By Reya Mehrotra
Once upon a time, grandma’s bedtime stories acted as immediate sleep inducers. But today, in this hyper-virtual era exactly where technologies reigns supreme, grandma’s location has been taken by our digital devices, which turn into storytellers at the click of a button or the command of a voice. You just have to utter “Alexa, read to me” and the virtual assistant transforms into your grandmother, bringing to you a treasure trove of stories. The beauty? You can listen to them anyplace and when carrying out something.
It’s not surprising, hence, that audiobooks are becoming more and more preferred, particularly in the post-pandemic world, with even regular book lovers creating a beeline for them. Not just readers, authors, as well, are taking to them like fish to water. While a 70,000-word-lengthy novel may perhaps take about a year to finish writing, an audio format, which is only 7,000 words, can be completed in a month’s time.
“I don’t have to add any descriptors… the narrator and background sounds do the job. With eyes closed, you just have to listen to romance being played out, the tune of the guitar, the sound of birds chirping, a girl enveloped in a boy’s arm as they are about to kiss. But when I write about it, I not only have to describe the kiss scene, but shift to the background in the next paragraph, write about the sound of birds chirping, guitar playing in the background, and then again switch to the romantic scene between the boy and girl. It breaks the reader’s flow,” says author Ravinder Singh, describing the distinction amongst writing for books and writing for audio. “In audiobooks, the reader doesn’t have to transition from the primary text to the background, they don’t have to keep their eyes open, but can dim the light, close their eyes, listen and leave everything else to their imagination,” he shares.
Singh’s initially audiobook And We Met Again came out in 2019 on audiobook and e-book streaming service Storytel. He followed it up with Runaway Groom, his most current audiobook for Storytel, which came out in 2020.
While a film adaptation of a book may perhaps or may perhaps not do justice to the work, in the audio medium, the essence remains intact—the energy to picture rests with the reader and is only enhanced. “Both books and audio versions cater to the imagination as one reads or listens, but when you watch a film, it steals your ability to imagine as it is played out for you,” Singh says.
For quite a few, on the other hand, there’s absolutely nothing more addictive than owning books and displaying them on wooden shelves at home. This feeling superseded the digital invasion that initially brought along e-books. But now, with the most up-to-date round of digital invasion post the pandemic, the trend of audiobooks has caught on, as one does not will need to sit in one location to study, but can listen to a book when carrying out other work.
Behind the scenes
Writing an audiobook is no various from writing a common book apart from the truth that a handful of measures are added and a handful of eliminated. For instance, there’s no will need for “he said”, “she fumed”, “he looked angry”. The will need to express in words is replaced by the tone of the narrator’s voice and background sounds. Perhaps that is why a quantity of writers are increasingly turning to audio as they can make more content in a restricted time span. These consist of authors such as Durjoy Datta and Anita Nair who not too long ago began writing for audio.
Audiobook platforms, as well, have an significant function to play. Amazon’s audiobook and podcast service Audible assigns narrators, producers and directors that greatest suit a book/script after they obtain it from the author/publisher. Each narrator prepares differently and is provided the freedom to narrate the book in a way they greatest fully grasp the character. The work goes by way of a variety of stages of post-production to develop a holistic listening encounter for the user. The writer’s function, as well, does not finish following submitting the script, but extends to the production procedure, choice of voiceover artists, and so on. At instances, the author narrates himself/herself.
Often, audio platforms tie up with publishing homes to convert their books into audio. Over the last year, Audible has released various audiobooks that launched at the identical time as the really hard copies. These incorporated Chetan Bhagat’s One Arranged Murder and Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ Unfinished.
Other preferred books that have been adapted for the audio medium consist of Barack Obama’s A Promised Land, Trevor Noah’s Born A Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, and so on.
Audiobooks are a major hit particularly in the kids’ category, as young readers enjoy to hear stories getting narrated to them. Ruskin Bond released his chapter books for children in audio last year. Amar Chitra Katha, as well, introduced audiobooks for children in 2020, when Juggernaut launched an audio storytelling show by actor Soha Ali Khan.
Wide appeal
Audiobooks date back to the 1930s when The American Foundation for the Blind developed recordings of books. In current instances, on the other hand, the emergence of audio platforms like Storytel, Audible, Google Books, and so on, has provided a enormous push to audiobooks. The digital shift necessitated by the pandemic has also made authors and readers turn to the medium. The largest push came for the duration of the lockdown when quite a few publishing homes went the digital way. Fantasy media franchise Wizarding World and JK Rowling announced Harry Potter At Home to assistance bring Harry Potter to children, parents and caregivers. Various celebrities took turns recording the initially book’s 17 chapters on video with a chapter getting released each and every week. The videos have been out there on Harrypotterathome.com, a element of Wizarding World. The audio was accessible exclusively on Spotify. Closer home, Roli Books introduced its digital arm Roli Pulse in April 2020.
Author Ravinder Singh says he, as well, believed of leveraging the technologies of audio to churn out content for the duration of the lockdown owing to higher demand. “I have been working from home for seven years, but the lockdown helped me think out of the box and I realised the full potential of the audio platform as there was high demand,” he says.
Today, quite a few audiobook platforms like Audible India have rolled out exclusive features like ‘written for audio’ content. “Audio opens up a unique avenue for authors by allowing them to explore a new format that brings their stories alive. It also allows them to reach a whole new audience, potentially even one that might not read in the language they write in, but are happy to listen to it. At Audible, we work with production houses, authors and leading English and regional language publishers to create ‘Written for Audio’ content that has wide appeal,” says Shailesh Sawlani, nation head, Audible India.
In May, Swedish audio streaming and media services provider Spotify, as well, announced its partnership with Storytel to bring the latter’s whole library of audiobooks on Spotify, providing customers more than 5 lakh audiobooks across 25 markets.
New market place
Though the prospective of the medium is getting realised, publishing homes in India nonetheless earn their key income from printed books. Interestingly, it is the opposite in most other nations. Simon & Schuster India does not have any audio titles, but its counterparts in other nations do. While Penguin Random House has audio original titles and audio versions of books in other nations, in India, there are only audio versions of books that have been published.
For HarperCollins, a huge chunk of the income abroad comes from audiobooks. But in India, there are only about one hundred titles in the audio-cum-book category, out there on platforms like Storytel, Audible, and so on. As per the publishing home, India as a market place is nonetheless new and that is why they have a compact quantity of audiobooks.
Storytel India’s nation manager Yogesh Dashrath, on the other hand, believes that publishing homes will ultimately venture into audiobooks. “This is a classic case of a battle between the incumbent and new technology. Publishing houses like Penguin or HarperCollins have big print businesses, while the audio section is small but growing fast. So they will eventually tap into the market and are already doing so. We have licences from HarperCollins and Juggernaut to distribute their books into audio,” he says, adding that in the last 3 years, a quantity of men and women have attempted audio, particularly for the duration of the lockdowns. “In Sweden last year, total consumption of audio was more than print. India is still at the beginning of that curve.”
Singh believes audiobooks will turn into larger. “Audiobooks are just the tip of the iceberg. There is much more to be explored and it will only become bigger and better,” the author says.
lnterview: Durjoy Datta, author
‘Audiobooks make the writing process easier’
In author Durjoy Datta’s dystopian post-pandemic world, females reign supreme. The Last Girl to Fall in Love, Datta’s second title written exclusively for Audible, has been narrated by actors Rasika Dugal and Prateik Babbar. The author, who is identified for his romance novels, has written a uncommon fantasy thriller. In an exclusive interview with Reya Mehrotra, Datta talks about the transition from the romance genre, writing for audio and his pandemic encounter. Edited excerpts:
As a writer, how has the encounter of the lockdown been for you?
I used to joke about that I have normally been in quarantine, normally staying at home for days on finish. But then when absolutely everyone was home, items became a tiny unpleasant. Before the lockdown, it was substantially simpler to create as I had a lot of absolutely free time. With absolutely everyone about, I had to obtain a schedule. Earlier, I used to be quite unstructured, but now, I get up early and create, and get the rest of the day absolutely free.
Was it exhausting for you in any way?
I consider it has been exhausting for absolutely everyone. But I personally got time to consume items. I was just sharing a handful of statistics from my Audible platform on my Instagram and I located that in 2020 and 2021, I study 68 books on Audible. I was shocked. But just about every morning when I go out for a stroll, I listen to audiobooks. So for me, it has been about consuming content rather than generating. I relieved myself of that stress of constantly generating.
How did you conceive the notion of The Last Girl to Fall in Love?
The initially book The Last Boy to Fall in Love came out in 2008 and it was about a virus, which wipes out an whole population, leaving just one boy and one girl! Then the pandemic hit and, naturally, I wanted the sequel to be a remedy. But then I believed, what if the remedy was efficient for only one gender and the rest would be confined at home… how will societal structure transform? That is what excited me… that is what types the bedrock of this story.
You largely create romances, but this is a dystopian fantasy thriller. Are you experimenting with new genres?
I have been attempting to make a conscious shift for the previous 3 years now. At 34, I cannot create college romances authentically any more. If I create about 18-year-olds falling in enjoy, I do not know what their lives are like in 2021. Secondly, I really feel I have began repeating myself. I am now 20-21 books old, so I have a tendency to go back to the identical old tropes. I have grown up reading thrillers and fantasies, and I have been waiting to create that. Now, considering that I have a slightly far better command more than the language, I can experiment with genres.
Does a writer’s private life and experiences effect his writings?
When I began writing, most of my books have been derived from my private life or items taking place about me, but as I matured, I realised that is not important. While private experiences are significant, you can move out of that and create about characters you do not know.
How was your encounter of writing an audiobook?
There’s normally a gateway book that introduces you to a thing and for me it was James Clear’s Atomic Habits. Buying and finishing books on Audible then became a all-natural instinct. I consider it tends to make my writing procedure simpler as you can visualise the whole story due to the fact you have a hero in location. When I knew Prateik Babbar was going to narrate The Last Girl to Fall in Love, I currently had his voice in my head. So there are a lot of items you can leave upto the actor. This book is brilliantly created and you can visualise the whole story. For the longest time, I did not have the language to inform these items, but with audiobooks there is help from actors and other Foley effects. You do not have to clarify expressions due to the fact the narrator does that job. When writing for audio, I study it aloud to hear how it sounds. All my audiobooks are in initially particular person as it tends to make the listening procedure private.
So you can focus on the story more as you do not have to clarify the background…
Yes and on the characters as well. I treat the central character as the narrator. That’s the greatest way of telling a story. It also hinders you due to the fact when there’s a narrator, they can inform the story from various perspectives, but when there’s a single narrator telling their personal story, I consider it becomes more pointed.
Any more audiobooks in progress?
I have written an additional one. It is getting edited correct now, but I am not sure if it will come out this year. I am going to hold writing for audio now.
What about your usual books and screenplays?
That will also come about simultaneously. My last one came out in January. I have not began writing an additional one. As for screenplays, I wrote a handful of shows prior to the lockdown. The sequel of Never Kiss Your Best Friend will be out later this year.
Whose performs do you look upto?
I get obsessed with a writer, study all their books and then move on to the next writer, but some like Ruskin Bond, Roald Dahl, Jhumpa Lahiri, Stephen King, Salman Rushdie, Tom Clancy are my continuous favourites.
Your wife Avantika Mohan has usually been your muse. Do you program to introduce your daughter as a character in one of your stories as well?
I have applied Avantika’s name in my performs, but perhaps not Rayna’s (his daughter). But there’s no way out of it due to the fact when I am writing about a kid and have to give a character to the kid, I will be inspired by how she thinks, but would keep away from creating her the central character as she does not have an opinion correct now. When I create a character inspired by Avantika, I can ask for her opinion. With Rayna, I cannot do that.
Do you program to create for kids?
I have attempted, but realised you do not create for children, but for parents as when I obtain a book for my daughter, I do not ask her if she likes it, I obtain due to the fact I like the book. I wrote a thing for children a year ago, but it became irrelevant to me quite rapidly, so I do not know how to tackle that market place. I would enjoy to create for children, so that Rayna can say that I grew up reading my father’s performs. Otherwise when she reads my romances as a teen, it is going to be quite embarrassing!