Is it all right if I put up my own Librivox audio books?

arthurpiantadosi · Post by **arthurpiantadosi** » May 24th, 2011, 1:32 am

Because I was wondering if it would be all right to do so. There seems to be only a few audio books up that I can find. I admit that I have not searched for everything, but, I could not find Samuel Langhorn Clemens A Yankee in King Arthurs Court, so I put up some of the book with illustrations from the Project Gutenberg version ebook. You can find the beginning of that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUZk-ICe2mk

I also have put up the first 11 chapters of Mr. Whickers Window on Youtube. You can find the first chapter here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FsPBPzK96k

In both cases I have gotten either no comments or few comments, and few views. I have always LOATHED commercials, but now, for the first time, I find myself promoting a product. It is free, and should be easy to listen to, but I still feel upset at having to interrupt anyones time in reading this. I would love to just leave my recordings up and wait for people to listen to them, but that has not really happened yet. Do people not listen to audio books on youtube? I certainly would if they were the books I like. But like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, who found that there were not enough books of the kind they liked to read, I find there are not enough books to listen to on Youtube, and decided to remedy it. The results I have had are depressing, and I hope that is because the people who like the same kinds of books I like have not heard that there are audio book chapters being put up on Youtube. This post is to remedy that, to some small degree.

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » May 24th, 2011, 4:06 am

arthurpiantadosi wrote: I could not find Samuel Langhorn Clemens A Yankee in King Arthurs Court

That's because it is under his pen name "Mark Twain". We actually have 2 versions:

http://librivox.org/newcatalog/search.php?title=yankee&author=twain&status=all&action=Search

As for putting your recordings on LV, you will need to make sure all you specs and the disclaimer are correct. (And that it is PD of course)

Esther

Post by **annise** » May 24th, 2011, 4:18 am

Hi Arthur
I'm not sure what you are actually asking - but if it is "Can you use your Librivox recordings on youTube , the answer is yes once you have released them into the public domain any one can do anything with them - people have used some of the poetry especially to accompany images.

Anne

Guero · Post by **Guero** » May 24th, 2011, 6:38 am

As for why people are not listening to the recordings on YouTube...I'm no expert, but my guess is that people don't think of audiobooks when they go to YouTube. They think of something visual. Also, to watch/listen to something on YouTube you have to have connection to the Internet. That's fine for quick videos or songs. But, I would think most people who want to listen to books prefer to do so when they're away from their computer and/or Internet...jogging, driving, in the park, etc. So, I would think a more portable medium is preferred.

That's my two cents...

Cori · Post by **Cori** » May 24th, 2011, 11:57 am

If I might make some suggestions ... perhaps put a little teaser for the story in the 'about' box. You could also add "kids, childrens, audiobook, classic" and more general labels to the tags -- make it easier to find. And finally, a little polite self-promotion around the rest of the web never hurts. Posting here's a great start! If you blog or tweet, mention it there, of course. If you can find anyone who reviews this genre of audiobooks, you could drop them a line asking them to see what they think? Do you have a page of links to all the YouTube videos? If so, you could ask for that to be linked from the archive.org page ... some people will like to listen and look at the pictures too.

A final thought -- I'd agree with Guero that YouTube probably isn't where people would think to look for an audiobook, so please do factor in listens at archive.org and the unknown but probably reasonable number of people downloading from other places, getting CD copies on eBay and so on. Don't mind that people aren't listening in the same way that you do ... that really really doesn't mean that this book isn't reaching a sizeable and appreciative audience.

jedopi · Post by **jedopi** » May 25th, 2011, 5:57 am

While I agree that YouTube is mainly thought of as a "visual" media and not really an "audio" one, I have still found audiobooks there. In fact there are some there that shouldn't be like The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc. These happen to be some of my favourite books, BUT they are not public domain and I don't really think that they should have been posted there.

But it is a great way to get even more publicity for LibriVox (or a particular narrator) because almost everyone has checked out YouTube at one time or another. It is extremely popular so I decided just yesterday to add a short audiobook video of my own. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jedopi1&aq=f

My name on YouTube is Jedopi1 instead of just Jedopi - I must have set it up wrong somehow because I don't think that there are any other "jedopi"'s out there. It is just a name I made up (combo of first, middle, and last names).