Narrating stories with audio imprint

CHENNAI: While a very few authors narrate their own books, others leave it to professional narrators as they come with experience in theatre and dubbing. During the launch of  Rujuta Diwekar’s Women & The WeightLoss Tamasha, the author explained how it was a new experience for her to narrate her own story.

“Rujuta is a very good talker. Not all authors are, so it was fantastic to work with her as her voice quality didn’t deteriorate even after six hours of continuous talking,” says Jai of booksTalk.

With a professional sound recording system and studio to record the book, the audio books companies are indeed serious about storytelling.

Talking about the experience of listening to his own book, Ravinder Singh, the author of I too had a love story, shares, “I’ve a friend who has been telling me that he would read my book for two years now, but he never did. When I gave him the audio CD, he listened to it while travelling to his office. There are also other sets of people who listen to a book after reading it.”

The author adds that you couldn’t convert one habit into other.

His book was narrated by Swetanshu Bora.  Ravinder mentions, “I heard the final audio and gave my feedback about where I couldn’t hear properly, and also about thesound effects.” There are some bonus features that are not part of the book.

As the book was released two years ago, there was a lot of curiosity about the protagonist Ravin. So, many people have in fact posted on the author’s social networking sites with regard to the whereabouts of Ravin.

“As the audio book was released in 2011, I spoke about Ravin and what happened to him in due course,” he adds.

“Those who had read my book also bought CDs to listen to my voice. There’s also an interview with me towards the end of the book.”

Author of Stay Hungry Stay Foolish and Connect The Dots, Rashmi Bansal says it was a wonderful feeling to ‘hear your own words spoken out’. Rashmi feels  audio books are a great idea to broaden the market of books. “While some are avid readers and walk around with books, it is true that especially young people are more commonly seen with headphones.”

She also adds that audio books help authors reach a wider audience. “They are especially useful in large cities where people commute and need something to kill time. And inspirational or motivational books are especially conducive to the format, as you can listen over and over again and charge yourself up.”

Rashmi had not heard of audio books before she released one herself. “This concept is very new to India. Personally, I still prefer reading but who knows what the future holds!” she says.

Parul Mittal, whose audio book Heartbreaks & Dreams! The Girls @ IIT, is available in the market, says, “With the world going the mobile way, I think the ability to listen to a book when driving, walking or just lazying around seems logical..”

She adds that audio books remind her of old times when she would eagerly listen to a story being told on radio, while lying in bed.

“Audio books could change the reach of Indian literature especially if they could come in local languages that people can understand but not necessarily read well.”

For Parul, it was an interesting experience listening to her own book. She compliments the voice modulation of narrator Sharanya Ramprakash and points out that it enhanced the mood as per the situation.

“Of course, I know most dialogues by heart and that takes away part of the fun when listening to the story,” says the author.