Gaiman's audiobook label

Neil Gaiman's launched a creator-centric audiobook label; Neil's a fabulous reader.

"When Don Katz first called and explained ACX to me I started to get excited. I've loved narrating audiobooks—winning the Audiobook of the Year Audie Award for The Graveyard Book was one of my proudest moments—and I am lucky in that almost all my books are now available in audiobook form. But I'm constantly astonished at how many great books, beloved books and books that have a special place in my heart, are not, and mostly never have been, available as audiobooks. ACX seems a brilliant way to change that. In an ideal world you should be able to listen to every book you love being read by someone who's perfect for it. Getting involved in ACX, and curating my own label within it, is my way of trying to help us get to that ideal world."

Neil Gaiman uses ACX tools to liberate audio rights and to produce quality audiobooks! (Thanks, Juke!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: audiobook • publishing • science fiction

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

digi_owl

a gutenberg project for audio books?
- Paul Renault
  
  Yeah, it’s called Librivox….
mesjak

All kudos to Neil for his work on behalf of other authors who deserve wider recognition. And all book lovers want more quality audiobooks. But ACX is a subsidiary of Audible, a subsidiary of Amazon. Has Cory’s long-standing opposition to Audible & their DRM been called off?
Sawgrass Man

Yep, I was going to mention Libravox, too (tons of content at their site, and Internet Archive) but the issue of an inappropriate/experienced reader can be a real disappointment. There are more than a few Libravoxes that I downloaded with great enthusiasm, only to be presented with a mumbling, droning narrator who mispronounces common English words. BUT– when you hear a reader that you really like, you can search out their other readings. And if you don’t like the quality of someone’s narration, you can make and post your own version. Maybe even add a tag that says “and my dog can lick your dog.”
Props to Neil, though. Nice goin’.
http://www.facebook.com/jeffreykafer Jeffrey Kafer

The same challenges can arise from ACX. Lots of inexperienced folks on there, wanting to break into audiobooks. Thankfully, there’s a designation for “Audible Approved producers” for those who are known by Audible to put out quality work.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=686963539 Nick Gisburne

It’s great that an English author is being used to promote the ACX scheme but ACX is open only to those people with a US postal address. I just tried to join but the ‘country’ field is hard-coded to ‘United States’. That’s a shame; as a narrator I would definitely have been up for this.
http://www.facebook.com/tomdheere Tom Dheere

Jeffrey Kafer, like myself, is an Audible Approved Producer. Just like any other casting site, there are both experienced and less-experienced talent. The publishers on ACX are among the best in the industry and I would like to think they will hire talent based on, well, talent, instead of their bid.
Thad Boyd

Gaiman really does have a great damn voice. Has always reminded me of Alan Rickman.

I’ve been meaning to do some volunteer audiobook work (no false modesty: I’m pretty damn good at reading books aloud) but haven’t gotten around to it. I’ll check this out.