Goodbye Yellow Book Road

Ebooks and audiobooks are a part of our landscape. What does the change in medium mean for appeal factors? If you can't hold a book and feel the physical weight of it in your hands, how does that affect your knowledge of the genre? How about readers being able to change the font, line spacing, and color of text - how does that affect pacing and tone? How about audiobooks? Track length, narrator choice, is there music?  For this week, I want you to think about how ebooks and audiobooks affect appeal factors - also think about appeals that are unique to both mediums. Please feel free to use your own experience and that of your (anonymous of course) patrons. I look forward to reading these!

The appeal factors for ebooks and audiobooks change slightly. They still have the same bones, but they are tweaked a bit. The four main factors are pace, characterization, storyline, and frame. These 4 factors apply to ebooks, but audiobooks have the 5^th factor of audible presentation (Mediatore, 319). I feel that audiobooks are more affected than ebooks are. Ebooks are ALMOST like the physical copy of the book. I feel like the four are unaffected, however format is an added appeal. How and where the ebook can be accessed has a part to play. If I can’t download it on my kindle or iPad, its not worth my time. Audiobooks on the other hand are greatly affected. Pace for a book would be determined by the narrator, as characterization and frame. Some audio platforms give you the option to change the pace of the book, like audible for example. If the narrator is slow, you can turn up the speed, vice versa if they are reading too fast. Secondly, if the narrator does not change their voice when reading a character’s part, how is the listener to know that a character is speaking? Without seeing the quotation marks, it can be difficult for the listener to determine what is happening. Same applies to the frame of the story. How a narrator describes something can change how the listener visualizes it. This all falls into the 5^th factor of audible presentation, but it worth noting that it the previous four are altered as well. Ideally, it shouldn’t affect the first four, but it does. The narrator of a book can make or break it.

I don’t think that ebooks or audiobooks effect the genre at all. The format of the book doesn’t have anything to do with the genre of the story. I can see how one would be displeased by the difference in format, book vs. tablet, but I don’t see how that affects the genre. It shouldn’t at least. I suppose of someone is reading an epic fantasy, they expect a large book with a ton of pages which is something you won’t get with an ebook. It would just be more pages if anything, but again, that doesn’t have anything to do with the genre.  Same goes for the ability to change the font, size, and color. Font could change the pace if it is a script type font. Some people might have a harder time reading with all the wisps and curves, but if one can change the font then why not just make it something easier to read? The pace will be set by the person reading, not the characteristics of it. Reading yellow font on white paper would slow someone down tremendously, but honestly, who is going to set themselves up for that type of failure? As for tone though, tone can be greatly affected by this type of change. It’s like reading something in all caps. PEOPLE IMMEDIATELY THINK YOU ARE SHOUTING. Same could go for large font size. Some could see it as large and intimidating, giving it an overtone that might not apply to the story. Same for color. What emotions people associate with a color would greatly affect the tone. Imagine you read the sentence “Momma, just killed a man…”. If that sentence were red, you might be intimidated and scared, but if it were in blue, you might be more at ease and wonder why he killed him.

Momma, just killed a man…

Momma, just killed a man…

Audiobooks have similar issues. Personally, I don’t like audiobooks that have extra noises. I don’t find them necessary. Its like they are trying to bait me on how to feel about the book rather than making my own distinction. Track length can be daunting to some because a book can be 300 pages long, but the audiobook could be 25 hours long. Its just like when they make a book to a movie. It takes a lot more time to act out the scene then if you are reading it in your head. Same applies to audiobooks. Is it going to take longer to read a sentence or speak it in a manner that another person can understand? Lastly, narrator choice is a HUGE factor in audiobooks. As I stated previously, it can make or break the audiobook. On a trip over spring break I started the second kingkiller chronicle book in the car. Since my husband has already read them, he wanted to listen too. We barely got through a chapter before he told me to turn it off because he couldn’t stand how the narrator pronounced the words. So, I had to turn it off. I’ve only recently started listening to audiobooks. I sometimes listen to them in the car, but mostly its when I’m shopping. I can be in my own little world rather than the grumpy people at the grocery store. I find it EXTREMELY entertaining because people look at you funny. Especially if you laugh because they have no idea what you are laughing at (I have air pods so people don’t always see the headphones). I get some weird stares, more so if I’m listening to music and air guitaring in front of the ketchup, but that’s a story for a different time. Anyway, the few things about audiobooks that bother me are the following:  

1. ·         Rarely is there a distinction between internal and external thoughts. In books, this is typically portrayed via italics. I have yet to meet someone whom can italicize their voice.
2. ·         Voice edits and the flow is interrupted. There are times where there is a section of narration that doesn’t fit with the rest of the chapter. Its like they had to go back and redo the take and there is a distinct interruption of flow because the tone of voice is different.
3. ·         Changing narrators in a series. That drive me BATTY! Its like changing actors in a movie. Why? Don’t do that.
4. ·         Sometimes audiobooks will change that story narrative. I read a book where I was listening to it at home but wasn’t doing anything else. So, I downloaded the ebook just so I could follow along with the written narration and they were different! 95% of the time it was correct. If there was a discrepancy, it was not a major difference. It either left off a word or swapped two sentences around, but on one occasion, they skipped a whole sentence. That bothers me. It feels like they aren’t accurately representing the book. However, I do not know if it was the audiobook that was wrong or the ebook. I didn’t have the hard copy to compare. However, now I’m curious….what if they are both wrong?