I grew up with low vision, so I was taught how to sight read. In the last few years this has deteriorated and sight reading is becoming more and more of a struggle. I’ve always loved reading and I can’t bear the thought of giving it up, currently Amazon Kindle books are my default format, I can max up the font size and make it bold, but I know this won’t last forever. I’ve tried breaking myself into audio books over the years with hit and miss success. I started of with books I had already read, so I knew the story and could just get used to having a book read to me and not my own internal voice being in control.
The questions I ask myself when thinking of buying an Audio Book.
- Who is reading it?
- Can I stand to listen to that voice/accent for several hours?
- How much is it?
- CD or download?
It may seem trivial to some, just who reads the books, but to me the narrator is just as important as the cover art is for other people. I know people who prefer the American covers on books and go out of their way to order from Amazon.com just to get a specific cover. I don’t think it’s so much of a stretch to prefer a British English accent over an American English or Australian/New Zealand English accent. I know the money is in America so that is where the majority of the recording is done and that’s great if you are American, used to that accent and like it. But if you can’t stand some of the dialects you’re pretty much stuck! I’ve only found a handful of American narrators I can actually tolerate without getting a migraine. The American narraters I’ve come across and enjoy so far, Lorelei King, Dana Delany, Khristine Hvam, Rob Lamont and Kevin King.
Audio Books are probably one of the most expensive formats to buy, because more people are involved with voice talent and securing the rights to record the book in the first place, the price of Audio Books, CD’s in particular are often between £15-60+ rather than the usual £5 Kindle book and £11 occasional hard back copy. It’s incredibly unfair but it’s a fact, which is another reason I hesitate when I know there is an ebook alternative.
When you’re paying that much money out on hours of listening, you want to make sure you can stand the voice that’s reading it to you. I always preview the narration before buying an Audio Book and even then sometimes it doesn’t work out. I wish it was as simple as buying British English narration from Amazon.co.uk and if I want American or Australian I just go to Amazon.com and the Australian alternative.
I have a trust issue with digital downloads, over the years we’ve had multiple hard drive crashes, corruption and lost so much stuff. I prefer buying CDs so I always have a hard copy, then if I want them on my iPhone or on the computer it’s an easy process, and it doesn’t involve me losing a digital copy and forgetting to make a hard copy it’s done for me. I can understand why Audio Book CDs are slightly more expensive than ebooks and paperbacks because you’re getting a physical thing, but when digital downloads are the same price I find it ridiculous and just plain greedy.
I like to compare prices over the formats to get the best deal. I always check Amazon, Audible, Kobo, Ebooks and iTunes for every book I buy whether it’s Audio Book or an ebook. Here’s how it typically works out. As you can see the ebooks are always cheaper but the synth voice is just as bad.
Above is the latest book I’ve been researching and thinking of getting, it’s a new author to me recommended by a blindie friend, as you can see I will have to use 2 months worth of credits to buy it in separate downloads from Audible, or £40 in one pop, not going to happen. Whereas.. I could get the same book, same narrator, both unabridged on iTunes as one download for 1/10 of the price. They are both digital, you don’t get a cd case with artwork so why the heck is Audible charging so much for the same book that’s provided to both Audible and iTunes by the parent company Amazon?
Another thing that bugs me when it comes to Audio Books is that even short books are more expensive than their paperback and ebook counterparts. Here’s a couple of examples of my favourite short books, around 3 – 4 hours long.
The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo Audio CD Amazon £11.31
The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo Audible download £8.99
The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo Kindle ebook £2.99
Midget by Tim Bowler Audible download £12.29
Midget by Tim Bowler iTunes download £9.95
Now if you’re like me and a lot of other blindies out there, you are used to listening to things speeded up a little so often, it doesn’t take us 3 hours or 28 hours to read/listen to the standard running time. Another reason why I think Audio Books are over priced.
For a lot of us Audio Books are the only way to read or the preferred way, I don’t think we should be penalised for a basic right. I’m so disheartened with the voice talent provided. that I’m going through my 300+ ebook library and recording myself reading them using computer software, it’s going to take forever but if that’s what I have to do, while I still can, to be able to listen to a book then I’ll do it, but it shouldn’t be up to me. It should be up to the companies to provide decent voice talent in understandable and preferred accents. I have a Spanish friend who only buys Audio Books in English because the Spanish narrations are patronising and unbearable. This is just not good enough. There’s a gaping hole in the market for British English narraters, please, sighties, please fill the gap!
Now some of you may be saying, wait, doesn’t the RNIB provide a free talking book service with the Dairy Reader and Daisy Books? yes they do and I’ve been subscribing to it for almost 3 years but in that time I’ve found less than 10 books I actually liked and could listen to, My last batch was of some Margaret Mahy books I’ve been after for ages, they aren’t on Kindle and I had to give up within half an hour with all of them because they were recorded by the New Zealand branch of the RNIB. We have enough frustration in our daily lives without having to give up on books because we can’t bare the accent. Besides, what on earth do New Zealanders do to the English vowels?
In general I’ve found the talking service very limited, new books take ages to come out, and it’s mostly geared towards the very young or the elderly with genre’s of books and I’m constantly getting irritated with the catalogue not even having heard of the authors I want to read from.
Love Audio Books.
I love Audio Books because it still means that I can enjoy my favourite hobby and continue to learn things every day. They free you up, you can do all sorts of things around the house, even walk the dog while listening to the latest series. The flexibility of downloads and not limited to one place to get them from. The feeling like you can get the cover artwork with the cd versions.
Hate Audio Books.
Over priced, not enough acceptable narraters in preferred language, have to use a wifi connection to download books when I’d happily use up my contracted 3g connection data usage,
How do you read your books? If you read Audio Books who are your favourite authors and narraters?
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