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Audible gave me a refund and I gave the customer service monkey a good survey. I emailed Penguin and got a response: We appreciate the many questions, comments, suggestions, and ideas that are submitted by our readers and are happy to share them with our Editorial, Publicity, Sales and Marketing departments. Because of the volume of mail received, we cannot guarantee that you will receive a personal response; however, we will certainly forward your comments to them for review. We do not plan to re-record the book. Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
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Aug 1, 2011 17:58
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Seconding that Audible's customer service rocks. I got double-billed a couple months ago (upgraded to platinum and then it still charged me for my new month on normal as well,) and called up, was on the phone for maybe 3 minutes total from the time I dialed, to getting a refund. I'd already spent that extra credit though, don't tell anybody! 
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Aug 2, 2011 04:40
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McBeth posted:We do not plan to re-record the book.  Oh well, I need a new book for my bathroom anyways.
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Aug 2, 2011 18:27
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Mister Macys posted:
Eh. I just finished the audiobook and didn't think it was that bad. Would have preferred Marsters, but Glover didn't make my ears bleed or anything. Maybe it's just that I've heard a lot of truly bad narrations in my audiobook buying past, and I don't think this qualifies.
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Aug 4, 2011 15:19
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I finally called in to reset my Audible activations so I could use the Audible iPhone app, and the app showed me something disturbing.... I.... I think I might have an audiobook problem.
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Aug 8, 2011 15:15
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What's the deal with audible's free 30 day trial? It says I'll get a free 30 day trial and 2 credits to spend initially. If i listen to a book and cancel before the 30 days ends will i get reamed by any hidden fees?
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Aug 11, 2011 20:10
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Nope. I did it a while back and then renewed my sub months later.
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Aug 12, 2011 04:46
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So I picked up the 10th anniversary, Full-Cast edition of American Gods and I quite enjoy it. Wednesday is a bit eh, but the guy doing Shadow convinced me that American Gods should be a movie.. Starring Vin Diesel.
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Aug 13, 2011 06:05
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Does anyone know how audiobook narrators get paid? Per-book-sold, or just as a once-off for the initial narration? I was just wondering how companies justify charging almost twice as much for the audiobook than for the printed novel. On a related note, I'm thinking of signing up for Audible. I'm Australian though, and I'm not sure how our pricing and range of titles compares. Are there any international goons here who can shed light on how good Audible are outside the US?
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Aug 15, 2011 04:11
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jassa posted:Does anyone know how audiobook narrators get paid? Per-book-sold, or just as a once-off for the initial narration? I was just wondering how companies justify charging almost twice as much for the audiobook than for the printed novel. You're not just paying the authour and a mass-market book company, you're paying the people required to read, record, produce, and package the audiobook (roughly 1 CD per hour of reading). And any type of performer, whether radio, TV, or voice actor, comes at a premium. Combined with a lower sale rate compared to books, it adds up. Gotta recoup those costs somehow. That said, the member price of that specific book on Audible is $19.58, or $11.50, if you're buying with a (Platinum) credit... but they're 100% (proprietary) digital distribution. They don't have to make and ship an rear end-ton of CDs anywhere. Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Aug 15, 2011 |
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Aug 15, 2011 08:45
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Mister Macys posted:You're not just paying the authour and a mass-market book company, you're paying the people required to read, record, produce, and package the audiobook (roughly 1 CD per hour of reading). And any type of performer, whether radio, TV, or voice actor, comes at a premium. Pretend I specified the digital distribution version then, as that's all I'd be buying. It still doesn't seem like a reasonable increase even taking into account the cost of recording and the relatively small amount of post-production work done. Part of my question was whether the narrator is paid a percentage of each audiobook sold, or a flat one-time fee. I suppose it's probably the latter.
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Aug 15, 2011 09:34
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jassa posted:Pretend I specified the digital distribution version then, as that's all I'd be buying. It still doesn't seem like a reasonable increase even taking into account the cost of recording and the relatively small amount of post-production work done. According to Wikipedia, it's a flat one-time fee based on hours of audio. Of course, just like publishers say that printing a physical book and distributing it is a relatively small chunk of the cost of a book to justify an ebook, you now have on top of the cost of producing the book the cost of creating and mastering the audio for an even smaller market of audiobook listeners.
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Aug 15, 2011 13:33
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Anyone know if a site has Robert Jordan's Conan the Barbarian novels? Audible's only got Howard's stuff.
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Aug 17, 2011 10:37
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if your local library supports it theres a lot who use the overdrive system for free audiobooks. only problem is the DRM its horrible, anyone have experience actually getting your books to work on an ipod?
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Aug 28, 2011 05:16
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If anyone cares, the latest update for the Audible app allows you to set more playback speeds: 0.5x, 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x and 2x. This is great because 1.25 lets me shave off like 3-5 hours per book without it sounding weird.
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Sep 15, 2011 23:57
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Anyone have any suggestions on another book read by Steven Pacey. He did an amazing job on the First Law Series and for some reason they switched to Michael Page for Best Served Cold and The Heroes and it just wasn't the same. Not that Michael Page is bad he just wasn't as good as Steven Pacey.
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Sep 16, 2011 22:49
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I enjoyed Pacey's reading of The Pregnant Widow but I also really like Martin Amis. On a somewhat related note Money narrated by Graeme Malcom is one of my favorite audiobooks. Malcom is very convincing as John Self. I can't say enough good things about it.
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Sep 17, 2011 03:15
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jassa posted:On a related note, I'm thinking of signing up for Audible. I'm Australian though, and I'm not sure how our pricing and range of titles compares. Are there any international goons here who can shed light on how good Audible are outside the US? I signed up with Audible and I am from Australia. I decided to end my subscription though over the distribution rights - all the awesome things available to American customers aren't available to us  Pricing wasn't really something I considered, I just brought my books with monthly credits. I would probably sign up again if I had access to everything.
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Sep 17, 2011 05:39
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imnotinsane posted:I signed up with Audible and I am from Australia. I decided to end my subscription though over the distribution rights - all the awesome things available to American customers aren't available to us Thanks for the info. I've been delaying making a decision about this since I've been busy, but you've helped make the eventual decision easier. It never ceases to amaze me how difficult copyright holders make it for us to give them our money.
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Sep 22, 2011 03:23
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I don't know if this would work or what laws you would be breaking to do it but can't you use a VPN to make it seem like you are in America so you can make those purchases.
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Sep 22, 2011 15:26
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Clinton1011 posted:I don't know if this would work or what laws you would be breaking to do it but can't you use a VPN to make it seem like you are in America so you can make those purchases. I probably could, but legalities aside... 
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Sep 22, 2011 17:08
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I ended my subscription (another Aussie) for the same reason that imnotinsane did. The sheer amount of content we don't have access to due to region locking just pissed me off immensely.
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Sep 23, 2011 11:44
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I'm currently in the middle of The Once and Future King read by Neville Jason, and it's easily one of the best readings I've ever heard. Every character is distinct and full of life in a way that enhances the text instead of just transmitting it. Neville's Merlin and child-Arthur are especially well done. All that, and it's a steal at one credit for 33 hours of listening. I really can't recommend this one highly enough.
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Sep 25, 2011 07:38
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Neal Stephenson's new book Reamde is now available on Audible for just 1 credit! Not bad for almost 40 hours. I was fully expecting it to be 2 credits considering that Cryptonomicon and Anathem are both 2 credits and the Baroque Cycle books were split into three and cost 1 credit each. Has anyone started to listen to it yet?
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Sep 28, 2011 16:16
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theDOWmustflow posted:I loved every single one of Roy Dotrice's voiceovers. You could instantly identify each character and his voices somehow added to the characters and the scenes. John Lee, who voiced A Feast for Crows sounds like a melodramatic Shakespearean actor in monologue regardless of whether he's reading narration or dialogue and it's driving me crazy. I'm so disappointed that I think I'd rather read the book than listen to the audiobook. I loved Roy Dotrice's voices too but there is no getting around the fact that in ADWD he forgot which voice he was supposed to be using for Dany. In the earlier books he used to have a relatively young sounding voice that he used for her (emphasis on relatively), but then in ADWD he switches to an old crone voice for her. She sounds like old Nan. It didn't really bother me but it's utterly bizarre that nobody caught it, it must mean they didn't go back and listen to the prior books.
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Sep 28, 2011 22:42
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Rhaegar posted:Neal Stephenson's new book Reamde is now available on Audible for just 1 credit! The blurb lost me when I read this: Audible.com posted:He also created T’Rain, a multibillion-dollar, massively multiplayer online role-playing game with millions of fans around the world. A thriller revolving around a MMO, where suddenly poo poo GETS REAL YO. Yeah, I'll pass. That said, Cryptonomicon was a good read.
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Sep 29, 2011 17:40
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If you want a good book with MMO stuff, get Daemon & Freedom. Those books absolutely rule.
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Sep 29, 2011 20:48
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I don't know if this is a good place to ask. I have an android phone and I can play voicemails through my car's radio, is there a way I can get the Audible app to do that? Or some other workaround.
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Oct 2, 2011 08:06
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You mean like wirelessly? You should probably try the Inspect Your Gadgets forum, as I don't think the app itself has that ability. If your stereo is new enough, just plug in your phone like an ipod/mp3 player, and play it that way.
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Oct 2, 2011 19:02
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coyo7e posted:So I picked up the 10th anniversary, Full-Cast edition of American Gods and I quite enjoy it. Wednesday is a bit eh, but the guy doing Shadow convinced me that American Gods should be a movie.. Starring Vin Diesel. HBO is making a series based on American Gods
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Oct 3, 2011 07:23
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So, i've not heard anybody talk about these specifically in here, but I went to the library today to check out some audiobooks, it was my first trip to the library in years and they had this new nifty little gizmo for checking out audiobooks. they're called "play aways", and i suppose the best way to describe them is that they're a self contained mp3 player that contains a single audiobook. While they are not particularly practical for personal purchase and use (amazon says they run from about 40 to 50 dollars each), it makes for a neat way to check them out at the library (and not having to worry about dealing with scratched or damaged discs). The speed is adjustable (which downloadable versions of audiobooks are doing now), and it is the same content otherwise. The only downside is that you have to listen to it via the device,a little plastic box with buttons on it that smaller than a deck of cards that has a headphone jack in it (which you can plug into headphones, or your car, or other speakers). I know of the people in here get their books from digital sources. On the otherhand, while a bit more expensive than the standard audiobook (because of the hardware that goes with it), but you don't have to toss the whole thing because somebody lost or damaged a disc, which is a huge bonus for libraries. i know this thread is mostly about the content of audiobooks, but these things just struck me as really neat, and was curious to hear what other people thought of the idea. Roydrowsy fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Oct 8, 2011 |
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Oct 8, 2011 21:09
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Roydrowsy posted:The speed is adjustable (which downloadable versions of audiobooks are doing now), and it is the same content otherwise.
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Oct 9, 2011 07:22
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blakout posted:if your local library supports it theres a lot who use the overdrive system for free audiobooks. only problem is the DRM its horrible, anyone have experience actually getting your books to work on an ipod? Overdrive has an app for iOS that can access your library's website and handle everything wirelessly; Windows devices have to go through a whole other PC intermediary "Overdrive Media Console" that is essentially a giant roadblock. Got the app, though? Just download wirelessly with your library card! On the endorsement front: I loved Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" as read by Maggie Gyllenhaal. She did a good job of pronouncing everything in this intricate style that made the narrator sound cautious and vaguely impressed by the writing lifestyle, then the long spiral down...
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Oct 9, 2011 07:45
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I've always thought that Wednesday should be played by Anthony Hopkins, particularly after listening to the original audiobook of American Gods. Has anyone listened to the second book of 'The Strain' trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro? The first was read by Ron Perlman but Audible have a different narrator this time around, presumably Perlman was busy. Also, for another great reading, Stephen Lang doing 'Heart Shaped Box' is fantastic.
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Oct 9, 2011 13:51
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Syrinxx posted:These sound neat. How fine was the control over playback speed? I set Audible to 1.25x but I'd prefer 1.35 or 1.4x - 1.5x is just a hair too fast for me. I don't know the specifics offhand, the device doesn't tell you too clearly, its just a bunch of symbols, but there are five settings. I havent had time to play with it much yet. I'll look into it later. The speeds range from "slowest, slow, normal, fast & fastest" but I don't see any information about what those speeds actually translate to. Lots of info at playaway.com Roydrowsy fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Oct 9, 2011 |
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Oct 9, 2011 16:11
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Just went through Kraken by China Miéville. Excellent narrator, hadn't read the book before so it was all new. I recommend it.Streebs posted:HBO is making a series based on American Gods 
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Oct 13, 2011 00:11
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"Perhaps more interesting to our readers, however, is the announcement that Playtone will be behind the previously announced adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods for HBO, and that with the production company’s involvement, they’re doing it up appropriately huge. Playtone is now prepared to produce at least six seasons of the show, with a budget of nearly $40 million per season, all to make room for the effects-heavy renditions of gods both ancient and contemporary—more effects than have been used on a television series before, according to Hanks’ production partner Gary Goetzman." http://www.avclub.com/articles/toda...vclub_rss_daily drat I can't wait for that.
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Oct 13, 2011 00:23
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coyo7e posted:Just went through Kraken by China Miéville. Excellent narrator, hadn't read the book before so it was all new. I recommend it. There's not much info out on it yet but I doubt Vin Diesel is in it. Would be cool though, Vin Diesel owns gently caress the haters Back on topic to the thread, I just finished listening to Dresden Files book 2 on audio book, it was pretty awesome. I read book 1, currently reading book 3 but I was on a plane for awhile last week so figured it'd be nice to try an audio book for once. James Marsters does a great job.
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Oct 13, 2011 04:12
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Streebs posted:Back on topic to the thread, I just finished listening to Dresden Files book 2 on audio book, it was pretty awesome. I read book 1, currently reading book 3 but I was on a plane for awhile last week so figured it'd be nice to try an audio book for once. James Marsters does a great job. God drat that's a great series, and book 3 is when it starts getting absolutely amazing!
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Oct 13, 2011 04:50
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The neat thing about the Dresden Files series, is that as you progress through the books, you can actually notice both Jim Butcher and James Marsters improving along the way. And that's one of the reasons a lot of people gave Ghost Story bad reviews. The replacement narrator is like the equivalent of culture shock: the delivery is just so different, you can't get used to it if you've been following the series from the beginning.
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Oct 13, 2011 04:53
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