br1an comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 7 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Unnamed 14 January 2011 06:49AM

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Comment author: gwern 19 March 2011 03:23:29AM *  4 points [-]

On #lesswrong, br1an mentioned that he wanted "to start an enjyn project to do a high quality professional grade audiobook production of HPMOR". (Enjyn is a lot like Kickstarter.)

moshez apparently listens to a lot of audio material ('escapepod, podcastle and with a little help'), and says "when they're done by a freelance voice actor, they always say how they can be hired", which suggests that VAs might be pretty cheap. One might only need a single VA, which is how a number of professional audiobooks like the Discworld books are done, and the results are not necessarily bad (drethelin: 'In my experience a single awesome voice actor for an audiobook is way better than a cast').

So what are people's thoughts? Does anyone know what sort of cost estimate we would be looking at? MoR has a lot of reviewers, but I don't know how many we could expect to kick in $20 or $50.

EDIT: There is actually an existing audiobook on Kickstarter; looks like they did it for $5k, with multiple actors and background voices, but on the other hand, their book seems to be much shorter than MoR is/will be and at least part of it was funded by a grant.

EDIT': Eneasz tries doing it himself: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/50h/hpmor_audio_book_pilot/

Comment author: br1an 19 March 2011 03:35:20AM 2 points [-]

Thanks so much Gwern! I was actually planning to just try and do a first chapter or two sample with whatever agreeable actor I could lay hands on and a friend's home recording studio, but seeing if there's interest first couldn't hurt! Glad to introduce myself to some more of the community too!