As some of you may know, I love audio books. I have graduated from books on tape and cd to books on MP3. In particular I listen to books from the public domain. There is a website call librivox.org that manages the recording and storage of thousands of these books. Because the books are in the public domain (out of copyright) and the readers are voluntarily reading them into the public domain everything is free. It turns out there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people out there who volunteer to read books into there computer, edit them and post them online. Given some folks are better readers than others and many books have multiple readers which sacrifices some of hte continuity of professionally read audiobooks but the price is great. There are thousands of books available the vast majority of which are well read and good stories, someone was willing to take the time to read them out loud in the first place.
I have, over the last few years, listened to a lot of books on MP3. I think the count is somewhere in the 200-300 range. The last time I went on a business trip I decided I would try to give back. I recorded two chapters of The Adventures of Jimmie Dale, a slick adventure chase story. I find that while on business trips it is easy to waste a night sitting in front of a TV, so I should put the remarkable quiet of a decent hotel room to use and do a little recording. Once I got over the fear having a terrible recorded voice and sounding like a goofball the recording was pretty easy. After a few compliments I was sold on the idea that I could do this recording books business.
About a month ago I found out I would be going on a trip to Huntsville, AL for two weeks. I decided it was time to commit. I went to Project Gutenberg, a repository for books in the public domain, and found a book that was recently cataloged and looked interesting. Knowing nothing more I commit.
After two weeks of devoted reading I completed the recording of 12 chapters of The Flaming Jewel, what turned out to be a great adventure chase that takes place in the North East US. The catch is that I only completed the recording not the editing. It turns out there are hours of work listening and cutting out misspoken phrases. Hopefully over the next few weeks I will be able to wrap up the work and the world will have previously unknown access to an obscure adventure novel from the early 20th Century.
