This story is from July 22, 2013

Welcome to the exciting world of audio books

In a country used to consuming oral stories, audio books have come as a boon...
Welcome to the exciting world of audio books
In a country used to consuming oral stories, audio books have come as a boon. With authors going the extra mile, celebs adding star value and music jazzing things up, you are set for an extravaganza. It’s a ‘sound’ idea!
He’s travelled the world with his parents and Hindi was his second language in school, but Utanko Mitra knows the classic Kakababu mystery Sabuj Dwiper Raja by heart.
Mind you, the Class XII student of St Xavier’s Collegiate School can’t read or write Bengali well. But a new technology, a pair of headphones and an intelligent mind has let him access the magical world of adventure created by Sunil Gangopadhyay.
Utanko, you might have guessed, heard — not read — the story on an audio book. “Since then, he keeps asking me to download more books. He says listening to a story is an experience which cannot be compared to reading. I have noticed that his Bengali diction has improved and his concentration and patience levels have gone up since he started listening to audio books. I wish more superhero novels of Bengali literature are converted into audio. I too have started listening to self-help books while driving,” says his mother Durba Mitra. Durba and her son are not alone. Even in Kolkata, a booklovers’ paradise, a fast-paced urban lifestyle is turning many avid readers into fans of audio books. The benefits? You can plug in while you’re driving, cooking, exercising — an audio book can be a companion for almost all hours.
Narrator is the key
“Reading and listening are different activities. They can’t be compared. I have listened to as well as read books by DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy. For the audio books, it’s almost like watching a film without visuals. Listening to a book by a foreign author, and read out by a narrator from that part of the world, helps me understand pronunciation of some words better, thus improving my language,” says therapist Diksha Shah, adding, “The narrator is important when it comes to audio books. A recognized voice helps me connect better to the book.”

That is probably why many celebs like Naseeruddin Shah, Vidya Balan, Rahul Dravid, Sanjay Dutt, Konkona Sen Sharma, Boman Irani, Jaaved Jaaferi and Soha Ali Khan have lent their voices to the audio book of the children’s classic, Karadi Tales. The title music for it has been done by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. “The concept of audio books is fantastic because music is a very powerful tool and can really make a situation come alive in the eyes of your mind,” says composer Shankar Mahadevan.
Jaaved Jaaferi feels it is a good medium to initiate the habit of reading in children, provided it’s done in an interesting way. “Books move in snail’s pace, which is too boring for today’s generation hooked on digital media. As for adults, it is an acquired taste. I am also planning to buy and listen to one soon,” he smiles.
The audio book market is also evolving. Appropriate background sound is being added to complete the experience of listening to a story. Earlier, only a single voiceover artiste would read out a story; now multiple artistes are giving voices for different characters. Many authors like Rujuta Diwekar and Devdutt Pattanaik are giving their own voices to their books to lend that personal touch. Rujuta even got Kareena to read out an introduction to her book. “I liked the idea of an audio book as Indians prefer hearing a story than reading it. Since I am a speaker, it was a natural choice for me to record it in my own voice. However, since it takes too much time and effort to record the whole book, I restricted myself to a few pages and sections,” says Devdutt. Rashid Raza, who is the voice of the audio book of Amish’s Immortals of Meluha, says the challenge was to give different accents for different characters. “People who’ve read my books also like to listen to them in my voice,” reasons Ravinder Singh, whose audio book version of I Too Had A Love Story is one of the bestsellers in the category.
Spoken versus written
Amish, who has launched the audio book of his bestsellers Immortals of Meluha and The Secret Of The Nagas, is upbeat about the growing trend in India. “Audio books are big abroad, while it is just picking up in India. At present we are targeting those who want to know a story, but are short on time. India has always had a culture of consuming oral stories, where we are hooked on grandmom’s tales. We consume spoken words more than the written text. Some sound effects and music just add to the narrative. Voices help in portraying an emotion better,” he adds. Ask him whether listening to stories will curb the habit of reading and he reasons, “In ancient India and Greece, knowledge was only passed down orally through gurus. Did it make the students any less intelligent? The idea is to absorb the philosophy. How you do it doesn’t matter.”
According to Ravinder, audio is not a threat to reading. “Many audio book listeners are nonreaders. These books are best suited for people who are not in the habit of reading, but like to listen to stories. People are hooked on storytelling sessions on radio. So an audio book would just give them the same experience, sans the ads and promotions. It is ideal for long drives. It also lessens the strain on your eyes,” feels Ravinder, whose first book was narrated by a single professional voiceover artiste, while the second book, Like It Happened Yesterday, has multiple artistes and appropriate background sound. He admits that he “hadn’t even heard of the concept when he was approached, but agreed to go for it because it sounded very innovative and interesting. It takes you to the world of ’80s and ’90s when grandmothers used to narrate stories, till sleep took you over”.
Professor and author Rimi B Chatterjee says audio books help in spreading knowledge to people who otherwise wouldn’t read a novel. “Audio books target those who don’t read. If a housewife listens to a book while cooking, it’s better than her not reading at all.”
Indian markets, ahoy!
Jayashree Mantri Easwaran, who launched the audio book company Books Talk along with partner Jay Zendes, says, “I was a voracious reader, but couldn’t get enough time to catch up on reading. Then I chanced upon audio books and fell in love with them. I would extend my morning walks just so that I could finish a book. Though I could download audio versions of international books at a high cost, we were at a loss when we wanted Indian content. That’s when Jay and I started our company.” As of now, they have made audio books of 34 titles, of which five are in Kannada and a few in Bengali. Books Talk has converted Rabindranath Tagore’s Nostoneer and Kabuliwala and other short stories into audio books as well as Vijaynagarer Hire and Sabuj Dwiper Raja by Sunil Gangopadhyay. “I was almost close to tears when Ranjon Ghoshal was reading out Tagore’s Streer Patra. Most of us don’t end up reading in our mother tongues or regional languages, but we can listen to stories in them,” she says.
Listing the growth of audio book industry in India, Siddharth Suneja, head of sales of audio book company, Reado, says, “We started out in 2010 as we saw a big potential, especially after we learnt that it is a $7 billion industry in the US. In India too, there has been a considerable growth in downloads ever since the company was launched. In fact, retail stores report a growth of 100% every quarter. We have just signed up Chetan Bhagat to convert all his books except one in audio format.”
Though audio books can be enjoyed by everyone, it is a boon for those with visual disability and sensory disorders. “I was curious how a visually disabled person would know the classics, more so since I have retina problems myself. That’s when I chanced upon audio books,” says Ranjan Ghoshal, the voice behind many audio books. “I have seen many people buy both audio and paperback versions of a book. While they read a paperback at home, they listen to the audio in the car. This way, they go through a book much faster,” says Siddharth.
Economy of audio books
“The cost of making an audio book varies from 40,000 to 1 lakh depending on the elements you put in. But the best part is that once the master copy is done, the cost of reproduction is very low. We sell audio books at the same price as a physical book,” says Jayashree. Ravi Vora, senior VP, marketing, Flipkart, says, “Audio books are picking up pretty well. It is an important category for us. In fact, we try to give special deals and offers to promote it as we want to make it and more visible. We have noticed that once people experience it, they like it and want more. We have close to 1 lakh titles with us”
The city bookstores have started stocking audio books. “The clientele for this section is steadily growing. We sell 50-60 titles in a month. I have both read and heard Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, and I can say that hearing was a better experience,” says a spokesperson of Starmark. Non-fiction and management books like Corporate Chanakya, Blue Ocean Strategy and Rich Dad Poor Dad are doing in Kolkata as far as audio books are concerned. Disha Mooljee of Crossword Bookstore says, “Fiction is yet to catch up. We recently sent a large consignment of audio books to a school, which has them as part of the curriculum.” The spokesperson of Apeejay Oxford Bookstores reveals that the demand for audio books has gone up, but they are yet to give competition to reading.
Anantha Padmanabhan, vice-president, sales, Penguin Books, India, says, “Customers are consuming more digital content these days. It depends on the customer as to how he wants to consume a book — through print, ebook or audio book. At present we have commissioned more than 50 titles in audio. The consumption is growing. But bookstores should have listening stations so that consumers can sample what they are buying.” Are the bookstores listening?
Audio book? Wazzat!
-An Indian audio book generally costs as much as the physical book
-A 200-page book will turn into a six-hour audio book. Since it is in an MP3 format, it can be copied on any device
-A six-hour audio book will convert into a 400 mb file
-It’s available as CD and also downloadable from the internet
-It can be heard on a tablet, smartphone, desktop, laptop, Kindle and CD players
-An audio book is a boon for the visually impaired and those with motor sensory disability
-Older audio books were narrated by a single artiste, while multiple artistes are now giving their voice to different characters. Celebrities are also being roped in
-Books now have background music and sound effects, which were considered a distraction earlier
How to guard against piracy?
The technology for protecting audio books against piracy across the world is DRM or Digital Rights Management, a set of access control technologies which restricts the number of devices that a particular file can be shared on.
However, most Indian audio book websites haven’t started using DRM yet. Says Jayashree Mantri Easwaran of www.bookstalk.com, “We haven’t introduced DRM protection yet because we don’t view piracy as competition. At present, we want more and more people to listen to audio books so that they get hooked on them.” Siddharth Suneja of Reado adds, “After a user creates an account on Reado, the website allows him to store the downloads in our library for a lifetime. So if he posts any of those books on a public platform, our watermark technology helps us track down the user after which we can take legal action. We can also erase the user’s account and, thus, all the books that he has downloaded will be deleted. However, we haven’t introduced DRM as we want people to be able to lend their books to their near and dear ones, which they even do with paperbacks.”
Ananth Padmanabhan of Penguin says, “The verdict is still not out on the usage of DRM as sometimes the limitation of listening to an audio book on just some devices can be restrictive. On the other hand, it ensures that only those people who buy it, can read it. But the world is going DRM-free, so let’s see how we fare in terms of audio books in India.”
Bestseller playlists in India
Immortals of Meluha by Amish
I Too Had a Love Story by Ravinder Singh
Can Love Happen Twice by Ravinder Singh
The Secret of the Nagas by Amish
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey
Corporate Chanakya by Radhakrishnan Pillai
Jaya by Devdutt Pattanaik
The Habit of Winning by Prakash Iyer
Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
Women and The Weight Loss Tamasha by Rujuta Diwekar
(Order does not indicate sales or popularity)
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