
Your throat hurts, your brain hurts: the life of the audiobook star - benryon
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/16/throat-hurts-brain-hurts-secret-life-of-audiobook-stars-tim-dowling
======
crazygringo
Your throat will absolutely not hurt if you’re a trained actor with a trained
voice. You learn how to sing and speak with proper technique — years of
classes — exactly so that doesn’t happen. Otherwise no one would survive on
Broadway doing eight shows a week.

For an author who wants to narrate their own book though? Yes, if they don’t
have vocal training. Which is why that might not always be the best idea,
among other reasons.

~~~
falcolas
One of the bigger reasons professionals are able to do broadway 8 shows a week
is that they limit their voice to those 2-3 hours. Michael Crawford (who is
_the_ Phantom of the Opera to my ears) refused to sing at a tribute to him and
the Phantom cast, because he had another play later that evening and didn’t
want to damage his voice.

I firmly believe that even a trained actor would become strained after three
consecutive ten hour days of constant speaking.

~~~
crazygringo
Well, as someone with friends on Broadway... I hate to tell you, but your
belief is just wrong. Sorry :)

When you're rehearsing, it's all day long, for weeks and weeks. And once
performances begin, Broadway actors are known to make further money during the
day doing voiceover work since it fits their schedule, being one of the few
acting gigs with a fixed, predictable daytime schedule.

Now certainly, you can't be belting high notes all day long. (Which may
explain your story about Michael Crawford -- extreme singing is different, and
that's a professional tenor range.) But a normal speaking voice? Absolutely.

That's also why, if you'll notice in the article, only one person is quoted as
their throat hurting. Because for trained voiceover artists, it's simply a
non-issue.

Fun fact: the vocal cords are one of the muscles in the body that don't ever
get fatigued (similar to the diaphragm, heart). Which isn't to say you can't
damage them (you can, with improper technique -- which is the case with most
people without vocal training). But they don't "tire out" with use the way
most muscles do.

~~~
falcolas
Your vocal cords are not the only muscles involved with speaking.

That said, I don't have enough information to refute your points for
professionals. Just testimonials from YouTubers. :) Thank you for the insight!

------
parkersweb
Interestingly, as someone who worked as an audio engineer for 8 years,
engineering for audiobooks is very poorly paid. The studio I negotiated with
(one that record some very well known titles) pay all their engineers by the
_finished_ hour. So all the added production work for a poor reader falls on
the editor.

I spoke to some friends who had done work for the same studio to find out what
typical production times were for a quick-working editor, then quickly moved
on.

------
sosuke
> I agreed to the challenge only because I was assured it was not unusual for
> a first-person, non-fiction book to be read by its inexperienced author. But
> I never met anyone else like that in my three days at the studio. I met only
> professionals.

Ray Bradbury narrated some of his own audiobooks. Hearing him was a mixed bag
though.

~~~
rpmisms
Sometime the quality from an author's reading isn't the best, but it's always
interesting to hear a work read exactly as it was conceived.

------
damontal
I'd like to know how the readers benefit from reading. Someone like Grover
Gardner or David Timson - these guys ready pretty substantial books -
Herodotus, Shelby Foote, Boswell, Gibbon...

Do they retain all that they read? Is it an enriching experience?

------
jweather
Are there any good resources for learning more about voice acting? I'm a
complete amateur and probably will never record an audiobook, but I love
reading to my kids and always feel like I could do better with differentiating
character voices, accents, etc.

------
dzej_bi
At least they have work. Sounds like a booming sector for a few next years.

------
jackhack
"...they get paid per recorded hour."

And, as members of the actor's union, they are paid scale. (edit: and
royalties.)

I'm struck by the irony that voice actors (who work for a day or two on a
video game) are paid royalties for years, while developers (who work crazy
overtime for years on a video game) are paid a straight salary, then laid off
after it ships as a "cost savings" measure.

So "your throat hurts" after a few days' work? I'm finding it difficult to
muster sympathy.

~~~
boomlinde
_> So "your throat hurts" after a few days' work? I'm finding it difficult to
muster sympathy._

It's not their fault that developers aren't using unions to extract their
share of the massive wealth that successful video games generate, and instead
choose to work for free.

~~~
samirillian
Yeah, this is great. See the top comment on Google firing apparent labor
organizers:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21520129](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21520129)

On the one hand, programmers are called impossibly naive for trying to
organize.

Then when others do organize, rather than revising the claim that it's naive
to even think about organizing, they simply resent those who do.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Programmers will never organize.

Organizing means losing the right to individual bargaining when signing a new
contract.

Edit: I'm not against this, but American Individualism makes people think they
can get a better deal by negotiating alone.

~~~
boomlinde
Here in Sweden where collective bargaining is widespread I haven't found that
it's somehow in conflict with individual bargaining. Collective bargaining
results in minimums, like this is the worst deal we can give you based on
collective agreement. You can still bargain individually to get a better deal
than that.

It can perhaps be an issue if you feel that you can be more attractive on the
market by undercutting the competition, but I'd guess that the majority of
game developers are not in that position.

~~~
michaelper22
In the US, in particular at least one NYC government agency, unionized "system
analyst" jobs are common. They get a defined salary based on experience and
level, an assigned eight hour shift with half-hour lunch break, and a clock
that must be punched into on time. Another has kind and caring help desk
people who nevertheless carefully watch the clock.

~~~
ameister14
The government does defined salaries based on experience and level regardless
of unionization.

------
dwoozle
This industry seems like it could be put out of business on the low to
mediocre end by deep learning.

~~~
kccqzy
Despite advances in deep learning, it's still very easy to tell a TTS voice
from a human voice. Even companies like Apple that has paid special
attention[0] to the naturalness of TTS can't get it completely.

Also, did you notice that in all major animated films (think Disney or Pixar),
while the imagery are all computer-generated, the voices are not?

[0]: [https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/08/06/siri-
voices.htm...](https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/08/06/siri-voices.html)

~~~
catalogia
I use Apple's TTS to read books. It may not sound like a human, but after a
few hours of listening to it the strange nature of the voice gets abstracted
away by your brain. It's very functional. I knocked out Neal Stephenson's
_Anathem_ a week ago in about two days using TTS to read probably 75% of it.

What it doesn't do is the _acting_. In an audiobook, the voice actor will
change their voice in various ways for dramatic effect, and in that respect
the book becomes something like a radio drama. With TTS you're getting "just
the book". I think that's the major difference and the refuge in which voice
actors might hope for continued employment.

~~~
grozzle
I can imagine using TTS to catch up on news articles, magazine articles,
reviewing a textbook, maybe even listening to opinion columns while out on the
go or multitasking with my Photoshop time, but I can't imagine it doing
anything except ruining a novel, or anything else involving drama or comedy.

~~~
catalogia
Far from ruining novels, it's quite pleasant. After you've become accustomed
to it, it becomes a very low-fatigue way to read for extended periods of time.
I find books read by TTS are just as immersive as reading print. In fact the
experience of TTS and reading print seem closer to me than print vs
audiobooks.

I guess what I'm saying is don't underestimate neuroplasticity. I wager you
could even achieve casual fluency with morse code if you listened to it long
enough. I'm under the impression that some telegraph operators did.

~~~
air7
That's really interesting. Basically the audiobook is more of an
interpretation of the text. It's perhaps closer to a movie adaptation. Once
you lose the exception for the TTS to "tell you a story" but rather to "tell
you the words", it becomes just a different input stream. I didn't think about
it like that until now. I'll give it a try.

