About Audio

Dan Sawyer, a guy I know who's been doing audio for a long time -- from audiobooks to movie soundtracks -- did an interview with Joanna Penn on audiobook production, distribution and sales recently. I finally got around to reading it, and it's good stuff. (Joanna does a podcast, but she also posts a transcript, so you can listen or read, whichever you prefer.)

They talk about a lot of different audiobook-related subjects. Here's a chunk of one that made me sit up and think:

Your copyright on any work, and any work meaning finished form, applies to the finished form and everything contained in it, including derivative rights, transcription rights, everything else.

...

There's a lot of stuff that's been ferreted out by case law, but it all reinforces that principle. Things like audio rights are not a single right, they're a basket of rights that can be as multiferous as how you define that and what the market will bear. Currently, there's about 36 different kinds of audio rights that have proven market viability.

And you get those by adding on one axis the number of readers, on another axis the style of production, and on a third axis the level of abridgment, and on a fourth, the level of adaptation. Each of those has a couple of viable options in the current marketplace and you multiply them together, you get 36 potential forms of audiobook.

Even if you never plan to produce your own audiobooks, or directly hire someone to produce one for you, knowing about the rights involved is vital if you're signing contracts with, say, a traditional publisher that wants audio rights. There's a lot there, so if your publisher wants the whole kaboodle, make sure they're compensating you for it.

There's a lot of good stuff here. Read/hear the rest at Joanna Penn's blog.

Also, Dan wrote a book for folks who want to do their own audiobooks, or who want to know about what goes into it so they can be informed consumers when they hire someone to do an audiobook for them. It's called Making Tracks, and he just last month released an updated second edition. Check it out.

Angie