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Audiobooks – Listening and Reading
Audiobooks are made like songs by your favourite bands are. They are recorded in a studio and then released on CD`s, cassettes or are offered for downloading online. Such a recording, instead of chapters in the printed version, is divided into many smaller recordings, lasting up to several minutes so that the listener might continue “reading” as desired.
Recorded books follow the colourful variety of their printed counterparts when it comes to themes, therefore apart from various self-help texts, you can find world`s greatest fiction hits as audio editions. Apart from recording previously printed editions, certain companies, like the BBC for example, release only audio editions.
The world audiobook market is worth billions of dollars and versions that can simply be downloaded online are most popular versions. Such distribution format is most simple for the publishers, who do not have to worry about the quality of CD`s for instance, but for the listeners as well, especially today when almost every mobile phone has a build in MP3 player.
Such form of releasing texts seemed unnecessary to many at first. Books in printed form have been around for centuries, and even the blind, who seem to be the ideal focus group for audiobooks, have their printed editions that are “read” with fingers.
The main purpose of audiobooks is not just to help people with special needs, but to enable “healthy” individuals to enjoy literature that is impossible to use as “ordinary” books. Audiobooks are listened to while driving, at work, at all the special places where most people listen to music.
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AudioBook Narrator - Simon Vance
When Simon Vance was about 10 years old, his father gave him a tape recorder, and he’s been “playing with a microphone and making silly voices” ever since. Began a broadcasting career at BBC Radio Brighton during the summer break of 1976 while studying at Leeds University (and joining in the fun at 'Network 4' - the student TV/Radio society).After graduating took on a full time job at BBC Radio Brighton - moving a couple of years later to London where, for the rest of the decade became a newsreader and presenter for BBC Radio 4 -- the BBC's national speech-based network. Discovered a knack for narrating audiobooks by working for the Talking Book Service of the Royal National Institute for the Blind. Simon won the 2006 Audie Award for Science Fiction for Richard K. Morgan’s MARKET FORCES. “You venture into so many different worlds. From week to week you don’t know which planet you’re going to be on, which country you’re going to be in.” Simon estimates he’s “closing in on 300” audiobooks. He just finished recording THE SECRET RIVER, an Orange Award winner by Kate Grenville.
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