The Water-babies by Charles Kingsley has had, according to the archive.org ticker, 10,148 downloads! Hoorah! Now, admittedly, their counter has good days and bad weeks, and it also counts any file as a download … so that could be 600 people downloading all 17 files separately, or it could be 10,000 people downloading the zip file once each. Plus, many LV books are available via BitTorrents, other audio download sites, and on eBay. So it’s an entirely arbitrary milestone, but it’s my milestone and I’m proud of it anyway!
My other solos are pootling along in reasonable form. Love and Freindship by Jane Austen, has been downloaded 4,891 times — as it has only 3 parts, that’s a minimum of 1690 downloaders. Rather cool! Dear Gertrude, released only a month later, is lagging the set with just 1,735 downloads of its three files / zip collection. This does not surprise me in the least … while it was storming fun to read, I can’t imagine listening to it unless I was contemplating a spectacular mashup in words, music and visuals. (I *hope* someone does that soon, it HAS the potential!) Nesbit’s Unlikely Tales has had 2,858 downloads in 3 months … which is actually rather less than I thought. Mathilda, the Mary Shelley novella is romping along with 2,375 downloads in six weeks - much more than I thought. It IS interesting to know what people want to hear.
I conclude from all this that I do not have even *slightly* popular taste in solo-project books. That said, collaboratively, I am a part of Jane Eyre, which is LibriVox’s top downloaded archive.org book at 391,407 times. (Boggling Big Number.) There’s a “sneeze and you’ll miss me” contribution to Oliver Twist, 181,604 downloads. The other Austen’s I have contributed chapters to clock in at 120,446 for Mansfield Park, 88,659 times for Northanger Abbey (and Persuasion’s 36,591 isn’t in the Top 50!) Unexpectedly, Reviews, by Oscar Wilde is my other entry in the Top 50 with 74,963 downloads. That has 99 files, though, and it’s the sort of thing I’d expect people to pick at, rather than dousing themselves in the whole lot. (Yes, it’s Oscar, and Yes, he does have some droll moments, but nothing in the sections I read (3 or 4?) has stuck with me as über-quotable.)
Still. If it were all about the numbers, I’d be pirating Potter. If it were all about the fame, I guess a solo recording of Jane Eyre would be a solid bet. Since it is, in fact, all about the Posterity, and I strongly believe in the right of all of my authors to audio representation for Posterity … we’re all good. Plus, this shows very decent credentials as a team player, which is nice. So, hmm, what under-loved specimen of literature will I pick on next?
This week’s community podcast is themed from the forum thread for “One book a week in 2008″. (I’ve only read 12 so far — I think I’m behind?) There was a bit of discussion there about whether listening to a book was the same as reading it. Of course, it comes down to definitions. If the aim is to take possession of a story, then for sure, reading, listening, Braille or graphic novels all work as methods for an author to communicate with other folks. As snobby as some book groups may be about “those who listen” as compared to “those who read”, there’s usually little difference at the end of the day in the speed of the book-discussion going off on a huge and permanent tangent.
Books expand one’s vocabulary — visual has the advantage of teaching the brain spelling, while audio conveys a version of the pronunciation. (Please do not try to pronounce “isthmus” as I do, though, it just ain’t right.)
Paper books are traditionally more sensual than audiobooks, they allow for cosying under blankets, torchlit exploration, the physical response of scent and touch bibliophiles get walking into an old library or second-hand book shop and running their hand over book spines. However, audiobooks have had a recent boost in this area, thanks to the ol’ iPod, which gets owners in a sleek, elegant design froth in no time flat. Steampunking an iPod would seem to be the ultimate win.
Audiobooks suffer much more from “out of sight, out of mind” — I don’t rifle my hard drive of a Sunday afternoon trying to decide what to listen to, in the same way that I peruse my bookshelves. And there’s the unspoken horror of obsolescence (you have a generation 1 iPod, darlink, how retro!) in the hardware and format (MP3s have been going strong since at least 1991, but … how much longer will they last? And how good will they sound shifted into whatever replaces them?) Plus, literacy isn’t grokking the story of Don Quixote … it’s being able to understand how to complete an accident report form or fill in a bank account application.
I’m a firm both-ist. Losing either format would cut down on the richness of my world. Have been thinking about this for a while, and there’s a bit of a waffle in this ‘ere podcast. It hardly even begins to get into the nuances … what about (dubious) learning preferences for visual, audio or kinetic (wonder if that last is the act of LibriVoxing a book — certainly reading the text aloud is a pretty amazing method of consuming it.) I tried not to produce an Audiobook Party Political Broadcast, or the preface of a book (simultaneous publication in paper and MP3, please). Dunno how successful I was. Rest assured, the other people contributing sound great!
I went absolutely nuts in this week’s comunity podcast and talked for at least 3 minutes! And sang (for about 10 seconds in total, fear not.) Plus I also used the 148yr old voice recording that’s been doing the rounds this week, and commissioned a great interview — chocoholic talking to ExEmGe (LibriVox’s ‘golden voice’.)
<thinking out loud> It’s a shame, in a way, that my first podcast ever was so lavish and fun and planned weeks in advance … it means that subsequent, normal ones are feeling like a bit of a comedown. I think there’s only so much “goodness, we’re all amazing, let’s do more” that listeners can take, but still. I do have a couple of fun ideas that I need to muster time and energy to put into action, and I have lots of neat interviews lined up, which is prolly my favourite thing to listen to, out of all the things that can be in a podcast. But … none of that’s as glamorous as “Sucking at reading audiobooks - and how not to!”. Admittedly, most of the glam came from how funny it is to hear people doing it so terribly wrong. But still. It enticed several new people to start reading, and that’s a very neat thing indeed. And something I’d like to do again, if only I could work out how. <still thinking>
I updated my Hear Me page and associated spreadsheet today and can proudly announce – I have reached 50 hours of recorded contributions to the public domain! 50 hours and 16 mins, to be precise, (which I need to be with all that Pi in there.)
Think I might start counting the podcasts, too … okay, they don’t have that much of my voice in them, but it’s still audio I’m slaving over, and (incredibly) they do take longer than my own recordings.
Talking of podcasts, here’s my seventh: with super toe-tapping music this week, and an interview with the LibriVox “voice of Mark Twain”, John Greenman. Not that I DID the interview, I commissioned it. It’s called Delegation, you know. *wink*
My editions of the LibriVox Community Podcast are getting shorter. This week’s is 11min, 11secs, and I didn’t even do that deliberately. That’s just how it came out once I’d slapped a bit of Tchaichovsky’s Romeo & Juliet around a bunch of great contributions from kind volunteers and people I mugged as they wandered through the forums.
From my posting here, it might seem like all I’ve been doing is podcasts recently (and I’m down for next week, too) but I have been working on my two sekrit solo books, and of course, thinking about other possibilities. This is helped by the fact that I think my reading’s improved in the last week or so. The last file I sent off to Mandarine for editing, came back with only a few rereads needed (compared to the usual hefty list) — and the unedited file was some minutes shorter than the previous chapter’s, even though they had about the same number of words.
I don’t think that’s down to me reading faster … but the opposite! I’m reading slower and making fewer mistakes as a result. The source of this wonder? Watching Scott Brick read. Apparently I am such a visual learner that I can pick up something of audio technique by watching someone else’s lips move. A more simply-written text, that I audio-edited myself, showed the same improvement … slower & more thoughtful where appropriate, and YAY fewer mistakes! I’m down from a 1:7 production ratio (7hrs of work to give 1hr of audio) to mebbe 1:6 and it might even get to 1:5 if I prepare the text properly first (aka. read it.) Whoooosh!
So, when I said, never again, not that LibriVox community podcast, for lo, it doth take bloomin’ hours to put together … I guess I meant, never again for at least three months.
This week’s LV podcast is a wonder of brevity, being under 14 minutes long … somehow into that time I’ve fitted twelve different voices, two pieces of music and a sound effect, which go to make up adverts for five new projects, one new forum thread and a newly-released project. The brevity didn’t extend to the production process, of course, but it IS actually rather a lot of fun pillaging archive.org for suitable bits and bobs which are in the public domain and therefore fair game for my use.
Something which I’m thrilled about but no-one else will care a jot — I put this entire podcast online by myself. Okay, it’s true I followed great instructions. To the letter. But still, in jargon terms, I had ownership of the entire process from inception to aural completion. Pretty cool. And I still don’t own an iPod.
Frustratingly, archive.org is all over the place at the moment, and is not accepting new uploads as easily as it used to. Which means I have a heap of recordings just sitting around waiting for things to straighten up. I’ve finished my latest solo (E. Nesbit’s Nine Unlikely Tales - quirky fairy stories), and have contributed some poetry to Weekly / Fortnightly collections which are also waiting. I seized upon the last section of Paradise Lost and it is recorded, but I’ve not found the momentum to edit it yet, since even though that would complete the book … the upload’s in limbo. The Mystery Story Collection, which homes my favourite self-recording to date, is also goin’ nowhere right now. It’s all so annoying. I know archive.org’s free and performing a great service and all that … but I Want It To Work Now.
The one thing that HAS improved there in the last few days, and which had been broken for weeks, is the download counters. Currently, for my solos, Austen’s had 2,336 downloads, Stein is sitting pretty on 816 and Kingsley is at 3,618. Jane Eyre, to whom I contributed a single chapter (but the one where she meets Rochester!) is rapidly approaching the quarter-million mark, today it’s at 247,927 downloads and is LibriVox’s top book. Cool, cool.
LibriVox Volumes 1 and 2 are now available to the public, ten stories in each … and now we’re busy filling up the third. I’ve contributed one story to each so far, and I’ll need to stock up with more readings, since these things tend to go quickly!
The strangest thing about my contribution to Vol 1 is that it’s the only text I’ve knowingly recorded by a still living author (not counting various recordings of forum posts and FAQs and stuff.) US copyright law is plain odd: where a story by (alive) Harry Harrison published in 1962 can fall into the public domain — but where Kafka, who died in 1924 (more than 70 years ago which is the current US copyright term) still retains a US copyright on The Trial and The Castle (in original German and thus subsequent translations) until at least 2021. Note, I am not a lawyer in any country. Even the limited calculation I do with these laws makes my head hurt. But this is my working understanding of the state of play.
Still, it’s not like there’s any shortage of books to record, and since my legal understanding includes the “rule of shorter term” which in dangerously-abridged form I think means “if it’s by a USan author, and Public Domain in the US, the UK will just go along with that copyright status, thankyewverymuch,” I can be kept very happy reading Sci Fi shorts amongst everything else.
Just finished making a static page which lists and links all of my recordings so far. Since I’ve completed 179, this has taken a while. Still, it’s a good list. And hopefully keeping it current won’t be too complicated, since a fair bit of what I record now, I am also organising behind the scenes (BCing or MCing in LV terms), so I’ll know exactly when it goes into the catalogue.
After a bit of tinkering with a spreadsheet, I can say that this represents 35 hrs 46 mins of audio. Not counting podcasts, King Lear or Life in the Clearings, since I didn’t actually talk for very much of those (and it’s probably balanced by including all of the group readings - The Monkey’s Paw and Many Voices.) It also doesn’t count recordings completed but not yet catalogued, which will take me over 40 hours.
My longest single recording is 49 mins, the shortest 40secs (hardly time to get the disclaimer out! Hoorah poetry!) Longest work is The Water-babies, at just over 7 hrs.
Probably not so exciting to non-LV listeners, since this one is celebrating approaching 1000 titles in the Librivox catalogue. When I got dibs on the date for this podcast, a few weeks ago, I thought we’d easily hit the nice round number, but no, we’re still 11 off. Gah, frankly. Still, it’s got some great contributions, and — out of 34 mins of audio, less than 4 mins of that is me. I don’t know how that happened, I thought I recorded quite a bit. It also amazes me how long it can take to do a simple bit of copy&paste … this represents about 6hrs work, and that’s actual editing — there was another hour of planning, at least that of organising, and then there’s the time of the recording voices too … hope it sounds good for all that!