meredith said:

But reading a book aloud is an extremely slow and inefficient way to get text into electronic form.

that's the point, though. people won't be doing it "to get text into electronic form". that will just be a pleasant side-effect, a tangent from their real aim, which will be "to share a book with the whole world". they'll be doing it because it's _fun_. sure it's work too. but people will do a whole lot of work if they enjoy what they're doing. you see that all the time.

I could *type* a book in faster than I could read it aloud, much less scan it.

but your typed version will be no different than anyone else's. your _recorded_ version, however, will be _uniquely_ yours, perfectly representing the one-of-a-kind snowflake you are, something that your grandchildren, and _their_ grandchildren, can listen to over and over whenever they want to think of you. don't you wish you could hear your grandmother's voice again?

Reading out loud is tiring, even when you're used to it.

i agree, it is. but you also get used to it, the more you do it, until you can do it without straining yourself in the slightest.

If you have only read, say, picture books to your children, you may not realize this. You need to rest your voice after an hour or so.

i do performance poetry, so i'm sharply cognizant of voice training. i'm also acutely aware a large audience provides a lot of motivation.

And it takes hours and hours to read an ordinary book out loud, never mind something like The Lord of the Rings

the market for audiobooks has already asserted itself, quite loudly. i imagine that _free_ audiobooks will provide a _very_ large audience. and thus a lot of motivation.

(and, yes, I have read the entire The Lord of the Rings out loud.  Twice.).

then i guess you must have had sufficient motivation of some kind.

Twice.

ya know, if you would have recorded yourself the first time you did it, you wouldn't have had to read it out loud again the second time... ;+)

Scanning is boring, yes, but it is also fast.  And it doesn't make your throat hurt at the end of a session.

warm water. (for your throat, not for your scanner...) ;+) -bowerbird p.s. i see your signature-block promotes a book you've written. perhaps you heard that an author who was podcasting his novel recently got picked up by one of the major publishing houses? so lots of aspiring authors might think of becoming podcasters. voice training -- it's not just for performance poets any more!

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: "I am here to live out loud.” -- Emile Zola