Hi All,
Starting out new as a narrator. Love reading and so excited about recording.
Have couple of questions:
1. What if the book I wanna record is already recorded my someone else. Where to look and how to know. I wanna record something that is not already recorded at LibriVox.
2. Where to get the book material. Do I need to have the book to read it or is it available online where I can access, read and record?
Thanks and looking forward!
-Scientila
Dallas, TX
Hi - Scientila as Audio Book narrator
Welcome to LibriVox, Scientila! (Excellent username 
)
1. What if the book I wanna record is already recorded my someone else. Where to look and how to know. I wanna record something that is not already recorded at LibriVox.
Do a couple of searches in the catalogue -- once for the book title, and another for the author. This covers the possibility that a minor change one or other might mean you don't find the existing book. You could also do a forum search, to see if anyone's talked about the book in the past, and what the upshot of that was. Note, the 'choice of voice' is a valuable part of LibriVox, so even if there IS an existing copy, you might want to take a quick listen still, and decide if your version would be different enough that you want to go for it anyway.
2. Where to get the book material. Do I need to have the book to read it or is it available online where I can access, read and record?
https://www.gutenberg.org is the best place to find books online, and they state very clearly in the 'bibrec' tab of each book whether it is in the public domain (and therefore fine to record here) or if there is still some kind of copyright (we can't accept any books like that.) archive.org also has lots of books, but not all of them are in the public domain -- so look for a publication date of 1922 or earlier to be safe here. If you're contributing to a collaboration, then the link to the online text is in the first post. If you want to record something that isn't online, then you will need your own copy of the book, and will need to be able to send a scan or photo of the publication information, so we know it's safely in the public domain.
3. You didn't ask, but if I can suggest ... the 1-minute test is the very best place to begin here, so you know all your technical settings are right, and volume's okay and so on. It's not an audition, just saves frustration further down the line. Just ask if you have any other questions ... happy to help as much as possible! Enjoy!
)1. What if the book I wanna record is already recorded my someone else. Where to look and how to know. I wanna record something that is not already recorded at LibriVox.
Do a couple of searches in the catalogue -- once for the book title, and another for the author. This covers the possibility that a minor change one or other might mean you don't find the existing book. You could also do a forum search, to see if anyone's talked about the book in the past, and what the upshot of that was. Note, the 'choice of voice' is a valuable part of LibriVox, so even if there IS an existing copy, you might want to take a quick listen still, and decide if your version would be different enough that you want to go for it anyway.
2. Where to get the book material. Do I need to have the book to read it or is it available online where I can access, read and record?
https://www.gutenberg.org is the best place to find books online, and they state very clearly in the 'bibrec' tab of each book whether it is in the public domain (and therefore fine to record here) or if there is still some kind of copyright (we can't accept any books like that.) archive.org also has lots of books, but not all of them are in the public domain -- so look for a publication date of 1922 or earlier to be safe here. If you're contributing to a collaboration, then the link to the online text is in the first post. If you want to record something that isn't online, then you will need your own copy of the book, and will need to be able to send a scan or photo of the publication information, so we know it's safely in the public domain.
3. You didn't ask, but if I can suggest ... the 1-minute test is the very best place to begin here, so you know all your technical settings are right, and volume's okay and so on. It's not an audition, just saves frustration further down the line. Just ask if you have any other questions ... happy to help as much as possible! Enjoy!
There's honestly no such thing as a stupid question -- but I'm afraid I can't rule out giving a stupid answer : : To Posterity and Beyond!
Cool! Cori's my real name too. Sometimes I'm jealous of the creative usernames other people come up with. But oh well. 
Sometimes I'm jealous of the creative usernames other people come up with. But oh well. There's honestly no such thing as a stupid question -- but I'm afraid I can't rule out giving a stupid answer : : To Posterity and Beyond!