Who chooses the narrator for an audiobook?

[WildFlowerBees]

Referring to the latest Richard Osman book, this is the second audiobook of his that Fiona Shaw has narrated and it's really awful. Accents are terrible sometimes she does them sometimes not they don't sound like the Welsh or Liverpool they're meant to and her whispery voice just ruins the audio version for me.

The last book she narrated was also awful so who chooses the narrator, is it the author or publishers?

Oh I was totally agreeing with you!! Side bar about how difficult it was wasn’t in response to you liking or not liking it

its def part of my job to help the actor make it not shit by trying to impersonate someone their voice just isn’t suited to

I’m sure I’ve had audiobooks where the author was narrating. I think Wilding was one and another about Trees by a ?Canadian author -monotonous to listen to, they don’t have the range of an actor.

Yeah fair enough the actual authors aren’t professional! I’ve been shocked when working with authors who are public speakers reading a non fictional book in their subject or a memoir and it sounds terrible, they need a LOT of coaching bless them

I think Sarah Winman who wrote Still Life is also an actress so her narration of her own book was superb.

Fair enough Any audiobook I narrated, people would have to be happy to assume that every character was vaguely industrial-northern and permanently mildly pissed off, unfortunately (I never realised about that second part until DP bought Alexa devices, and I had to hear my own unintentionally impatient/frustrated-sounding announcements repeated at me several times a day).

Great thread. Can I just say Angus King narrating the JD Kirk books and Shuggie Bain is excellent

So glad you started this thread OP! Sometimes I can't concentrate on an audiobook as I'm thinking about how the recording takes place and how difficult it must be! Thanks for the inside info @Citygirlrurallife.
One of my favourite narrators was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with her narration of Americanah. She was amazing.

Such an interesting thread. To add to the recommendations, The Stranger Times series by C. K. McDonnell are read by Brendan McDonald and he's completely fabulous, absolutely makes the books.

How funny , I listened to the sample narration of a JD Kirk book in audible, and decided not to download it because I couldn’t stand the narration. It’s a shame because I’d been following a thread about JD Kirk which he then came onto and he seemed to be very likeable

I absolutely get how hard audiobook narration must be. The one that always comes up is Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and how the author now puts obscure accents in new books in the series to test him (and the production team I guess!)

Re rivers of London series that is

I love Timothy West too (he reads most of the Anthony Trollopes I think)

Oh I remember that thread. He made a lot of friends/potential fans there.

The nice thing is audiobooks are growing so quickly that sometimes authors actually think about that side of their book being published!

I do think in the decade I’ve been working in the industry it has improved exponentially on every level and I love it when people enjoy the work we do. And it’s not a bad job being paid for listening to someone read you a book 😉

digital audiobooks have made such a huge difference to my life. I always loved reading and I find it impossible to fit reading physical books around work and small children, but I manage to get through about one book a week with snatches here and there and a few commutes - it keeps me in touch with the book-lover inside me and I hugely value the work that goes into them - thank you!

I’ve been listening to Faith Martin books narrated by Gemma Dawson and she keeps mispronouncing words. I see from the reviews that readers are complaining about it

So now if all you audiobook lovers could please help the industry by only buying and borrowing books narrated by real actors that would be amazing

Because what Apple and others are trying to do is really shit
https://www.techspot.com/news/100211-project-gutenberg-releases-5000-free-audiobooks-using-neural.html

They’ve been produced by Tantor Audio who don’t use directors…..

part of my job is being absolutely diligent in making sure all pronunciations are correct. It’s funny though how many words it turns out I’ve been mispronouncing all my life myself!!

😊

I love Michael Palin and Natalie Haynes reading their own books, but they are professional presenters as well. Also good is any actor involved in the adaptation eg Derek Jacobi and Cadfael, as they have already lived with the character.

I started listening to Game of Thrones audio book, but the narrator...
Pronouncing names wrong (as in, one minute it's CATlyn, next it's CAITlyn) accents changing as he goes back to a character, Tyrion sounds welsh by the end 😂

I get it's a hard book with a lot of characters but still. Suppose I'm comparing it to the TV show and I assume the show wasn't out when the audio book was recorded, he pronounces Petyr Baelish as Pea-tyre

I've bought a couple of Neil Gaiman books on Audible. He reads them himself and although I love his books, I cannot take to his narration/voice.

@Citygirlrurallife do you try and match gender of reader and protagonist? This seems v logical to me and is another reason I don’t like Jane McDowell reading Wimsey

Art Malik reading The Beekeeper of Aleppo is one that sticks with me. Judged to perfection.

There's a video on YouTube showing the full process of narrating an audio book. She talks about the hours of prep work as well as the recording and editing processes. It sounds absolutely gruelling!

Here it is - I found it really interesting!