Listening to literature

Tuesday September 15, 2009 5:49 PM By Emily Hulme

Born about 15 years ago, the audio book industry was a niche area of publishing, home mostly to recordings of self-help and business books. These days, however, audio books are booming in the publishing world, with every major fiction and non-fiction title released in the medium.

Though a relatively new idea, compared with the history of words on paper, audio books tap into something ingrained in the human experience.

“It harkens back to being read to, our earliest experiences of literature,” said James Pearson, director of corporate communications at audible.com, a major online sellet of audio books.

The recording
There’s more to recording the book than just reading it aloud. The process is pretty chaotic, as the audio and paper versions of a book are released concurrently to capitalize on marketing and promotion.

“It’s a nightmare because we’re working simultaneously,” said Patti Pirooz, executive producer at Penguin Audio. “So as the book is changing, we have to adapt too. If there’s a last minute round of changes from the author, we have to make sure that those changes are in the audio.”

Sometimes authors even make edits because of the audio.

“It can be a very enlightening process for the author to read through the entire book aloud,” said Tom Spain Editorial Director for Simon & Schuster Audio. “Sometimes that will actually result in changes to the book if the author hears something that they think would work better on the page in a different way.”

Readers receive the text sometimes days before they’re set to read it. Then there’s some discussion with the director and producer about how the book should sound. Ideally, once the reader is in the booth, there is little stopping for direction.

The complete audio file is then given to an audio engineer, who cuts out all the word flubs, misreadings, etc.

The rule of thumb, Pirooz said, is that for every hour of finished audio, at least two have been spent in the studio.

The reader
Some authors, including Neil Gaiman (“The Graveyard Book”), David Sedaris (“When You Are Engulfed in Flames”) and Elizabeth Gilbert (“Eat, Pray, Love”), choose to read their own books.

“When you have a book that’s a memoir,” Pirooz said, “it’s so personal … it makes a lot of sense to have the author read it, if they want to.”

But oftentimes an actor is brought in to do the job.

The casting process is similar to that of a film or TV show. The producer contacts agents they know, or sometime the author will know an actor who they’d like to read the part, and auditions are held.

Besides having voice talent, actors are sought for their ability to give a good reading in one take.

The extras
Some producers, in the process of adapting the book, will get creative with the material, enhancing the text with music or other sound effects. Pirooz said such flourishes can enhance the sensory experience.

But there is some debate over when and why to do this.

“Some authors and some librarians and some reviewers think that things like music and sound effects take away from the listening experience, because you’ll be sitting there and all the sudden strings are there,” said Dan Vitt, director of master recordings at Random House Audio. He also said that 90 percent of audio books are straight narration. Some books employ multiple actors to read different voices.

In the end, it all depends on the budget, and, of course, what the author wants.

Some authors really enjoy the embellishments. Sara Vowell’s latest, “The Wordy Shipmates,” features a full cast of readers and an original musical score.

“I don't know if it's a contradiction to say that I take audio books very seriously given that my productions are full of shenanigans,” she said. “But incorporating actors and musicians into the final product has numerous advantages - exploiting the strengths of the medium, giving the listener a break from my narration and achieving the sort of emotional manipulation than can only come from a musical score.”

What gets adapted
Some texts do work better than others as audio books. Here’s what the experts have learned.
•    “I think text books are kind of tricky, kind of boring. Mysteries are really fun,” Patti Pirooz, executive producer of Penguin Audio.
•    “Commercial fiction generally lend itself somewhat better than some kinds of literary fiction. Fiction works best when it’s plot and character driven. And on the non-fiction side, books that are reference in nature generally do not work as well in audio, or books that rely heavily on a visual element,” Tom Spain, editorial director for Simon & Schuster Audio.
•    “I’ve always said that every book has its own voice … I think part of our job is to sometimes take a book that might not be suited to audio and make it suited to audio,” Dan Vitt, director of master recordings at Random House Audio.

It’s all about character
Jim Dale, the award-winning voice of the “Harry Potter”series, created hundreds of voices over the course of sevenbooks. Time was tight for production; he would receive the book sometimes a day or two before production, and have to work 100 pages at a time, creating new characters as they came up.

Modestly, he said that the process of creation was pretty straightforward. “Well, you go along with the description of the author. There’s some indication as to what that voice should sound like, and then its up to you, the narrator, to try to find a very distinctive, clear voice.”

His favorite character to voice was Dobby the house elf, who happened to have been inspired by a real-life encounter.

“I met Dobby in an elevator,” he said. “I didn’t know he was there. It was a crowded elevator and suddenly I heard a little voice behind me saying ‘Excuse me sir, can you take your bum out of my face?’ And it was the voice of this little fellow, and I remember that from 20 years ago, and that’s the voice I used.”