Suggested Prerequisites

Before you read this, you might want to read:

• Introduction to Accessible Audiobook Production
• Accessible Audiobook Production: Audiobook Formats
• Accessible Audiobook Production: Files and Labeling

Content: Book Sections

Unless an agency decision has been made to the contrary, almost all sections of the book should be narrated, including:

• front cover
• copyright
• dedication
• appendices
• footnotes / endnotes
• bibliographies

Footnotes/endnotes, bibliographies, etc. have commonly been excluded. They should be recorded, and incorporated in a way that works for the publisher and author.

Front Cover

Include a file for the front cover. This should include the title of the book, the author name, and any other text that may be on the front of the book, as well as a brief image description of the front cover.

Table of Contents

A table of contents is not necessary to record, as long as the files are presented in the correct order and have embedded track number information – that way, the reader has access to an overview of the contents of the book. However, including a table of contents causes no problems, so the choice is yours.

Footnotes/Endnotes

Foot/endnotes can be recorded in different ways.

Record notes together, in a separate file:

In the context of MP3 formats, one approach is to record the notes as a separate file per chapter, and placing the file after their corresponding chapter. The narrator would name only the note reference inline, for example:

“In AD 5, the Romans again stood on the banks of the River Elbe. Note thirty-seven.”

And then record all notes on their own, in a separate file.

The completed files would be presented as, for example,

• 01 Chapter One
• 02 Chapter One Footnotes
• 03 Chapter Two
• 04 Chapter Two Footnotes

This way, they are available to readers, while also being easily skippable.

Record notes inline (unskippable):

Another approach within the MP3 format is to narrate the footnotes completely inline for example:

“A chance inscription tells us that one of the legions in Cilicia had the numeral XVIII. (Note 16: Models of seigeworks undertaken by Caesar’s army can be seen in the Musée National des Antiquités, Paris.) From this evidence, some have discerned a clockwise numbering system…”

Record notes inline (skippable):

In the DAISY format, notes can be narrated inline, then tagged as such so that they are skippable for the reader while reading. This makes DAISY the most accessible format in terms of navigation.

Content: Images

Including Image Descriptions

Whether or not to include image descriptions is a choice that the author and publisher should make together, whenever possible. The things to consider are:

• Are the images integral to the text, and contribute to the understanding of the book? If yes, image descriptions should be included. If not, then it might be acceptable to leave them out.
• Do the images contribute to the enjoyment of the book? For example, in a book about a family, perhaps there is an image of them having a snowball fight. If this is not mentioned anywhere in the text, it may warrant an image description, as seeing (or hearing the description of) this image contributes to the reading experience.
• Would an image description be obtrusive, detract from the narrative, or otherwise have a negative impact on the reading experience? For example, in the case of a fiction book, a drawing that demonstrates something happening in the text may be distracting to the reader, and take them out of the story. But, in the case of a non-fiction history of an old-west town, a picture of horses tied up outside of a saloon would likely add to the story, and would be unlikely to take the reader out of the narrative.

Writing Image Descriptions

When it is decided that a book will have image descriptions, they should be prepared ahead of time, and shared with the narrator in a separate document.

When preparing your descriptions make sure to stay within the complexity of the book i.e. don’t use words that are more complex than the primary text. 

Here are some basic image description guidelines:

Include:

• Placement of objects in image,
• image style (painting, graph),
• colours,
• names of people,
• clothes,
• animals,
• placement of text,
• emotions such as smiling, and

Avoid:

• Descriptions of colors, such as red looking “vibrant and powerful”,
• obvious details such as someone having two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, and
• overly poetic or detailed descriptions.

For more detailed information on developing image descriptions, please check out the following resources:

• NNELS (July, 2020): Guide to Image Descriptions / Guide de description des images
• Cooper Hewitt: Guidelines for image description
• DIAGRAM Centre: an initiative of Benetech, has developed image description guidelines, a training tool, and more
• WEBAim: Alternative Text (geared towards content on websites but it has some great suggestions for writing concise alt-text)

Placing image descriptions

There are a few places that image descriptions can be included, and again, this is something that we recommend the author and publisher decide together.

When the images are integral

If the images are integral to the telling of the story, then the best place to include them might be as they come up in the text. It is important to indicate to the reader that the text is an image description so the description should begin with text that says “A photo of…”, “A drawing of…”, etc. It is important that the reader knows that the description is not part of the main text.  Another approach can be to state “Producers Note” before a description, and “End Producers Note” when the description is finished.

When the images are not integral

If the images are not integral to the narrative, or perhaps don’t need to be shared as soon as they appear in the book, then it may be best to include them in a separate recording/section, similar to the footnotes approach. So, a book’s list of files may appear as:

• 01 Chapter 1
• 02 Chapter 1 Image Descriptions

This way, the reader can easily choose whether to listen to the section, or skip it.