On #lesswrong, br1an mentioned that he wanted “to start an enjyn project to do a high quality professional grade audiobook production of HPMOR”. (Enjyn is a lot like Kickstarter.)
moshez apparently listens to a lot of audio material (‘escapepod, podcastle and with a little help’), and says “when they’re done by a freelance voice actor, they always say how they can be hired”, which suggests that VAs might be pretty cheap. One might only need a single VA, which is how a number of professional audiobooks like the Discworld books are done, and the results are not necessarily bad (drethelin: ‘In my experience a single awesome voice actor for an audiobook is way better than a cast’).
So what are people’s thoughts? Does anyone know what sort of cost estimate we would be looking at? MoR has a lot of reviewers, but I don’t know how many we could expect to kick in $20 or $50.
EDIT: There is actually an existing audiobook on Kickstarter; looks like they did it for $5k, with multiple actors and background voices, but on the other hand, their book seems to be much shorter than MoR is/will be and at least part of it was funded by a grant.
Thanks so much Gwern! I was actually planning to just try and do a first chapter or two sample with whatever agreeable actor I could lay hands on and a friend’s home recording studio, but seeing if there’s interest first couldn’t hurt! Glad to introduce myself to some more of the community too!
That’s my dream, that somehow someone who knows him has shown him MoR and he loves it and will somehow become convinced to do this audiobook for us for free, or for whatever we manage to raise :-)
unfortunately a quick googling gives me a ball park of over 100 thousand SO FAR, based on voices.com’s prices. I don’t know how feasible that would be to kickstart/enjyn. We might have to shoot for a level below “professional grade”
On #lesswrong, br1an mentioned that he wanted “to start an enjyn project to do a high quality professional grade audiobook production of HPMOR”. (Enjyn is a lot like Kickstarter.)
moshez apparently listens to a lot of audio material (‘escapepod, podcastle and with a little help’), and says “when they’re done by a freelance voice actor, they always say how they can be hired”, which suggests that VAs might be pretty cheap. One might only need a single VA, which is how a number of professional audiobooks like the Discworld books are done, and the results are not necessarily bad (drethelin: ‘In my experience a single awesome voice actor for an audiobook is way better than a cast’).
So what are people’s thoughts? Does anyone know what sort of cost estimate we would be looking at? MoR has a lot of reviewers, but I don’t know how many we could expect to kick in $20 or $50.
EDIT: There is actually an existing audiobook on Kickstarter; looks like they did it for $5k, with multiple actors and background voices, but on the other hand, their book seems to be much shorter than MoR is/will be and at least part of it was funded by a grant.
EDIT’: Eneasz tries doing it himself: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/50h/hpmor_audio_book_pilot/
Thanks so much Gwern! I was actually planning to just try and do a first chapter or two sample with whatever agreeable actor I could lay hands on and a friend’s home recording studio, but seeing if there’s interest first couldn’t hurt! Glad to introduce myself to some more of the community too!
The best example for a single VA doing a great job is Stephen Fry doing the actual Harry Potter books.
That’s my dream, that somehow someone who knows him has shown him MoR and he loves it and will somehow become convinced to do this audiobook for us for free, or for whatever we manage to raise :-)
unfortunately a quick googling gives me a ball park of over 100 thousand SO FAR, based on voices.com’s prices. I don’t know how feasible that would be to kickstart/enjyn. We might have to shoot for a level below “professional grade”