If there were English-language audiobooks available for popular light novel series, would people buy them?
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@stardf29 I suppose your right. The financial cost of just getting the cast together would be obscene and one skillset doesn’t necessarily translate to another.
Hey, a man can dream though, right? -
@jon-mitchell Honestly my only experience with Audio Books are Erin Hunter’s Warriors (a series about cats living and fighting in the wild) and all of the works by Yahtzee Crowshaw which are also read by the man himself, so I can’t really say that an audiobook with a full cast would be reasonable.
Youmight be able to call it a pipe dream, but some of pop cultures greatest use pipes for their usual 9-5. -
Agreed that people/ even folks with a certain amount of fame, make $$ with their ‘pipes’ (that’s why I named dropped Wil Wheaton, the actor)
I’ve listened to a few audiobooks, some merely an unabridged/unedited reading of an entire work, some epic radio dramas with sound effects and a cast of a dozen VAs or so. Most something in between.
Weather or not JNC could land the same VAs from an anime adaptation for an audiobook is what I’m skeptical about. Scheduling, contracts, logistics etc just might not make it practical
That being said, there are lots of voiceover actors out there, some are good and looking for gigs
I read banned books
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Most of the fictional audiobooks I've read through entirely had casts (Girl on the Train, Kizumonogatari, and Kafka on The Shore). Enjoy those. 1Q84 also has a cast.
I read two of Gillian Flynn's ones and I honestly can't remember if there was a cast for those or no (I know Sharp Objects in particular mostly [entirely] focuses on the reporter lady's perspective). All You Need Is Kill's single narrator audiobook butchered Japanese names iirc (I know that's on the director more than anything).
You know what would be cool as an audiobook with a single reader? Mari Okada's autobiography. Nonfiction stuff tends to work better with a single reader, especially if it's from the voice of one person. (My favorites in that space are What If? and Game On!).
@jon-mitchell said in If there were English-language audiobooks available for popular light novel series, would people buy them?:
Agreed that people/ even folks with a certain amount of fame, make $$ with their ‘pipes’
Did you know Cassandra Morris does audiobooks? She voices a lot of famous characters you may have met in anime and video games (Bravely Default as Edea, Persona 5 as Morgana, Leafa / Suguha in SAO, Taiga in Toradora).
Here she voices with a Southern belle accent. x)
The Calamity Café.
https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11658119 -
@jon-mitchell said in If there were English-language audiobooks available for popular light novel series, would people buy them?:
Agreed that people/ even folks with a certain amount of fame, make $$ with their ‘pipes’ (that’s why I named dropped Wil Wheaton, the actor)
I was making a reference to the Mario Brothers. I didn’t really think Wil Wheaton was much of a handyman, but what do I know about celebrities?
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It looks like we may be getting some English language audiobooks for some light novels soon from Yen Press.
https://www.kobo.com/au/en/search?query=Yen Audio&fcsearchfield=Imprint
And I did not find this. I think @Areouf found it browsing Kobo.
Titles:
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@terrence let’s hope, sadly audible isn’t showing them. :(
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I don't listen to audio books that often, but my sister does and she is a fan of some of the Light Novels, so she'd buy them no doubt.
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Wow this is awesome! I read via TTS a majority of the time, but I wouldn't mind checking these out. Interested to see Yen Press' official statement, and I hope JNC will at least try it out on their bestselling titles (maybe via Yen Press now?).
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@cactus-777 I never read/listen audiobooks in english but i think it works as only one guy reads loudly, right? I dont need that or even like that. However, IF they would release as "drama CD" or something like this (which i dont know what's the difference), I would pay 20$ for a decent story. As for one dude read aloud thing, is unnessesary for me. I can read by myself, thank you :D
8 parts, 8 weeks to read a book, than binge read the same book within' 2 hours again.
Myne: Did we deceived him?
Ferdinand: Indeed we did.
Myne: *surprised myneface -
@hopebestman said in If there were English-language audiobooks available for popular light novel series, would people buy them?:
I never read/listen audiobooks in english but i think it works as only one guy reads loudly, right?
Not necessarily. Kizumonogatari had multiple voice actors reading lines for each character / chapters for each character (as did some mainstream stuff, like "Kafka on the Shore" and "Girl on the Train").
Hiring a voice actress / actor with a lot of range helps too if you're only having one VA.
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thumbs up for audiobooks on LN in general - if there is a market and audiobooks are what brings folks to LNs? why not? Personally I guess I'm more a visual reader so I'm not the target market. I would like to have drama CD's in English- either a video file (subtitles) or English speaking voice actors. As has been noted above - audiobooks have a wide spectrum of what it is they contain- unabridged narration/just TTS to full dramatic productions (like a radio play) --If I'm spending a credit or two, I'd prefer a radio play - or I'd rather read the text
I understand audio Manga is also a thing - still frames scrolled with narration and/or multiple VA's and effects
I'm all for expanding the market so more folks enjoy manga/ln/anime etc.
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@terrence said in If there were English-language audiobooks available for popular light novel series, would people buy them?:
Hiring a voice actress / actor with a lot of range helps too if you're only having one VA.
Iroha from ImoUza could make a serious killing in the audiobook business...
Anyway, I'd probably have written this off as "a bit too much to handle for a relatively small company like JNC" before, but now that they have Papa Kadokawa on their side, it could very well be a possibility. Even if it has to be outsourced to Yen Press or something...
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Funny this thread would pop up at this time, you above, Yen Press just announced a new Yen Audio imprint, with focus on light novels;
Ah, it was already mentioned above.Yen Press Announces Yen Audio Imprint with 5 Novel Audiobooks (ANN)
That said audio books definitely aren't for me, not fond of listening unless it's something concrete like a lesson, or speaking for that matter, the words I speak each day can usually be counted by fingers(music too, soundtrack in the background of movie or TV I don't mind, but if it's a stand-alone, doesn't matter what kind of track it is, it may sound nice or be familiar, but listen long enough the only effect it'll have is make me more and more irritated). Even if I watch a movie in a language I know, I still prefer to have subtitles on. Sooo, not for me...
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It wasn't official yet, so a welcome bump.
I'll definitely be checking these out.
Solo Leveling I don't know much about, so not grabbing that.
SAO I heard the author was remaking the early parts of the story to make it more interesting in a later part / spinoff of the series, so I don't know if I want to buy those (plus, that series is already well covered by others who know more about it).
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@terrence this is neat! I do love a good audiobook. Hopefully this will lead to other Yen Press titles being adapted to audio. My most fervent wish for this project is that they adapt my favorite Yen Press title, So I'm A Spider, So What? It would be a challenge but they could do interesting things with the medium given the series narrative structure.
I wonder if they're going to have a single reader or a full cast production. You can do great things in a full cast production. I've been listening to a lot full cast productions from Big Finish lately and it really brings the story to life when you have different actors playing together. When creating a audio production it really helps to have great sound design, so even Yen Press doesn't go full cast (which would be expected and understandable, though disappointing) I hope that they get someone who is great at modulating their voice to distinguish the different characters.
“There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.” ― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
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@lily-garden said in If there were English-language audiobooks available for popular light novel series, would people buy them?:
I wonder if they're going to have a single reader or a full cast production. You can do great things in a full cast production. I've been listening to a lot full cast productions from Big Finish lately and it really brings the story to life when you have different actors playing together. When creating a audio production it really helps to have great sound design, so even Yen Press doesn't go full cast (which would be expected and understandable, though disappointing) I hope that they get someone who is great at modulating their voice to distinguish the different characters.
For what it's worth, according to this press release, they will be doing their work through Hachette Audio, which apparently has "GRAMMY® Award-winning talent".
Anyway, I'll probably at least try the audiobooks for Overlord and Namiya. I tried reading the first volume of Overlord and couldn't get through it; it just felt like I could be reading something more to my own interests. But with audiobooks and how I can listen to them while doing other things, I probably won't mind as much.
That's probably where these audiobooks are going to be of greatest interest to me: for my personal "lower-tier" titles that I might not feel like sitting down and reading. For my more "high-tier" titles, I'd probably rather just read the novel as, well, a novel. That said, for any "top-tier" titles, I absolutely will double-dip on an audiobook...
MAL
Beneath the Tangles (the blog I write for) -
@stardf29
Makes sense that Hachette audio is producing the audiobooks (yen press is a partnership of Kadokawa and Hachette) l can't say I've listened to anything they've done- but they have a good reputation -
@cactus-777 I'd be interested in audiobook adaptions of light novels dependent on what sort of style they go for. Maybe something similar to like what big finish does with Doctor Who audiobooks where they have a full cast to voice the different characters, but that method is probably expensive and not all too cost effective if the market for this sort of thing is small.
