Reading in the dark
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Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Kestrell" journal:
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01:17 pm
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Free remixable audiobook of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Here's the announcement from Cory, and you can read my review of the book in the post previous to this one:
block quote start
My next novel, Little Brother, officially goes on sale today! In
addition to the US print edition, there's a DRM-free audio edition
(there's also forthcoming editions in the UK, Greece, Russia, France and
Norway, with others pending) from Random House Audio. My deal with
Random House is that they're absolutely not allowed to sell the book
with DRM on it, which, sadly, means that Audible (the largest audiobook
store in the world) won't carry it -- they insist on selling books with
DRM, even when authors and publishers don't want it.
Instead, you can buy the audiobook from Zipidee, a retailer that Random
House uses -- they have the spiffy embeddable Flash sales-object you can
find on Craphound.com (feel free to paste it into your own blog or
whatnot), and there's also a static URL for those of you who can't use
Flash.
The audiobook comes with my own sampling license: once you own it,
you're free to take up to 30 minutes' worth of material from it and
remix and then redistribute it as much as you like, provided that you do
so on a noncommercial basis, make sure that it's clear that this is a
remix and not the original, and make sure that you tell people where to
find the original. This is in addition to all the fair use remixing that
you're allowed to do without my permission (of course!).
I'll also be releasing (as always!) a free, Creative Commons-licensed
version of the text of Little Brother, just as soon as I get back to
London (I'm presently in Toronto, visiting my family with my newborn
daughter). It'll likely be Monday or so -- there's a bunch of little
clean-uppy things I need to do with the Little Brother distribution site
that I need to be in my office with uninterrupted time to accomplish.
Random House's page for Little Brother:
http://www.randomhouse.com/littlebrotheraudiobook
Buy Little Brother audio:
http://www.zipidee.com/zipidAudioPreview.aspx?aid=c5a8e946-fd2c-4b9e-a748-f297bba17de8
Buy Little Brother:
http://us.macmillan.com/Retailer.aspx?isbn=9780765319852
block quote end
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood:  excited
Tags: audiobooks, books, coryd, ebooks, science fiction
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10:48 am
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Audiobooks start stripping
...DRM, that is. Now if only ebook publishers would get a clue, the same tactic might work for ebooks--plus improve the accessibility of proprietary formats such as MS Reader and MobiPocket and Adobe Reader...
Via the Cnet newsletter
Publishers phase out piracy protection on audio books
By Brad Stone
The New York Times
Published: March 2, 2008, 9:50 PM PST
Some of the largest book publishers in the world are stripping away the anticopying software on digital downloads of audio books.
The trend will allow consumers who download audio books to freely transfer these digital files between devices like their computers, iPods and cell phones--and conceivably share them with others. Dropping copying restrictions could also allow a variety of online retailers to start to sell audio book downloads.
The publishers hope this openness could spark renewed growth in the audio book business, which generated $923 million in sales last year, according to the Audio Publishers Association.
Random House was the first to announce it was backing away from DRM, or digital rights management software, the protective wrapping placed around digital files to make them difficult to copy. In a letter sent to its industry partners last month, Random House, the world's largest publisher, announced it would offer all of its audio books as unprotected MP3 files beginning this month, unless retail partners or authors specified otherwise.
http://www.news.com/Publishers-phase-out-piracy-protection-on-audio-books/2100-1025_3-6232789.html?tag=fd_nbs_ent&tag=nl.e703
Current Location: aerye
Tags: audiobooks, drm
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08:16 am
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Free audiobook: Man Who Was Thursday
Learn Out Loud is offering this free mp3/podcast.
I had forgotten how surreal the story was until I read the following description:
Listen to G. K. Chesterton's metaphysical thriller The Man Who Was Thursday. Chesterton sets this novel in turn-of-the-century London, as Scotland Yard
sends a poet named Gabriel Syme undercover to investigate a group of anarchist poets. He is soon elected to the Central Council of Anarchists and given
the code name Thursday. Chesterton includes many metaphysical and theological discussions in the book. This audio book is unabridged and well narrated
by Zachary Brewster-Geisz. It is available on MP3 download and can also be subscribed to as a podcast through iTunes.
The Man Who Was Thursday Podcast
http://www.learnoutloud.com/Catalog/Literature/European-Classics/The-Man-Who-Was-Thursday-Podcast/24756
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: insufficiently caffeinated
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: audiobooks, books, ebooks, sf
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10:49 am
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Where to find free downloadable audiobooks
This list was prompted by a post to a mailing list for blind students which asked about free downloadable audiobooks. There are many more sites than the five I list below, but the five listed here are where I find consistently quality material, and the sites also offer features which allow the user to control the search and download process.
1. GutenbergThe Audio Books Project
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Audio_Books_Project
2. LibriVox
http://librivox.org/
This is one of my favorite places, and not only because they produced an audio version of one of my favorite books ever
Tristan and Iseult by Joseph Bedier
http://librivox.org/tristan-and-iseult-by-joseph-bedier/
but LV also consistently produces some of the truly "great" books, including a significant amount of horror and comedy:
Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Don Juan by Lord Byron
Eirik the Red's Saga
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by Montague Rhodes James
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
There is also a LibriVox » podcast page
http://librivox.org/podcast-page
which allows you to subscribe through a podcasting program like Juice, a
program which is very accessible to blind computer users.
3. Learn Out Loud
http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video
Offers free downloads of audiobooks and even entire university
courses--subscribe to the daily newsletter to get information
about the free resource of the day. Learn Out Loud also maintains a blog
BlogOutLoud.com
http://www.learnoutloud.com/content/blog/
which posts links to some of the best material being offered on the site.
4. Escape Pod
http://escapepod.org/
Science fiction and fantasy stories.
5. Open Culture
http://www.oculture.com/2006/10/audio_book_podc.html
seems to be a master site listing a lot more sites and also more eclectic
online courses, lectures, articles, etc.
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: bookish
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: audiobooks, books, ebooks
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04:24 pm
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Amazon.com acquires audiobook publisher
Kes: Now let's see if Amazon will make this content accessible. I'm still peeved I have been deprived of the powr of my wishlist by some of those "upgrades" to theAmazon interface.
May 23, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Amazon.com Inc. said today it has acquired independent audio book publisher Brilliance Audio. The purchase will allow Amazon
to expand the number of audio books produced and offer customers a wider variety of audio selections to choose from, Amazon said in a statement.
Separately, CustomFlix, an Amazon subsidiary, said it will support both standard CD and MP3-CD audio book formats via its Disc on Demand service.
"With this acquisition we can make it more efficient for authors and book publishers of all sizes to expand the number of titles produced in increasingly
popular audio formats, offering customers a much broader selection," said Greg Greeley, vice president of books at Amazon.com, in the statement.
Previously, audio books were limited to best-selling titles because of the cost of recording, producing and bringing audio books to market, Amazon said.
( link to Computer World story below cut )
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: witchy
Tags: audiobooks, books
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10:15 am
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Giveaway: the new Cassandra Clare City of Bones audiobook
I received a copy of the audiobook for review and would like to pass it along to someone who really wants to read this book, preferably to a visually impaired reader who may not otherwise get the chance to read it (blind Hermiones unite!).
Leave a reply here with an indication of how much you want this book.
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: www.wumb.org Arlo Guthrie Massachusetts
Tags: audiobooks, books
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09:57 am
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Free audiobook of The Red Badge of Courage +accents+reading aloud
Audiobooks.org
http://www.audiobooks.org
is currently offering a free download of _The Red Badge of Courage_. It also has links to other audiobook resources on the Net, like
BBC - Voices
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/#startcontent
which is a Web site that maps and archives audio recordings of different slang and accents from around the UK, plus s other fun items, like an article on how Vikings influenced the West Yorkshire accent. Yes, I really do think accents are this interesting and um, hot: Christopher Eccleston's accent in the first season Dr. Who was definitely one of the reasons I preferred his incarnation of the Doctor.
Speaking of hot voices, I have been listening to a CD full of audio recordings of Orson Welles which I bought from
EarthStation1.com
http://www.earthstation1.com .
The CD includes a couple of hundred recordings, including the Mercury Theaterradio plays, The Shadow and the Third Man performances, a conversation between Orson Welles and H. G. Wells, and Orson Welles doing odd bits like reading John Donne poems. That last is really electrifying, as Welles moves from a reading of one of the love sonnets to a very passionate reading of the sonnet that includes the line "
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
After googling for the poem, I realized that the beginning part is often abridged in poetry anthologies, because this part was only vaguely familiar to me:
all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language
; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice
; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves
again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
You can read
Meditation XVII here
http://isu.indstate.edu/ilnprof/ENG451/ISLAND/text.html
or listen to an audio bersion here
http://www.global-language.com/devotion.html
Current Location: aerye
Current Music: Pearl Jam, Last Kiss
Tags: accents, audiobooks, orsonwelles, poetry
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06:07 pm
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Accessibility: Navigating Audible.com
Kes: Anna is the expert on audiobooks and accessible players, so this should be a great seminar for anyone intersted in using Audible.
Topic: Navigating and Using Audible.com With Ease
Presenter: Woody Anna Dresner, National Braille Press. adresner@nbp.org
(888) 965-8965 http://www.nbp.org
If you have subscribed to Audible.com, the popular source for a wide variety
of audio content, and use a screen reader, it is certain you have
experienced some frustrations navigating its information packed web pages.
During this week's Accessible World Tek Talk event Anna Dresner, acclaimed
author of several technology books and editor of numerous publications,
will provide the basic steps to minimize, if not eliminate altogether, many
problem areas.
Anna will provide a comprehensive overview of the content of Audible.com, ,
the various account options available, how to set up then manage the, and
how to take advantage of the discounts on mp3 players. She will then discuss
in detail Searching for a book, Browsing categories, Playing samples, Adding
to wish list, Adding to shopping cart, including how credits are handled,
Finding and downloading programs in the library, and Controlling wish list
Using podcasts.
As the presentation concludes, Anna will discuss how to listen to the
downloaded books. This will include using Audible Manager to transfer books
to the Audible Player for reading on the PC,the Olympus, BookPort
BookCourier and/or iPod.
( details on time and how to access the site below cut )
Current Music: www.wbos.com
Tags: accessibility, audiobooks
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09:45 am
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Learn Out Loud offers free audio downloads
The LearnOutLoud.com E-Magazine
Top 25 Free Resources
http://www.learnoutloud.com/content/blog/archives/2007/03/top_25_free_res.html
including readings of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Metamorphosis, numerous lectures, and an entire course titled "Existentialism in Literature and Film."
Blog and subscription info for free daily download at:
http://www.BlogOutLoud.com
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: insufficiently caffeinated
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: audiobooks, education, podcasts
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09:59 am
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Audiobook downloads gain in popularity
Kes: 2 articles on recent trends in audiobook downloads, I particularly like the second one which describes how people are directed to read aloud and the fact that the erotica books are the most popular on Audible because it allows people to read erotica in public without anyone else knowing. Ha! The blind bookworm knows...
Downloading Audio Books Gains in Popularity
by Lynn Neary
NPR: All Things Considered,
February 5, 2007 · WASHINGTON — When Harry Potter spread his magic through the publishing world, audio books rode on the coattails of his popularity. The
audio of version of the series about the young wizard is often credited for helping to raise the profile and boost the sales of all audio books – which
totaled $871 million in 2005.
Now audio books are getting another boost from the magic of the digital world. Downloads represented 9 percent of sales in 2005. That's still small, but it's a 50 percent increase over the previous year. Beth Anderson, a senior vice president at Audible.com, says that number will keep going up as more people get MP3 players.
"Part of it is the availability of devices, and part of it is we are so busy, we are looking for ways to do two and three things at once, and to bring reading back into our lives," Anderson says.
The increasing popularity of downloadable audio books is already shaking up the publishing world. Ana Maria Allessi, publisher of HarperMedia, says that in the past, all books came out first in hardcover — but that's changing.
"We're pursuing a number of authors where we are going to work with them on what we are calling 'born digital' products, where we will say it will start its life as a digital download audio book, and may then go to e-book and with that success, we may then go to paper," Allessi said.
As audio-book sales increase, so do the number of digital books loaned by public libraries.
The Montgomery County Public Libraries in Maryland is one of some 4,000 library systems across the country that are now offering digital downloadable books for free. Mary Ellen Ikaza, Electronic Services Librarian at Montgomery County Public Libraries, says audio books have always been popular with library users. Librarians are finding that patrons are eager to switch over from checking out CDs and cassettes because they love the portability and convenience of digital downloads.
"It's available on our Web site, so it's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Ikaza said. "So you can be downloading at home in your pajamas at 2 a.m. Or you can be traveling through France, and you decide you want a book to listen to, so you can just log onto your PC and download the book."
As Ikaza demonstrates, downloading a digital book from the public library works pretty much like downloading audio material from a commercial site — except instead of using a credit card, you use a library card.
After choosing from a list of available titles, you click on the book you want and you can audition the book to see whether you like the sound of it.
Some titles are always available. Others might have only a few copies in the library, which means there can be a waiting list for some audio books. Steve Potash is CEO of Overdrive, one of the largest providers of audio books to libraries. He says publishers work out different deals for different titles. But Potash says every download has a copyright protection and can only be listened to for a limited time period — which prevents piracy.
A recent survey of audio-book users indicated that 51 percent of the books consumers listened to came from the library. Ana Maria Allessi says the increasing popularity of downloadable books at the library makes audio-book publishers nervous, because digital books don't have to be replaced; cassette recordings do.
Still, Allessi acknowledges, libraries are helping to bring more attention to audio books, which in the end can only help the business. And right now, she says, there are a lot of unknowns for audio-book publishers. While CDs still represent the largest portion of the audio-book market, Allessi says digital books could overtake them within a few years. And no one can predict how that will affect the business either.
Posted to
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7189148
Article 2, posted to the NYTimes:
Catch the Next Chapter on Your iPod (It’s Even Cheaper)
By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN
Published: January 4, 2007
On a recent afternoon Laura Wilson was speaking through a microphone to Oliver Wyman, who was on the other side of a pane of glass. “Just hit Samaritan a little harder,” she said.
The two were in a recording studio near Times Square, producing the audio version of “The Intellectual Devotional,” a book of daily readings by David Kidder and Noah Oppenheim. Ms. Wilson, a producer with the Audio Renaissance publishing company, wanted Mr. Wyman, the reader, to give the word more stress in a sentence that began, “Ethnic Samaritans, now living in northern Israel ...”
That same afternoon, in a studio a few blocks away, another reader, Julie Fain Lawrence, was recording “Simply Sexy,” a steamy Harlequin title by Carly Phillips.
( continued below cut )
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: audiobooks, books, media
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04:26 pm
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How Should a Book Sound?
How Should a Book Sound? And What About Footnotes?
by Nigel Holmes
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/books/20audi.html?emc=eta1
[beginning of excerpt]
When David Foster Wallace, reading the audiobook version of his newly published collection of essays, "Consider the Lobster" (Time Warner AudioBooks), hits
one of its many footnotes, listeners may be inclined to adjust the volume - his voice sounds suddenly distant, as if he has fallen down a well. Then, footnote
finished, his voice returns just as abruptly to normal. But don't touch the dial. The voice manipulation, for which audiobook producer John Runnette used
a "phone filter" - a voice-through-the-receiver effect used in radio dramas - was an attempt to aurally convey Mr. Wallace's discursive, densely footnoted
prose.
Or as he says in the audiobook introduction: "I sometimes use footnotes in these essays, which presents kind of a nasty problem for an audiobook: where
do the footnotes go? There is no bottom of the page in an audiobook, obviously."
For Mr. Runnette, who has recorded audiobooks for 15 years and won three Grammy Awards, this is the first time he has had to ponder what a footnote sounds
like. But the industry increasingly has to address such vexing one-hand-clapping questions: What does an illustration sound like? Or a chart? A map? A
photograph? A blank page?
Because an audiobook is essentially a performance, there is less a right answer than myriad choices. Another production, Susanna Clarke's novel, "Jonathan
Strange & Mr. Norrell" (Audio Renaissance), also recorded footnotes. Like Mr. Wallace, the book's narrator, Simon Prebble, read the footnotes wherever
they appeared, but the producer, Paul Ruben, did not alter his voice. Instead, the narrator says "footnote" prior to each one. The notes have been given
their own CD track. Listeners who want to hear them do nothing. Those who want to skip the notes can hit the next-track button.
[end of excerpt]
Tags: audiobooks, ebooks
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12:58 pm
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BPL service sends audiobooks to your PC
I haven't checked this out yet for usability, but I was involved in some of the early testing that Overdrive did in developing these services.
Thanks to a new service from the
BPL, customers can download audiobooks in no time. Now anyone with a BPL
card can check out, download, and listen to their favorite classic book or
a current bestseller from the convenience of their home or office.
http://overdrive.bpl.org
Tags: audiobooks
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