podficmeta | Podfics vs professional audiobooks

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Podfics vs professional audiobooks

I've been thinking about the differences between podfic and professional audiobooks, and especially about whether podfic is developing its own styles of reading.

I listen to both podfics and professional audiobooks, and it happens much more often that I stop listening to a professional audiobook because I don't like the style. By this I mean that the reader sounds affected in a way that annoys me. It's like they're interpreting/acting out the text in a way that doesn't match the way I think of the characters or the way I want things narrated to me. They sound professional, but not in a way that I like.

OTOH, when I stop listening to a podfic, it's most often because it fails for me on a more basic level--there's too much background noise, I can't get the volume high enough, or the reader is going too fast for me. Obviously professional audiobooks don't have these technical problems to the same extent, and so the only thing that can put me off is the style. And of course, it does happen that the reading style puts me off a podfic, but never in the same way that the style in a professional audiobook does.

Anyone else have thoughts on this? I know my own thoughts are rather vague at the moment, which is why I wanted to discuss it with others.

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OMG, this is exactly what I needed today. A good meta conversation to comfort me from the stupidity of work. :)

Podfic really does have a different aesthetic to it than pro-audiobooks. The biggest difference, that I’ve noticed, is that (in general) pro-audiobooks showcase the production of the audiobook, whereas podficcers (in general) showcase the story.

Pro-audiobooks are more likely to have background music, sound effects and the reader will generally do distinct voices for each character. And, as you said, sometimes those embellishments can be distracting.

I think because those embellishments can be distracting, especially if they’re done wrong, podficcers shy away from adding them or think really hard before adding them. After all most of us are amateurs using whatever equipment we have so it’s easy to do wrong. We’re not going to add random effects just for the sake of it (well, ok, it seems more and more people are adding music to podfic by default) we’re going to make sure that the situation calls for it and that we can pull it off.

Which is probably why we don’t try to do voices as much in podfic. Most fandoms with any sort of podfic volume is based on a media fandom (or a book fandom with media) so it’s hard for us to make up stuff when it can go against canon. Like, it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I’m never going to sound like Adam Lambert when I read, why even try to imitate him? I can’t pull it off. But if I were reading a book that isn’t based on a person/character with a pre-existing voice I could create a voice for them.

I don't think it'd be a bad thing for us to play around with different embellishments, in fact, I'm running

podfic_bingo as a way for podficcers to experiment with that kind of thing. But, at the heart of it, most of us are podficcing stories we love and we don't want to overload the podfic and lose the story. If we're going to focus our energies on improving our craft, a lot of us focus in on our acting first. We work to make sure that how we read a line is how it was intended and in character to the pre-existing voice out there. This is probably helped by the fact that most podficcers work with the authors when podficcing, we might even be friends with them, we want to make sure what we make matches what they envisioned for the story.

I think too, the ways our audience consume podfic often shape how we deal with embellishments. And I think we're more aware of our listeners habits (or our listeners have different habits?).

For example, a lot of listeners will listen while in bed and changes in volume can really throw them from the mood and be a rude wake up. Or, personally, I don't even bother with things done with a radio play style. With radio plays, the sound effects and cast of voices are an integral part of the story telling and you have to pay attention to them to follow the plot. I listen to podfic at work, I can't spare the extra concentration it takes to follow the story and end up very lost (or getting no work done).

Hmm. I have more to say on this, but I'm having trouble articulating them on paper right now. It's times like these that I just want to grab my mic and have a conversation and work out what's on my mind that way. Actually, I might do that later when I get home and can grab a roommate to bounce ideas off of. If I do, I'll try to edit it down and post it here.

I'm really curious as to what others think though.

I think that the narrative voice is often different in professional audiobooks, as well as the different character voices for dialogue. It's hard to link to an example, because audiobooks aren't free. And I'm not saying that I don't like professional audiobooks overall--there are some that I love.

One difference might be that podfics are usually read out of love, so that the reader feels closer to the story and the characters?

This is probably helped by the fact that most podficcers work with the authors when podficcing, we might even be friends with them, we want to make sure what we make matches what they envisioned for the story.

This is kind of a tangent, but: is this true? I usually don't work with the author at all, beyond asking them for permission. It's only happened once or twice that the author has beta-listened. But sure, we're probably closer to them than professional audiobook readers are to the authors.

It's been a while since I've listened to much pro-audiobooks. I have a few favourites that I'll occasionally pull out but other than that I pretty much stick to podfic so I can't really speak to the nuances.

And I'm not saying that I don't like professional audiobooks overall--there are some that I love.
*nods* There are some amazing pro-audiobooks but I think you had a good point when you said that with podfics the reasons why we don't like a podficcer's recording are generally more obvious.
And part of that could be that we have different standards for podfic. Like, there isn't as much podfic available as there is pro-audiobooks so you can't be that picky if you consume a lot. Also you're not paying for podfic so it's less of a disappointment/annoying if there's something "off" about it.

One difference might be that podfics are usually read out of love, so that the reader feels closer to the story and the characters?
That definitely plays a part, and I think it works in reverse a bit too. You, the listener, feel close to and like the characters enough that you're closer to the story and might not notice the podficcer as much?

This is kind of a tangent, but: is this true? I usually don't work with the author at all, beyond asking them for permission.
I meant "work with" in the broadest way possible. Like, most podficcers are going to speak to the author at some point(if only to let them know that the podfic exists if they author has given blanket permission). And there's a very high chance that the author in question is going to listen to at least some of the podfic you create.

And maybe I'm unique in this but I realize that when I ask an author for permission a lot of the time I'm their first encounter with podfic (I'm in the habit of linking to Fanlore's definition of podfic because I've had authors come back confused over what podfic is. That's why I'm pushing for more podficcers to write "Dear Author" letters). If I'm the author's first experience with podfic, I want to make it a good one. If I create a crappy podfic or something that's completely outside what they intended it might make them uncomfortable with the idea of podfic and they'll say no to anyone in the future that might ask. Or they might leave with the idea that podfic sucks or something and never give podfic another chance, all because of me.

So, for me, even if I'm not having the author beta my podfic or sending me suggestions or something, I'm still working with their expectations in mind. And, I may be assuming a lot here, but I kind of thought others felt this way, if only a little, even if they wouldn't necessarily articulate it this way.

Which, I suppose pro-audiobook readers also feel this way. But I would imagine there's more filters involved there. Like, the reader also has to deal with the artistic vision of their boss and that's more immediate than the author so it might trump those feelings.

I usually don't work with the author at all, beyond asking them for permission. It's only happened once or twice that the author has beta-listened. But sure, we're probably closer to them than professional audiobook readers are to the authors.

This is true for me too. Even when I do podfic stories written by my close friends, I don't usually work with them any more closely than I do with authors I don't know at all.

I worked with DarkEmeralds to the extent that she told me she'd had particular music planned for bookending each section of the story ('Restraint' is divided into 4 sections of between 5-7 hours each. Or, well, it will be when I've finished recording the final section, but you take my point?)

But that's really the only time that I've worked with an author to any extent beyond emailing them in a "Your story is awesome! May I record it?" kind of way.

I haven't listened to a pro audiobook since I was thirteen and wearing out the cassette tapes of Starless Night, so I can't speak to the pro audio side of your post, but the things that put me off of a podfic are the things you mentioned: background noise, production issues. Mispronounced words and unclear speech get my goat and will lead me to avoid downloading podfics by that reader in the future, or re-listening to that podfic, but it's rare that I actually stop listening for anything short of incomprehensible background noise. The effort involved in downloading a podfic and putting it on my mp3 player is high enough that once it's on, I'm probably going to listen to it (I'm very irregular about syncing stuff from the internet to my mp3 player).

Style has yet to put me off of a podfic; mostly, when people read passages differently from how they sounded in my head, their interpretation surprises me and I enjoy that. It opens up new ways of looking at the fic, and it feels like a dialogue in my head with the reader.

I haven't listened to many pro-audiobooks at all - maybe 3 or 4. But Gail Carriger linked to the free first chapter of the audiobook of her 'Soulless' a while ago, on her Facebook, and it was AWFUL. Awful, awful, awful, awful. And she clearly liked it a lot, but it was done playscript style with narrator and various different character voices, which I found a bit distracting but could have adjusted to over time, probably - but it also had MASSIVELY distracting incidental music which made me want to stab someone in the face, and clattering teacup sound effects, and all this kind of thing, which I didn't need either. But I could probably have adjusted to that too - or at least the sound effects, maybe not the incidental music.

The dealbreaker for me, though, was that they'd chosen to do it this way, with one narrator and with all these different people performing the characters (and clattering teacups etc etc) - BUT THE VOICES WERE ALL WRONG. Not just subjectively-wrong-to-me-because-of-the-timbre-of-their-voices wrong. Wrong because the characters are all British, and the actors were all Americans pretending to be British. It was PAINFULLY clear that we were listening to modern Americans LARPing, rather than listening to the actual characters - no suspension of disbelief was possible for me on that one. And, hell, the guy voicing the fierce Scottish werewolf love interest wasn't even taking a stab at sounding gruff or Scottish - he was going with a generic toffee-nosed faux!English too, despite the narrative telling us he was supposed to be this gruff Scot.

(The audiobook of 'Ender's Game' was done with multiple voices too, and that generally worked for me. But it was a lot more pared-down and unfussy, so it was effective.)

I can't often download podfic effectively, because of my crappy internet connection, but when I've been put off listening it's been for reasons like the volume being so low I can barely hear the speaker. Perhaps once or twice because someone's voice happened not to be my cup of tea? But generally it's been technical things.

Oh, good night, I googled and listened to the first 30 seconds of this with cast audio performance.

That is not a professional audiobook. It was, as far as I can tell, a freebie audio promo someone offered to do because they liked the book so much. I mean, it was done by a pro or semi-pro sound people, but it wasn't done by audiobook people, if you follow.

If you go to Amazon.com, there's a sample of the professional audiobook, done by a single narrator without audioeffects. A narrator, I might add, born and raised in England, although her accent has somewhat Americanized after living in the States for some time.

Well done you! Well, I'm relieved to know that the thing she linked to way the hell back when *wasn't* the professional/have-to-pay-hard-cash-for-it audiobook. She asked for feedback at the time, and I must admit I said that I thought it did her work no favours, and that it would be way the hell better to have a single narrator, who actually was British, and to eschew distracting sound effects. Nice to know they did exactly that!

The pro audiobooks of His Dark Materials were, sadly, produced in this way. The author read the narrator bits, and actors of varying degrees of fame played the parts. It was incredibly distracting and a really, really bad choice for a dark, demanding and powerful set of novels. Mind you, I listened to the whole thing because, as with much podfic, I was already in love with the stories.

On the whole, multiple actors and sound effects are a big no for me. This isn't old-time radio, dammit! It's story-reading.

I listen to a LOT of pro audiobooks. I do hold them to different standards than those I apply to podfic, but there's some convergence in what works well for me in both forms, and what will make me turn off a piece unfinished.

What works well for me in both forms: A sense that the reader has bothered to understand the text; that the reader brings something unique to the text, and that uniqueness jibes with (or at least doesn't clash horribly with) my own concept.

For instance, Fayjay's reading of Restraint, a text I know reasonably well, makes Mr Caine Irish. I did not know he was Irish till she told me, but now, in my mind, he is SO IRISH FOREVER. It adds something to the text, something fun and wonderful. (Understand that that is a VERY SMALL FRACTION of what I adore about that particular podfic, right?)

In the what-goes-wrong category, podfic or pro: a wrongly-inflected reading is high on my list of irritants that will make me switch it off unless the text is remarkably good.

By wrongly-inflected I mean emphasizing the wrong things vocally, betraying a lack of understanding of what the text means: putting the stress in the wrong place in the sentence and not bothering to fix it with an edit.

It is amazing how often this happens in pro audiobooks, and it annoys the crap out of me. It says that there was no director, just the actor and the recording technician. The actor didn't really prepare, and considered "reading without mistakes" an adequate standard; and there was no director or producer to say otherwise. The publisher couldn't be arsed to pay for the extra few hours of time it would have taken to pause and take the segment again. But they're happy to have my money. Grrr.

This problem doesn't happen very often in podfic because by and large, as you say, we aren't really actors or trying to be, but we are reading well-liked texts, and since no money-meter is running, we can put in all the time we want to make the reading expressive of our understanding of a favorite story.

In point of fact, the very best of podfic and the very best of pro audiobooks are distinguishable by only three things: the podfic has lower technical production values, better music, and hotter erotica.

In the what-goes-wrong category, podfic or pro: a wrongly-inflected reading is high on my list of irritants that will make me switch it off unless the text is remarkably good.

By wrongly-inflected I mean emphasizing the wrong things vocally, betraying a lack of understanding of what the text means: putting the stress in the wrong place in the sentence and not bothering to fix it with an edit.

It is amazing how often this happens in pro audiobooks, and it annoys the crap out of me.

I've run across this sometimes, and yes, it is off-putting. But it's not what most often puts me off a professional audiobook. I think you're on to something when you say that most often we record a text because we love it and we love the characters. I think something of that love often shines through.

Sort of related to this, I was watching a movie recently with some friends, and I didn't much like the movie because I wasn't interested in the characters and thus didn't care what happened to them. I usually want a close connection with the characters when I read/listen to a book, too, and if the reader is reading in a manner that I feel is distanced and sort of professionally slick, I won't like it. (Well, of course there are always exceptions where the story demands a detached POV.)

I haven't listened to a lot of pro audiobooks, but I did get through all the Harry Potter CDs at the tail-end of my fascination with that fandom. They were OK, although the 1st one read by Stephen Fry was far and away the best, really seriously good. The reader for the rest did lots of different voices but I found the very "rural" ones he did with thick Somerset or Yorkshire etc. accents pretty off-putting. Just too different from what was in my head when I'd first read the books.
Then recently I loved Yuletide fic "The Opposite of Swarb" so much I got the audiobook of Connie Willis' "Bellwether" novel, and that worked OK - the reader did a good job and she didn't add in any superfluous nonsense. But I guess the readers aren't the ones deciding about the music/sound-effects etc. in pro audiobooks.
On the other hand, I downloaded a pro audiobook of an interesting erotic short-story collection I'd liked and found it very hard to listen to. I guess this links to the other meta discussion we had about reading/listening to porn. Maybe because it was a male reader, or that professional slickness, but it seriously squicked me and I gave up on it fast. It felt, god, like actual porn, y'know, because it was a pro audiobook, as opposed to the enthusiastically amateur readings of fandom erotica which are for some reason OK and not sleazy. Because read by women? (mostly, I know not necessarily always), or because read by fans? Hmmm.

ETA: Oh, and completely agree - recordings of radio shows are totally a different thing from readings of fic of any type. But a great radio show I've just listened to obsessively is "Cabin Pressure" which I discovered via various Yuletide & Basingstoke fics. Hilarious. I keep discovering canon from fandom, rather than the reverse. Shows where my heart lies!

Edited 2011-01-29 09:49 (UTC)

On the other hand, I downloaded a pro audiobook of an interesting erotic short-story collection I'd liked and found it very hard to listen to.

Fascinating! I've never listened to something like that. But I've never once found sex scenes in podfic sleazy--I think it's because I know that people are doing it because they love the characters and the story.

And yeah, "professional slickness" is a good description of the quality I don't like in some pro audiobooks.

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Podfics vs professional audiobooks

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