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!
Prerequisites
Before reading this, you might want to read:
Narration Guidelines
Good narration can enhance the experience of listening to an audiobook, and so the narrator should be a vessel to all of the print book’s information in audio form. With that in mind, make sure that your narrator meets the following guidelines:
- Understanding of the text: It is very difficult for a narrator to successfully translate a book into audio that they do not comprehend. Narrators should work with content that is comprehensible to them.
- Tone: Tone should be consistent. Reading loudly exhausts the voice and will result in a changing in tone as the voice gets more and more strained and tired. Reading very quietly can be more challenging when the goal is a high-quality recording. Narrators should find a medium, conversational volume and tone that is comfortable for them to maintain throughout the length of each recording.
- Objectivity: Personal views should not impose on the tone of the text.
- Pronunciation: All text should be pronounced correctly (this is not inclusive of accents that narrators may have). Unfamiliar words and names should be researched by the narrator to support that pronunciation.
- Pace: Comprehension is the priority. Narrators should speak at a speed that is both natural to the narrator and considerate of the complexity of the text, i.e. if the text is a dense academic text it should be read at a slower pace.
Next Steps
1
Choosing the Right Format for an Audiobook
Accessible Audiobook Production: Audiobook Formats
This quick resource discusses the differences between some popular audiobook formats: MP3/WAV; DAISY; Enhanced EPUB; and .LPF.
Subject(s): Audiobook Production
Resource Type(s): Standards and Best Practices
2
Making Filenames for Audiobooks
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
3
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
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