Norman Mailer
What is an Audio Book?
An audio book is a book which one can listen to instead of reading. It is a recording of words spoken by a person instead music or songs sung by someone. It may be a recorded version of a book or a recorded spoken program.
Earlier, we could find recorded spoken materials like nursery rhymes, etc mainly in libraries or schools but not audio books. During the 1980s, book publishers started showing interest in spoken word publishing. Audio books became a common term from that time onwards and now audio books are available widely in book stores along with printed ones.
One will get an audio book in the form of a CD, cassette tape or downloadable digital formats like MP3, Windows Media Audio, etc. Presently, some preloaded digital formats are also available.
The main purpose behind creating audio books was to help the visually impaired. These were published in formats typical for them and accompanied by special type of players. The players were made in such a way that the visually handicapped people were able to handle them independently without any help. They are also helpful while on the move and those who are very busy in their daily life.
According to a survey conducted by the Audio Publishers’ Association in the year 2006 for the year 2005, audio book sales were around $871 million. Present estimates are around $2 billion at retail value.
Publishers now produce audio books along with hard cover editions. The first example of a simultaneous publication of an audio book and hard cover edition was the publication of the spoken recording of Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings by Jedediah. P. God
CD technology has brought revolutions in this industry. Lots of information can be stored in a single CD and more than one book can be stored in a DVD. They can be played using ordinary CD or DVD players as well, now a day. Portable music players like the IPod, Zen player; Zune, etc have helped downloadable audio books to reach the common mass.
There are mainly two categories of audio books, unabridged and abridged.
A word for word reading of a book is called an unabridged audio book and if the original content is edited, then it is called abridged. The abridger is the person who edits the contents. Abridgements are necessary to maintain time and bring down the cost.
Audio books can be created by recordings by trained vocal artists. Text to speech software can also be used if needed but in such cases sound quality may not be up to the mark.
Audio books are more expensive compared to the hard cover editions as a recording on a CD is expensive. Preloaded digital formats are also available, where audio content is loaded in simple players, similar in price as CDs. Downloadable audio books on the other hand cost less as they don’t have any storage, packaging or transportation costs.
Due to high production costs, Audiobooks have not yet become as popular as their hardcover or paperback counterparts, although music CDs and cassettes are very popular.
About the Author
William Stephenson has been presenting audiobooks to the public long before
IPODS and MP3 players
made them popular. Come see an enormous selection of
downloadable audio books.
I’m certain we have what you’re looking for!
Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal Feud on the Dick Cavett Show
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When We Were Kings $7.97 WHEN WE WERE KINGS – DVD Movie… |
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Norman Mailer, I’m Pregnant $1.99 … |
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Ragtime $5.99 … |
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Executioner’s Song [VHS] $9.99 Although Gary Gilmore had a pitiful life, it was enough of an American story gone bad to give Normal Mailer a platform for a grand, strange, utterly compelling book: The Executioner’s Song, published in 1979. Mailer’s literary collaborator, Lawrence Schiller, made the book into a TV-movie (with Mailer scripting), a landmark for its frankness and the general excellence of its acting. Gilmore is br… |
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Biography – Pablo Picasso: A Primitive Soul [VHS] $1,100.75 This two-hour program in A&E’s Biography series thoroughly documents the life and work of Picasso. Subtitled A Primitive Soul, Picasso’s Spanish roots are depicted in detail through the images that reoccur in his work as a painter. His father was a painter, although Picasso quickly surpassed him and is quoted as having said, “In art, one has to kill one’s father.” In Paris he quickly rose to fame,… |
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Jean Luc-Godard’s King Lear [VHS] $24.99 … |
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Norman Mailer … |
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The Naked and the Dead $18.00 Widely considered the greatest American novel written about World War II, and perhaps about any war, The Naked and the Dead secured Norman Mailer’s position, at only twenty-five, as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Based on the author’s own experience, it is a spellbinding account of a platoon of American soldiers in brutal combat to reclaim a Pacific island held by the Japanese an… |
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Marilyn: A Biography $4.99 An extraordinary biography of the legendary screen star Marilyn Monroe (originally published in 1973) by Norman Mailer, one of America’s most important writers of the second half of the Twentieth Century. Mailer, the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, was the first writer to explore the relationship between Monroe and Bobby Kennedy. When first published, this book was the subject of Time and Life maga… |
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When We Were Kings $19.95 Decades ago, documentary filmmaker Leon Gast attempted to complete a feature about the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” championship bout between boxers Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. Sundry complications, though, held up the project until its release in 1996. It was well worth the delay. From Gast’s perspective of modern history, the six weeks Ali and Foreman were forced to spend … |