When Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, a madcap chronicle of a Hungarian hockey goalkeeper turned bank robber, was published two years ago, it was praised by numerous critics and became a finalist for an award given by the Mystery Writers Association of America. It attracted fans including the novelist Gary Shteyngart and the actor and artist Eric Bogosian.
But none of that seemed to matter when Julian Rubinstein, the book's author, approached his publisher, Little, Brown & Co, about doing an audio book. While growing in popularity, audio books remain resolutely mass-market-oriented, and Rubinstein's nonfiction book, which sold fewer than 15,000 hardcover copies, simply had not generated enough revenue to justify the costs of producing a recorded version.
For many authors that would have been that. Rubinstein, however, was unbowed. He enlisted the help of a friend and sound-studio operator, Joe Mendelson, and managed to recruit a cast of some of his well-known fans, including Messrs. Shteyngart and Bogosian, as well as the rocker Tommy Ramone and the comedian Demetri Martin, to perform as characters in the book.
Everyone donated time, and Mendelson did all the editing free. So when Rubinstein went back to Hachette Audio, the division that produces audio books for Little, Brown, the company agreed to release a digital-download-only version of Ballad. Late last month online retailers began offering the 11-and-1/2-hour download, along with a video clip of the real-life protagonist of the book, Attila Ambrus, reading an introduction from prison.
Rubinstein is one of a handful of authors taking a pro-active role in developing audio versions of their books. Thinking this medium could attract new readers, they are trying to create more than a straightforward spoken version of their work.
"I just think that this audio book is a lot more lively than most," said Rubinstein, who added that he has listened to only one or two books in this form. "If I knew of other audio books that were like this, I would be much more into it," he said.
The same impulse drove Greg Palast, an investigative journalist and author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal ‘08, No Child’s Behind Left, and Other Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Class War (E.P. Dutton), which in hardcover will be No. 11 on the New York Times nonfiction hardcover best-seller list on Sunday. For the audio version Palast has assembled a cast including the comedian and actress Janeane Garofalo, the television veteran Ed Asner and the punk rocker Jello Biafra, whose voices are heard in between Palast's narration.
Sarah Vowell, a contributing editor on public radio’s This American Life program, recruited a group that included the novelist Stephen King, the actress Catherine Keener and the host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, to read for the audio book of Assassination Vacation, produced by Simon & Schuster Audio last year.
"I wanted to think about making it a little more show biz," Vowell said. "I wouldn't necessarily use the word dulcet to describe my voice all the time, so I wanted other readers to break it up."
The vast majority of audio books — which themselves represent less than 10 percent of all books published — are read by single narrators, either the authors themselves or unknown performers recruited by the publisher. On occasion, celebrities read a book, but generally, said Chris Lynch, publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio, they are difficult to attract, given typical pay rates of US$4,000 to US$6,000 for a six-hour audio book.
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