A new project?

[tinyjo]

Yes, I know, I already have a tonne of projects, but I had an idea last night. I love hearing books read aloud. There's something about good writing that makes me really want to read it out. I mentioned it wistfully to Alex last night but he's got his own stuff to read and you feel a bit silly just reading aloud to your cat.

That's when I had the idea. With my iRiver I can easily make mp3 recordings of speech. It's incredibly simple. And I have lots of books, many of which are split into chapters for easy breaking, which I might like to read aloud. I could start an mp3 blog. It'd be like podcasting but with less music :)

So, my idea is this: every week, I would record myself reading a chapter of a story and then I would upload it to the internet. There'd be a page on my site you could download it (and old episodes) from and there'd be an RSS feed you could subscribe to for notification of new updates, etc. So, what do you think?

[Poll #494728]

Comments

[entirelysonja.livejournal.com]

One of my friends, lillibet, used to volunteer at a place where she read books out loud and then the recordings were made available to the blind. I thought that was very cool.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

I've wanted to do this for a while: specifically, with some of the Project Gutenberg books, since those are free of copyright. Keep in mind that publishing these may be consider a copyright violation if the book is still under copyright.

[leora.livejournal.com]

The books I listed are copyright. And I was going to put a warning about that.

Although you could always read them out loud and make them available only to me. But that might be a bit less pointful.

I'm not sure which books would be good choices, but I think it'd be a neat idea. I've listened to some short stories that people have read out loud and made available online.

[pthalo]

do you have a hot british accent? :)

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

I'll leave that for you to judge :)

[elleblue.livejournal.com]

It's a neat idea, though I have to admit that the only one of the readings the other day at the ousfg awards that I could really relax into was Ruth's, because all the others were a touch too quick for me. I know my own reading speed is significantly below the ousfg average, but if your intended audience stretches to people who're not the usual book-piranhas, you still might want to slow it down, just a bit. Anyway, I'll definitely give it a listen to start with if you upload something. Ditto about the copyright concern, though.

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

But, to explain my vote, I prefer to read a book than listen to a book.