-voices narration of ‘The Good Soldier Švejk’ by Bagdasarov, Alexey Kortnev and others. Vladimir Samoilov's reading of ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ is incredibly good and touching on a whole different level, and he seems to be an old-time Soviet actor. Klukvin is also a treat to the ear, but again when the production quality is there, like with ‘Master and Margarita’.
> Can any English speaker remember the name of the interpreter of their favourite audiobook?
Loads of audiobooks of bestsellers in English are narrated by big-name actors. Often ones who also do a lot of theatre and bring that dramatic flair to their readings. Look at the Chronicles of Narnia, for instance: its narrators are Kenneth Branagh, Alex Jennings, Michael York, Lynn Redgrave, Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Northam and Patrick Stewart, all known from stage and screen for their powerful voices.
Roy Dotrice did, for the most part, a superb job of narrating the Song of Ice and Fire series (Game of Thrones). So much so that when he wasn't available to narrate A Feast for Crows, the publisher replaced him with John Lee who was so completely the wrong choice that the publisher relented to fan requests and had Roy Dotrice re-record the book.
It's a shame he won't be around to finish narrating the series. Then again, at the rate George R. R. Martin is going, neither will he be around to finish writing them.
Mark Boyett is one of Audible's in-house regulars. I've bought many an audiobook simply because he was performing it.
In terms of "celebrity" narrators (other than those named Wil Whedon)... I enjoy James Marsters (Spike from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")'s work on the Dresden Files series. I would listen to pretty much any book those two performed.
I have to agree with my sibling post. I seek out narrators like Wil Wheaton, Ray Porter and Luke Daniels. I will often look at the other work that a narrator has done in the hopes that it will be worth considering.
There are also excellent cast based readings, like Cory Doctorow's last novel Walkaway (which had among other people Amanda Palmer in it).
There are also some excellent cast based reading Audible. American Gods comes to mind.
Michael Kramer and Kate Reading (husband and wife team) are some of the best fantasy narrators available (in my opinion). I would pick up a book I've never even heard of if they're attached to the narration.
> Can any English speaker remember the name of the interpreter of their favourite audiobook?
I can, but that's probably because I partially rely on audiobooks (in addition to eBooks with text-to-speech) because of blindness.
> There were once radio plays, but with the demise of radio, audio plays barely exist nowadays in English
Agreed that unfortunately, the amount of radio plays being produced has dramatically decreased (excuse the pun). But I mostly notice this in English speaking nations other than the United Kingdom like Canada and the US. In the UK, radio drama is still very much alive, with the BBC and third parties like Big Finish producing a ton of great content.
I'll take this opportunity to recommend Downpour, an Audible alternative I use. No DRM, you can download your audiobooks in mp3 format: https://downpour.com
Honestly, I respect Cory Doctorow for sticking to his principles and doing something that is sure to hurt financially. Unfortunately, like many other people, I only ever listen to audiobooks on Audible, and if something isn't there - I won't listen to it. This is rare enough that it almost never happens - and my list of books to read is long enough that I will never ever run out of things I want to read.
I've actually never read Cory Doctorow's books (yet!), so I'm obviously not the people he imagines as the prime market for this in any case.
Whilst dressed up in the language of principle it is, in economic terms, just another creative whose reputation provides for a "pre-sold" market he is able to exploit for greater personal profit.
Pretty standard: Louis CK was the first mover in comedy on this; pop artists are following.
The "basic internet" works extremely well as a dumb & free distribution channel if you don't need to build an audience.
I'm not saying Cory is insincere, but I am unconvinced his sincerity would hold were he a budding author. On the surface at least, it just reads like yet another artist hamstrung by their distributor whose reputation has superseded their need.
If one were to be even more cynical, as Cory himself admits, you could see the whole anti-amazon complaint as a mere marketing tactic. It is, in any case, /why/ this has succeeded and why we are talking about it.
I'm very curious to know what the original ending of little brother was. Sad to say it's sold out, and even if it weren't, I don't have 1k to find out. I hope we can all find out eventually.
I'm confused and haven't found an answer in the comments yet -- he won't release the audiobook on Amazon because of DRM -- but he is releasing the ebook on Amazon? Isn't that also DRM?
Is he just picking his battles one by one? Or is somehow the Amazon ebook DRM acceptable whereas the audio isn't?
I understand the issues with DRM. I respect Cory's position.
But honestly, Audible is how I listen to audiobooks. If it's not there, I'm not going to buy it. I've pretty much transitioned all of my casual, entertainment reading to audio (still using physical/digital for more technical reading).
This feels like what Gabe Newell said about piracy. For most people, piracy is not a pricing problem, and DRM is not an ethics problem. In both cases, they are service problems. If DRM is keeping consumers from using their audiobook in some device of their choosing, they'll go out of your way to get a DRM-free copy. But if the DRM is sufficiently universal that they don't notice it's there, why would they care?
With the member deals, Audible is cheap, and I treat audiobooks as a transient form of amusement and edutainment. They have a generous return policy. The membership is even better now with access to a library of audiobooks. The value I've received so far has been well worth the chunk of change I've forked over even if I lose my library due to Audible shenanigans.
Of all companies, I think Audible treats its customers well.
Does Audible not allow you to import books from other services? I don't understand why you would need to buy your books from Audible unless they've got some kind of weird, arbitrary policy about not playing nicely with anybody else.
You should check out Libby if you haven't already. It allows you to checkout audiobooks from your local library for free! I've transitions pretty much all of my book consumption to this
Moreover, the quality of Audible interpretations is rarely good. Once in a while, they drag you into dirty schemes, like interpreting only a portion of book, but selling it nevertheless (I am looking at you, Bruce Schneier, and your Data and Goliath so called audiobook).
What was the point of this comment? You listen using a service that abuses its users and you want everyone to know it, sure, but...there's literally no substance to the comment. It's pure fluff. You didn't even explain why or give any reasoning whatsoever. Just, "I do [thing]."
Dunno how I'm expected to read that article while a jumpy vid is playing next to it on the right, being nailed to the screen despite my scrolling, and a keyboard-focus-stealing popup opens on the left, covering the content.
Regarding Doctorow, afaik he took the Audible-avoiding course years ago, negotiating with his publisher that the audiobooks are to not have DRM. I went through his books in 2018, so the story must be at least that old.
I've been bitten by DRM and I know people that have lost music they paid for because of it. I once ran into a DRMed version of Little Brother, reported it and got a personal response from Cory. I think that is pretty cool. He's definitely one of my heroes and I love to support these kind of initiatives.
So when is the app coming out that reads the epub of my choice in the natural voice of the narrator I like? You cant tell me that Google didn't already show this a couple of years ago - it was making restaurant reservations back then.
> to sidestep the walled garden of Amazon-owned audiobook platform Audible
Aren't all stores a 'walled garden'? They decide what they want to sell. Curation. Seems completely reasonable to me?
> Instead, Doctorow is selling the recorded version of the book through a Kickstarter campaign, and it will also be available through non-Amazon vendors like Google’s Play store and libro.fm
So there's multiple competing options he can already use? What on earth is the problem here?
I dont see how an established author like Cory needs a
Kickstarter to finance an audiobook.
I think he can do easily on his own, and have various
companies queuing outside his door to finance or publish it.
If you were an unknown author and none of the established publishers were interested I see that as a Kickstarter candidate but then raising funding would be difficult.
Cory has all sorts of means og financing and getting paid
Text to speech that you can run on your own computer is not great but it gets the job done without involving audible. I personally like it because it doesn't have the interpretation that human readers bring to stories.
Of course I still find myself still battling DRM for even text ebooks just to get access to the raw text itself for use with command line tools.
> Text to speech that you can run on your own computer is not great
Understatement of the century.
> I personally like it because it doesn't have the interpretation that human readers bring to stories.
I suspect that you're in the minority for audiobook listeners. Does this mean that you don't like movies because of the interpretation that human actors, directors, videographers, and composers bring to the scripts? I don't enjoy _ever_ narrator, but there are a lot of really fantastic human narrators out there.
Cory, first and foremost, sticks to his guns and writes what he believes. Glad to see this getting some press.
He makes me want to ditch my kindle for a kobo, but the book buying experience is just not as good/workable for me along with rebuying my catalogue. Not to mention cost of hardware.
Isn't a paper book also kind of DRMed? It's pretty difficult to copy? You could put it on a photo copier, but then I guess you could also tape record an audible book to copy it.
I respect that he wants his books to be available without DRM, but why not simply offer a way for audible shoppers to download a DRM free copy from another source?
[+] [-] hoistbypetard|5 years ago|reply
One of the premiums is, for people who donate $10000 or more, an opportunity to commission another story set in this universe based on a mutually agreed writing prompt.
He's offering 5 of those, and 3 have been claimed. That's brilliant.
Think what a windfall that could be for some writers. This is the first time I've noticed anyone trying this model. It's easy to imagine that it could work well for some creators (not necessarily only writers) with a small but ardent and growing fan base.
[+] [-] sam_lowry_|5 years ago|reply
Audiobook interpreters like Игорь Князев or Александр Клюквин are household names to Russian speakers. Can any English speaker remember the name of the interpreter of their favourite audiobook? Only when it's the author himself, I guess. And only because of the abysmal quality.
There were once radio plays, but with the demise of radio, audio plays barely exist nowadays in English while they still strive in Russian.
This largely due to the difference in markets. English-speaking market is dominated by corporations and is severely policed.
Russian-speaking market is grassroots, uncensored and abundant in small producers / new names.
P.S. Aside from the hard-to-find recordings from 1960..1990ies, French audiobooks are even worse.
[+] [-] aasasd|5 years ago|reply
Also narrators in the West are often voice actors by trade, or just actors of theatre and film doing voice work on the side. E.g. Steven Fry's narration of the ‘Harry Potter’ novels is gorgeous, Tim Curry's of ‘A Series Of Unfortunate Events’ is also very good, Jeremy Irons' voice and demeanor is a perfect fit for Nabokov's mood and writerly lyricism in ‘Lolita’.
Generally, I went through quite a bunch of unknown-to-me narrators, and had few qualms—whereas in Russian it's a gamble whether a reading will be tolerable. ‘Grassroots’ narrators sometimes have quirks that they apparently consider charming, but in practice are off-putting. Or narrators break into stereotypical kitschy voices, especially with old-time material like Dostoevsky: e.g. for orthodox priest characters. Or the production is just crappy.
Notably, best narrators in Russian seem to be either professionals hired by proper publishers, or straight up actors. Namely, Mikhail Gorevoy, Alexey Bagdasarov, Evgeny Ternovsky (Михаил Горевой, Алексей Багдасаров, Евгений Терновский). And for example, the magnificent many-voices narration of ‘The Good Soldier Švejk’ by Bagdasarov, Alexey Kortnev and others. Vladimir Samoilov's reading of ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ is incredibly good and touching on a whole different level, and he seems to be an old-time Soviet actor. Klukvin is also a treat to the ear, but again when the production quality is there, like with ‘Master and Margarita’.
[+] [-] Mediterraneo10|5 years ago|reply
Loads of audiobooks of bestsellers in English are narrated by big-name actors. Often ones who also do a lot of theatre and bring that dramatic flair to their readings. Look at the Chronicles of Narnia, for instance: its narrators are Kenneth Branagh, Alex Jennings, Michael York, Lynn Redgrave, Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Northam and Patrick Stewart, all known from stage and screen for their powerful voices.
[+] [-] Zelphyr|5 years ago|reply
It's a shame he won't be around to finish narrating the series. Then again, at the rate George R. R. Martin is going, neither will he be around to finish writing them.
[+] [-] subpixel|5 years ago|reply
The BBC Radio iPlayer app I use almost daily is full of radio plays. It’s definitely a British thing.
[+] [-] StevePerkins|5 years ago|reply
In terms of "celebrity" narrators (other than those named Wil Whedon)... I enjoy James Marsters (Spike from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")'s work on the Dresden Files series. I would listen to pretty much any book those two performed.
[+] [-] TylerE|5 years ago|reply
Scott Brick being the most well known, probably, although there are several others.
[+] [-] vertis|5 years ago|reply
There are also excellent cast based readings, like Cory Doctorow's last novel Walkaway (which had among other people Amanda Palmer in it).
There are also some excellent cast based reading Audible. American Gods comes to mind.
[+] [-] brandoncordell|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philsnow|5 years ago|reply
Rob Inglis for Lord of the Rings
[+] [-] mrkstu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jscholes|5 years ago|reply
I can, but that's probably because I partially rely on audiobooks (in addition to eBooks with text-to-speech) because of blindness.
> There were once radio plays, but with the demise of radio, audio plays barely exist nowadays in English
Agreed that unfortunately, the amount of radio plays being produced has dramatically decreased (excuse the pun). But I mostly notice this in English speaking nations other than the United Kingdom like Canada and the US. In the UK, radio drama is still very much alive, with the BBC and third parties like Big Finish producing a ton of great content.
[+] [-] riffnote|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edanm|5 years ago|reply
I've actually never read Cory Doctorow's books (yet!), so I'm obviously not the people he imagines as the prime market for this in any case.
[+] [-] mjburgess|5 years ago|reply
Whilst dressed up in the language of principle it is, in economic terms, just another creative whose reputation provides for a "pre-sold" market he is able to exploit for greater personal profit.
Pretty standard: Louis CK was the first mover in comedy on this; pop artists are following.
The "basic internet" works extremely well as a dumb & free distribution channel if you don't need to build an audience.
I'm not saying Cory is insincere, but I am unconvinced his sincerity would hold were he a budding author. On the surface at least, it just reads like yet another artist hamstrung by their distributor whose reputation has superseded their need.
If one were to be even more cynical, as Cory himself admits, you could see the whole anti-amazon complaint as a mere marketing tactic. It is, in any case, /why/ this has succeeded and why we are talking about it.
[+] [-] dannyr|5 years ago|reply
Fortunately, Cory Doctorow is an esteemed author that has enough avid fans who would buy his content even though it's not on Amazon.
[+] [-] satvikpendem|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Red_Leaves_Flyy|5 years ago|reply
I'm very curious to know what the original ending of little brother was. Sad to say it's sold out, and even if it weren't, I don't have 1k to find out. I hope we can all find out eventually.
[+] [-] kkdsafjid|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rrauenza|5 years ago|reply
Is he just picking his battles one by one? Or is somehow the Amazon ebook DRM acceptable whereas the audio isn't?
(Genuinely curious...)
[+] [-] trissylegs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frio|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kikokikokiko|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TekMol|5 years ago|reply
Is there a good place to buy audiobooks as simple MP3s?
[+] [-] Wowfunhappy|5 years ago|reply
Google Play also offers downloads but it tends to be more expensive, assuming you're making use of Libro and Downpour's credit system.
[+] [-] forbiddenvoid|5 years ago|reply
But honestly, Audible is how I listen to audiobooks. If it's not there, I'm not going to buy it. I've pretty much transitioned all of my casual, entertainment reading to audio (still using physical/digital for more technical reading).
[+] [-] CobrastanJorji|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abnry|5 years ago|reply
Of all companies, I think Audible treats its customers well.
[+] [-] danShumway|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samschooler|5 years ago|reply
https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby/
[+] [-] sam_lowry_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kick|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 4AoZqrH2fsk5UB|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaccinator|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aasasd|5 years ago|reply
Regarding Doctorow, afaik he took the Audible-avoiding course years ago, negotiating with his publisher that the audiobooks are to not have DRM. I went through his books in 2018, so the story must be at least that old.
[+] [-] dcow|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teekert|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bawana|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisseaton|5 years ago|reply
Aren't all stores a 'walled garden'? They decide what they want to sell. Curation. Seems completely reasonable to me?
> Instead, Doctorow is selling the recorded version of the book through a Kickstarter campaign, and it will also be available through non-Amazon vendors like Google’s Play store and libro.fm
So there's multiple competing options he can already use? What on earth is the problem here?
[+] [-] ThinkBeat|5 years ago|reply
I dont see how an established author like Cory needs a Kickstarter to finance an audiobook.
I think he can do easily on his own, and have various companies queuing outside his door to finance or publish it.
If you were an unknown author and none of the established publishers were interested I see that as a Kickstarter candidate but then raising funding would be difficult.
Cory has all sorts of means og financing and getting paid
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] superkuh|5 years ago|reply
Of course I still find myself still battling DRM for even text ebooks just to get access to the raw text itself for use with command line tools.
[+] [-] ebg13|5 years ago|reply
Understatement of the century.
> I personally like it because it doesn't have the interpretation that human readers bring to stories.
I suspect that you're in the minority for audiobook listeners. Does this mean that you don't like movies because of the interpretation that human actors, directors, videographers, and composers bring to the scripts? I don't enjoy _ever_ narrator, but there are a lot of really fantastic human narrators out there.
[+] [-] LibertyBeta|5 years ago|reply
He makes me want to ditch my kindle for a kobo, but the book buying experience is just not as good/workable for me along with rebuying my catalogue. Not to mention cost of hardware.
[+] [-] kkdsafjid|5 years ago|reply
I respect that he wants his books to be available without DRM, but why not simply offer a way for audible shoppers to download a DRM free copy from another source?
[+] [-] thayne|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaynothx|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hutattedonmyarm|5 years ago|reply