Hello everyone, ABagOVicodin here. I'm proud to announce that we're going to be revamping some of the audiobook guidelines due to feedback that we have received from numerous sources. I feel we should be as specific and transparent as possible into the process behind their acceptance as well as what we plan to do from now on. Please join me after the break.
AUDIOBOOKS! What are they?
Very good question, person who spilled water on their Shift key. Audiobooks are readings of fiction (usually fanfiction) that are read by a "narrator" and usually published on YouTube. They have been a huge part of the "YouTube Brony Subfandom" for a while now, and we opened the gates to them a little bit ago, but with the caveat that the audiobooks had to be done on stories that have already been approved by our EQD prereaders. Here is an example of an audiobook.
What happened to audiobook posts?
To be blunt, we ran out of audiobooks to post that were EQD approved. We mentioned this a little bit ago in the "Feedback" post a month or so ago. We didn't want to trivialize all of the hard work that the prereaders of EQD do to make sure that our quality for fanfic posting remains high. Along with that, we didn't want to have stories that would be excellent when translated into an audiobook form be unable to be posted because the original story wasn't approved by our prereaders. This leaves a huge gap of stories that sound excellent when done by readers like "TheLostNarrator" or "OBabScribbler" to be forgotten and not seen by the fandom.
We want to remedy this, but also keep the quality that we know the fandom expects of us. It's very hard keeping the balance sometimes, but after an extensive chat with the fanfic reading community, I'm glad to announce that we are going to revamp our guidelines to make it easier for creators to submit, readers to enjoy, and best of all, us to approve.
What are the new audiobook submission rules?
How convenient of you to ask! The new submission rules have been discussed at length with various high-quality audiobook producers and they are going to be the new rules from now on. We have gotten rid of some rules and implemented others to make sure that as we said, the quality of the audiobooks remains transparent and fair.
The following rules apply to all audiobook postings:
- All audiobooks must be longer than 10 minutes.
- All audiobooks do not have to be stories approved by EQD but they do need to "sound good" in an audio format. We reserve the right to deny or dictate any story as "not appropriate" for the site.
- All audiobooks must have a picture/visual aid that is either the fanfic cover art, or a picture of the relevant characters within the story.
- All audiobooks must have an introduction with the name of the fanfiction, the author of the fanfiction, and the reader. The introduction can either be within the audio, or on the visual aid.
- All audiobooks with background music must have the genre be relevant and be mixed correctly within the video. Background music is not required but recommended.
- All audiobooks must have good to excellent voice acting or a voice that works with the "genre" of the story.
- All audiobooks must be hosted on YouTube (for our convenience)
- All audiobooks must have excellent sound quality. This includes a very good microphone, usage of post-production (noise removal, etc), and absolutely no background noise.
- All audiobooks will still be sent to the main submit@equestriadaily.com email. The Email must contain a YouTube link to the reading, the story name, the genre and author of the story, the name of the narrator, and whether the audiobook is complete or incomplete.
We hope that these new rules will help aspiring creators to understand what goes into producing an excellent audiobook, while also providing beginner steps to let others get started. I will give these rules to Seth to post under the "submit" tab so that these submission guidelines are transparent and easy to reference.
Finally, here is a video with ten tips to get you started in audiobook reading, as well as an audiobook by OBabScribbler. She is the perfect example of the type of audiobooks that you want to be creating and shooting for. If you have any questions, feel free to tweet at me at @ABagOfVicodin or post in the comments down below. I'll be around the comments for a little bit and I'll also answer any questions that you may have about the new guidelines. Thank you to everyone for your feedback, and I'm very happy with these changes. Send in those audiobooks! Go, my children!
