3 ms·

Yes, licensing. Narrated books are a separate publishing license, with its own production-cost model. So a tech.company like Apple already having rights to sell

Yes, licensing. Narrated books are a separate publishing license, with its own production-cost model. So a tech.company like Apple already having rights to sell the written words is still not licensed to publish a narrated version. To sell an Audiobook, they have to acquire the license for a separate product, which so far includes the produced Audiobook itself. It seems Apple is trying to get the audiobook license directly from those authors who didn't sign the license away yet, undercutting production cost for the Audiobook with "digital narration" and then earning more money per sale... I guess we're going to see human narration die very fast now, at least for some common languages, and tech.companies want to ensure that they can split license from production cost, instead of being forced to buy the "whole" Audiobook...

karmasimida 4y ago
TBH it will depend on how those narrations turn out to be. Cherr-picking is easy, but I paid for this, it needs to be human quality throughout
- rickdeckard 4y ago
  True, but I expect the critical mass of the target group will remain to be people frequently listening to Audiobooks --> Those people are more-likely subscribed to an Audiobook service --> are not paying a per-audiobook price but a flat-fee --> The flat-fee for the whole catalog is lower than buying one audiobook. I would expect this target-group to access a mix of human and digitally narrated books during the transition to digital narration, with best-selling books still being narrated by humans. Users may then complain about the quality of the digital narration, but will keep using such services as the price-expectation is now set. --> A competition for better digital narration engines will likely drive evolution of the engine and authoring tools, further increasing the pressure of publishers to justify the bottom-line of per-book Audiobook production costs. > Cherry-picking is easy, but I paid for this, it needs to be human quality throughout That's a really interesting aspect. If the Audiobook delivers the content with a human voice but still not engaging enough, how many listeners would put the blame on the narration rather than the book itself... ("I like this new song of Metallica, but I don't like how they sing it")

karmasimida 4y ago

TBH it will depend on how those narrations turn out to be. Cherr-picking is easy, but I paid for this, it needs to be human quality throughout

rickdeckard 4y ago
True, but I expect the critical mass of the target group will remain to be people frequently listening to Audiobooks --> Those people are more-likely subscribed to an Audiobook service --> are not paying a per-audiobook price but a flat-fee --> The flat-fee for the whole catalog is lower than buying one audiobook. I would expect this target-group to access a mix of human and digitally narrated books during the transition to digital narration, with best-selling books still being narrated by humans. Users may then complain about the quality of the digital narration, but will keep using such services as the price-expectation is now set. --> A competition for better digital narration engines will likely drive evolution of the engine and authoring tools, further increasing the pressure of publishers to justify the bottom-line of per-book Audiobook production costs. > Cherry-picking is easy, but I paid for this, it needs to be human quality throughout That's a really interesting aspect. If the Audiobook delivers the content with a human voice but still not engaging enough, how many listeners would put the blame on the narration rather than the book itself... ("I like this new song of Metallica, but I don't like how they sing it")