#audiobooks — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #audiobooks, aggregated by home.social.
-
RE: https://mastodon.social/@lufthans/117220972865157950
Libro.fm has a half dozen CJ Cherryh audio book that are also DRM free
The listings include the entire Faded Sun trilogy and full cast abridged workups of Merchanter's Luck and Downbelow Station
The downside is the audio books don't have the fantastic art :)
https://libro.fm/search?q=C.J.+Cherryh&searchby=authors
https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781977371744-the-faded-sun-trilogy
https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781685085155-merchanter-s-luck-dramatized-adaptation-abridged
-
In Part 9 of @eddietonkoi’s continuing series on audiobook narration, he gets less technical and explains how to make edited audio sound like a human would actually speak. I found it fascinating.
https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2026/09/audiobook-audio-v3-part-9-invisible-cadence/
-
What Sound Editing Does a Non-Fiction Audiobook Actually Need?
A non-fiction audiobook may sound easy. There is a narrator. There is a manuscript. The narrator reads it. The audio is exported.
But professional audiobook production is rarely that straightforward.
In non-fiction, the quality of sound editing directly affects comprehension, credibility and listening fatigue. A great narration can still feel amateur if the underlying recording has inconsistent levels, distracting breaths, room noise, clicks or poor pacing.
At CINEDRAMA ENTERTAINMENT, we look at audiobook editing as more than simply “cleaning an audio file.”
It is about creating a listening experience that allows the content—and the narrator—to remain the focus.
1. Noise Reduction Without Destroying the Voice
The first step is identifying unwanted background noise:
- Air-conditioner and fan noise
- Electrical hum
- Computer noise
- Room ambience
- Traffic or environmental sounds
- Recording-system noise
The challenge is not simply removing everything. Over-processing can make a human voice sound artificial, thin or metallic. Professional editing means finding the balance between a clean recording and a natural-sounding voice.
2. Breath Editing
Breaths are part of natural speech. Removing every breath can make narration sound unnatural. Leaving every breath untouched can make the audiobook feel distracting or poorly edited.
For non-fiction, breath editing is usually about control rather than elimination.
Unusually loud breaths, distracting gasps and awkward pauses may need attention, while natural breathing can remain part of the performance.
3. Clicks, Mouth Noise & Recording Artifacts
Close-mic narration can reveal details that are almost invisible during recording. Placement of the mic causes variations.
Mouth clicks, lip smacks, saliva noise, small pops and other artifacts can become surprisingly noticeable through headphones.
These are often handled individually or selectively. The goal isn’t to make the narrator sound “processed.”
The goal is to make the listener stop noticing the recording and start focusing on the content.
4. Pacing & Pauses
This is particularly important for non-fiction. A business book, biography, self-help book or educational title contains information that listeners need to absorb.
If sentences run together, important ideas can lose impact. If pauses are excessive, the audiobook can feel slow.
Good editing considers:
sentence → pause → idea → emphasis → transition
The editor is therefore not only working with sound.
They are working with how information is received by the listener.
5. Volume & Dynamic Consistency
Imagine listening to an audiobook where one paragraph is quiet and the next suddenly becomes much louder.
You turn up the volume. Then the narrator becomes loud.
You turn it down again. That is a production problem.
Professional editing aims for consistent perceived loudness while preserving enough natural dynamics in the narrator’s performance.
This becomes especially important when an audiobook will be consumed across headphones, phones, cars and smart speakers.
6. EQ & Voice Clarity
Equalization can help improve intelligibility and reduce unwanted tonal characteristics.
Depending on the recording, an editor may need to address:
- Excessive low-frequency rumble
- Boxy or muddy sound
- Harsh high frequencies
- Nasal characteristics
- Lack of vocal presence
But EQ should serve the voice—not impose a completely different voice on the narrator.
A professional audiobook should still sound like the person who recorded it.
7. Editing Mistakes Without Killing the Performance
Non-fiction narration can contain:
- Mispronunciations
- Repeated words
- False starts
- Incorrect readings
- Long hesitations
- Sentence corrections
- Page-reading mistakes
These may need to be edited carefully.
The important word is carefully.
If an edit removes too much of the natural performance, the listener may hear unnatural jumps, changes in ambience or altered pacing.
A good edit should be heard as little as possible.
8. Chapter & Section Transitions
Non-fiction audiobooks often contain multiple chapters, sections, lists, quotations, references and sometimes supplementary material.
These transitions need to feel intentional.
Silence, spacing and chapter openings should create a consistent listening structure rather than making the audiobook feel like a collection of unrelated recordings.
9. Mastering & Delivery
Editing is not the final step.
The completed audiobook needs to be prepared according to the technical requirements of its intended distribution platform.
That can involve checking:
- Overall loudness
- Peak levels
- Noise floor
- File format
- Sample rate
- Channel configuration
- Beginning and ending silence
- Chapter/file structure
- Technical consistency across the entire title
A beautifully edited chapter is not enough. The complete audiobook needs to work as one professional product.
The Bigger Picture
This is why we believe audiobook production should not be treated as simply:
“Record → Clean → Export.”
A professional non-fiction audiobook involves a chain of decisions:
Narration → Editing → Restoration → Pacing → Voice Processing → Consistency → Mastering → Delivery
Every stage influences the final listening experience.
And perhaps the most important principle is this:
The best audiobook editing is often the editing the listener never notices.
The listener shouldn’t be thinking about noise reduction, EQ, compression or breath editing.
They should be thinking about the idea, story or knowledge being communicated.
That is the real purpose of sound editing.
The Audible Craft
In this newsletter, we’ll explore the production decisions behind professional audiobooks—from narration and sound editing to mastering, audio storytelling and the evolving role of technology in the audiobook industry.
Because when a book becomes audio, the words aren’t the only thing that need to be heard.
Produced by Cinedrama Entertainment — Where Creativity Takes Center Stage.
#audible #audio #audiobook #audiobooks #books #cinedramaentertainment #production #rakutenkobo #reading #spotify #writing #youtube -
I was toiling through Cat Rambo's "You Sexy Thing": only listened to 4.5 hours in 10 days and it felt like a chore: inconsistent pacing, drawn out descriptions, unannounced character changes. Dropped it.
Started "Only Human" by Sylvain Neuvel yesterday morning and I'm already 5 hours into. This series is catnip to me.
Yup, some #audiobooks are really clicking with me and other are not. I should definitely drop books faster.
-
I was toiling through Cat Rambo's "You Sexy Thing": only listened to 4.5 hours in 10 days and it felt like a chore: inconsistent pacing, drawn out descriptions, unannounced character changes. Dropped it.
Started "Only Human" by Sylvain Neuvel yesterday morning and I'm already 5 hours into. This series is catnip to me.
Yup, some #audiobooks are really clicking with me and other are not. I should definitely drop books faster.
-
I was toiling through Cat Rambo's "You Sexy Thing": only listened to 4.5 hours in 10 days and it felt like a chore: inconsistent pacing, drawn out descriptions, unannounced character changes. Dropped it.
Started "Only Human" by Sylvain Neuvel yesterday morning and I'm already 5 hours into. This series is catnip to me.
Yup, some #audiobooks are really clicking with me and other are not. I should definitely drop books faster.
-
I was toiling through Cat Rambo's "You Sexy Thing": only listened to 4.5 hours in 10 days and it felt like a chore: inconsistent pacing, drawn out descriptions, unannounced character changes. Dropped it.
Started "Only Human" by Sylvain Neuvel yesterday morning and I'm already 5 hours into. This series is catnip to me.
Yup, some #audiobooks are really clicking with me and other are not. I should definitely drop books faster.
-
Please vote for my wonderful book cover designed by Alexandre Rito at Podium Entertainment! #books #truecrime #audiobooks
https://allauthor.com/cover-of-the-month/21137/ -
Please vote for my wonderful book cover designed by Alexandre Rito at Podium Entertainment! #books #truecrime #audiobooks
https://allauthor.com/cover-of-the-month/21137/ -
Please vote for my wonderful book cover designed by Alexandre Rito at Podium Entertainment! #books #truecrime #audiobooks
https://allauthor.com/cover-of-the-month/21137/ -
Please vote for my wonderful book cover designed by Alexandre Rito at Podium Entertainment! #books #truecrime #audiobooks
https://allauthor.com/cover-of-the-month/21137/ -
Please vote for my wonderful book cover designed by Alexandre Rito at Podium Entertainment! #books #truecrime #audiobooks
https://allauthor.com/cover-of-the-month/21137/ -
Nearly completed my second listen of the audiobook Mindset by Carol Dweck. Dweck is the Psychologist who came up with the idea of growth vs fixed mindsets after observing different attitudes to learning, challenge and failure in her experiments with children.
It's mostly good though much of it is not terribly new to me given that so many books mention Dweck's work.
I do like the section on the complicated minefield of praise, and what parents say and kids hear, for example: "You're so brilliant, you got an A without even studying" can be interpreted as "I better quit studying or they won't think I'm brilliant".
But something has been bothering me throughout the book and I just worked out what it is. The book never seems to acknowledge the existence of privilege or bias, and instead pretty much lumps all responsibility for failure on the individual.
When the book says (to paraphrase), "A fixed-mindset person uses failure as an opportunity to blame, instead of an opportunity to learn how to succeed next time", a reader might reasonably interpret this as, "Don't draw attention to the systemic bias that is holding me back, as that would be fixed-mindset thinking, I just need to try harder".
-
Nearly completed my second listen of the audiobook Mindset by Carol Dweck. Dweck is the Psychologist who came up with the idea of growth vs fixed mindsets after observing different attitudes to learning, challenge and failure in her experiments with children.
It's mostly good though much of it is not terribly new to me given that so many books mention Dweck's work.
I do like the section on the complicated minefield of praise, and what parents say and kids hear, for example: "You're so brilliant, you got an A without even studying" can be interpreted as "I better quit studying or they won't think I'm brilliant".
But something has been bothering me throughout the book and I just worked out what it is. The book never seems to acknowledge the existence of privilege or bias, and instead pretty much lumps all responsibility for failure on the individual.
When the book says (to paraphrase), "A fixed-mindset person uses failure as an opportunity to blame, instead of an opportunity to learn how to succeed next time", a reader might reasonably interpret this as, "Don't draw attention to the systemic bias that is holding me back, as that would be fixed-mindset thinking, I just need to try harder".
-
Nearly completed my second listen of the audiobook Mindset by Carol Dweck. Dweck is the Psychologist who came up with the idea of growth vs fixed mindsets after observing different attitudes to learning, challenge and failure in her experiments with children.
It's mostly good though much of it is not terribly new to me given that so many books mention Dweck's work.
I do like the section on the complicated minefield of praise, and what parents say and kids hear, for example: "You're so brilliant, you got an A without even studying" can be interpreted as "I better quit studying or they won't think I'm brilliant".
But something has been bothering me throughout the book and I just worked out what it is. The book never seems to acknowledge the existence of privilege or bias, and instead pretty much lumps all responsibility for failure on the individual.
When the book says (to paraphrase), "A fixed-mindset person uses failure as an opportunity to blame, instead of an opportunity to learn how to succeed next time", a reader might reasonably interpret this as, "Don't draw attention to the systemic bias that is holding me back, as that would be fixed-mindset thinking, I just need to try harder".
-
Nearly completed my second listen of the audiobook Mindset by Carol Dweck. Dweck is the Psychologist who came up with the idea of growth vs fixed mindsets after observing different attitudes to learning, challenge and failure in her experiments with children.
It's mostly good though much of it is not terribly new to me given that so many books mention Dweck's work.
I do like the section on the complicated minefield of praise, and what parents say and kids hear, for example: "You're so brilliant, you got an A without even studying" can be interpreted as "I better quit studying or they won't think I'm brilliant".
But something has been bothering me throughout the book and I just worked out what it is. The book never seems to acknowledge the existence of privilege or bias, and instead pretty much lumps all responsibility for failure on the individual.
When the book says (to paraphrase), "A fixed-mindset person uses failure as an opportunity to blame, instead of an opportunity to learn how to succeed next time", a reader might reasonably interpret this as, "Don't draw attention to the systemic bias that is holding me back, as that would be fixed-mindset thinking, I just need to try harder".
-
Nearly completed my second listen of the audiobook Mindset by Carol Dweck. Dweck is the Psychologist who came up with the idea of growth vs fixed mindsets after observing different attitudes to learning, challenge and failure in her experiments with children.
It's mostly good though much of it is not terribly new to me given that so many books mention Dweck's work.
I do like the section on the complicated minefield of praise, and what parents say and kids hear, for example: "You're so brilliant, you got an A without even studying" can be interpreted as "I better quit studying or they won't think I'm brilliant".
But something has been bothering me throughout the book and I just worked out what it is. The book never seems to acknowledge the existence of privilege or bias, and instead pretty much lumps all responsibility for failure on the individual.
When the book says (to paraphrase), "A fixed-mindset person uses failure as an opportunity to blame, instead of an opportunity to learn how to succeed next time", a reader might reasonably interpret this as, "Don't draw attention to the systemic bias that is holding me back, as that would be fixed-mindset thinking, I just need to try harder".
-
Medium Playback is still a fantastically narrated podcast even though it is over. They now have TTS on all their stories, but for a while, I loved the production value of these narrations. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/medium-playback/id1394390142 #Audiobook #Audiobooks
-
Medium Playback is still a fantastically narrated podcast even though it is over. They now have TTS on all their stories, but for a while, I loved the production value of these narrations. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/medium-playback/id1394390142 #Audiobook #Audiobooks
-
Medium Playback is still a fantastically narrated podcast even though it is over. They now have TTS on all their stories, but for a while, I loved the production value of these narrations. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/medium-playback/id1394390142 #Audiobook #Audiobooks
-
Medium Playback is still a fantastically narrated podcast even though it is over. They now have TTS on all their stories, but for a while, I loved the production value of these narrations. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/medium-playback/id1394390142 #Audiobook #Audiobooks
-
Medium Playback is still a fantastically narrated podcast even though it is over. They now have TTS on all their stories, but for a while, I loved the production value of these narrations. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/medium-playback/id1394390142 #Audiobook #Audiobooks
-
Les livres audio, c'est toute une histoire de narrateur ! 🗣 L'exemple des Hunger Games avec la voix française de Katniss m'a direct plongée dedans mais ce n'est le cas de tous 👀
-
August reading wrap-up
-
Around the Book World: August 31, 2026
Publishing analyst Carlo Carrenho kicks off the week with a review of the headlines from across the international publishing world.
The post Around the Book World: August 31, 2026 appeared first on Publishing Perspectives.
https://publishingperspectives.com/2026/08/around-the-book-world-august-31-2026/ -
Not kidding. I'm 42% listening to George Orwell's 1984 audiobook (by the way, skillfully read by Benjamin May) and all these days I have Eurythmics' Sexcrime in my head. It's a song that has been coming back to my mind during the (many) years. And now I'm watching / listening to the video every day. So beware, now I'm sharing my thirst.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DMaKrI3uYg
PS: Vielen Dank @stbibkoeln !
-
Tauch ein in die bunte Hörbuch-Welt der Lunaria-Galaxie. Hier wechseln sich fesselnde Abenteuer mit emotionalen Storys ab – perfekt zum Durchstöbern! Und das kostenlos.
www.youtube.com/@lunaria-galaxie.
#Hörbuch #Audiobooks #Geschichten #bookstodon
