Accessible Audiobook Production: Files and Labeling

Files and labeling should be done in a systematic, logical way, with predictable filenames. This resource offers guidance on naming files in a way that is useful to both humans and machines!

  • Subject(s):

    Audiobook Production

  • Resource Type(s):

    Standards and Best Practices

  • Audience:

    Technical

Suggested Prerequisites

Before reading this, you might want to read:

Chapter books, books of short stories, poetry, non-fiction, etc.

Children’s non-chapter books

Narration & Section Headings

The narrator should begin each section by speaking the title of the section i.e. “Copyright”, “Chapter one”, “Title page”. When applicable, the section titles should correspond to the items in the table of contents.

Next Steps

1

Deciding What Content to Record for an Audiobook

Accessible Audiobook Production: What to Record

This resource provides guidelines around what sections of a book should be recorded, and offers some discussion around approaches and options for footnotes/endnotes, and image descriptions.

Subject(s): Audiobook Production, Image Descriptions, Strategic Planning
Resource Type(s): Checklist, Standards and Best Practices
Audience:
Technical
2

Planning Out Audiobook Production & Post-production (some technical recommendations)

Accessible Audiobook Production: General Recording Notes

This resource discusses some general technical guidelines that can be used when planning out audiobook production and post-production.

Subject(s): Audiobook Production
Resource Type(s): Standards and Best Practices
Audience:
Technical
3

Guiding/Training Audiobook Narrators

Accessible Audiobook Production: Narration Guidelines

Good narration is a big part of creating a great audiobook. Make sure that narrators and/or your ebook producers know about these guidelines. They enhance both accessibility and overall quality!

Subject(s): Audiobook Production
Resource Type(s): Standards and Best Practices
Audience:
Non-technical
4

Making Audiobooks for Children

Accessible Audiobook Production: Children’s Books

Illustrated children’s books present a unique challenge when it comes to recording audio. This resource discusses a few approaches you may consider.

Subject(s): Audiobook Production, Image Descriptions, Strategic Planning
Resource Type(s): Foundations and Rationale
Audience:
Introduction

External Links to More Information

Audiobooks: W3C Recommendation

This specification from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) offers a format to mark up audiobooks, which primarily involves marking up the heading structure but does also allow for including related text content. As of this writing in late 2021 it does not have a great deal of support yet by reading systems.

Content Source Acknowledgement

Accessible Publishing.ca: Audiobook Recommendations for Publishers