Nothing unusual about non-fiction.
“Recording and producing ”?
Too broad. These people are not singing or playing the zither or sackbut. They’re speaking.
educational or documentary audio books?
Historical works are stories. The ones that aren’t are used to prop up the short leg on the credenza.
I suppose trying to narrate “Cheltenham’s Introduction to Organic Chemistry” would fall into the non-story category. We will gently guide both of those people to the “Story Narration” forum.
Koz
Audiobook Production
— Narration Sound Help —
Koz
Not cast in stone, so feel free to continue discussing and it can be updated again if necessary.
For now, I’ve updated it to:
Audiobook Production
Community Forum - Narrating and Producing Audiobooks.
Considering that almost entirely all of my Audacity work is used for speech editing, this sub-forum might come in handy. 
How come the word Audiobook is used? Instead of Voice Over or, a word I prefer, Narration. For example, Narration Production, or Voice Over Production.
In setting up these “special interest” groups, we looked at the most common use cases for Audacity, then from that list looked for which areas frequently involve “specialist” techniques, knowledge, tips, etc. (that is, things that go beyond the scope of “using the software”). One group of users that stood out in this respect was people involved in producing audiobooks, hence the reason that it was selected. We may add or remove groups in the future according to demand - at this stage it is an experimental venture to expand our “community” focus.
If you wish to contribute something about “narration production” that is not specific to audiobooks, I doubt that anyone will complain.
Anyone can read a story, but producing a paid product for ACX can be very difficult and so many of our questions start with: “ACX rejected my audiobook reading…”
This probably would not be a special group at all without that.
Koz
No kidding and no DRM, and only an hour long (dragged into Audacity for editing). I did not get it from Audible.
But you’re right about DRM, it would make editing an oddball case I guess.
Gale
I certainly think it’s an improvement, and I agree (for now) it should be “Audiobooks” not “Voiceovers”, because as Koz said, the driving force for having a special forum board for this was people desperate about passing ACX requirements.
Audacity is quite commonly used for recording voiceovers - I had suggested it as a possible group. Are there any ways in which making a good voiceover differs from making a good audiobook?
Why “Community Forum” though? Aren’t the other Special Interest Groups “Community Forums”? I still think it might be worth having as subtitle “Narrating and Producing Audiobooks, such as for ACX or Librivox”. I know the latter is an important community, with an active wiki and forum of its own, but compared to ACX, very few Librivox users post on our Forum. Are there any other important groups that record audiobooks?
Gale
That said, Librivox audiobooks are not DRM’ed - I just got an MP3 audiobook from there and pulled the first track into Audacity. Append Import would be handy to edit the lot as one piece. 
That would be a topic for “Audio Processing”, not “Audiobook Production”.
Gale
Voiceovers (voices-over?) have more in common with overdubbing than with audiobooks. The voiceover people are speaking to an existing production. They have all the sync and latency problems that happen when you’re creating your own quartette. They are of a group with those trying to run commentary to a game, although the game people have their own problems.
The audiobook producer is spinning a yarn to a group of 12-year olds around a campfire. No difference.
Koz
To emphasise that this is not intended for Audacity support questions. If people want help using the Audacity software they should ask on the Help forum relevant to their operating system. This forum is specifically for those involved with making audiobooks. I would hope that it will eventually be largely run by people that are actively involved in such.
Librivox and ACX are currently two of the biggest outlets for audiobooks, There are others. It doesn’t matter if people are producing audiobooks for publication through ACX, Librivox, or any of the many other outlets, the issues involved with producing audiobooks with Audacity remain exactly the same. In that sense, the names of specific outlet organizations are irrelevant to the purpose of this forum.
There are different types of “voice-overs”. There will be a certain amount of common ground to making voice-overs, audiobooks and Podcasts. They don’t need to be exclusive clubs. The forum names are just intended to indicate the focus of each forum.
I hope you don’t intend to trivialize the work involved… Impromptu storytelling doesn’t involve proofing and corrections so that one is faithful to a written text!
They’re both stories and neither one has to hit a time cue. It’s fundamentally different from voiceovers which do.
There’s zero production difference between the campfire and someone reading a short story and making no mistakes. They’re sisters.
Koz
If the word “audiobook” is the one more commonly used here, then it makes sense to use it. 
I had, naturally, assumed that either can be talked about in this forum.
Regardless, it is more common to refer to [audiobook] narration as a sub-category of VO, these days. I guess it’s because VO work has a bigger market for readers.
Wikipedia gives a rather more specific meaning to the term “voice-over”: Voice-over - Wikipedia
but again, even with that narrower definition, I’m sure there are many issues common to both voice-over and audiobook production, so I would not be surprised, and I don’t think it would be out of place, for voice-over artists to contribute here.
What I don’t want is a long rambling title and description for the forum (Audiobook, Narration, Voice-over and other spoken word forum: For discussion of all aspects of audiobook, narration, voice-over production, including meeting ACX / Librivox quality standards, tips and tricks for narration, editing spoken word, and production of narrative or descriptive text in audio format, specifically in relation to using Audacity software but excluding general audio editing/processing and live (not recorded) narration.). 
But that’s just confusing IMO, Steve. I thought we agreed that none of the Special Interest Groups were for Audacity support questions. And that is what it says on Special Interest Groups - Audacity Forum
These forum boards are NOT for help using Audacity.
Well, that’s why I thought it could be good to mention Librivox (as well as ACX) - Librixox already have an active community.
[quote=“Gale Andrews”]
I still think it might be worth having as subtitle “Narrating and Producing Audiobooks, such as for ACX or Librivox”
[/quote]Librivox and ACX are currently two of the biggest outlets for audiobooks, There are others. It doesn’t matter if people are producing audiobooks for publication through ACX, Librivox, or any of the many other outlets, the issues involved with producing audiobooks with Audacity remain exactly the same. In that sense, the names of specific outlet organizations are irrelevant to the purpose of this forum.
That is why I suggested saying “such as”. Or you could say “For everyone narrating and producing audiobooks, including for Librivox and ACX.”
Obviously we don’t want an essay in the subtitle but I think the meaning of “Community Forum” is ambiguous here. We may have to accept that “Audio Technology” will be always be a help forum to some extent, but I don’t see why the podcasting and making music groups are not equally a “community forum”. I thought that was the point. 
Gale
They are, but so far we have not had anyone posting generic Audacity support questions in those forums, so I don’t think that point requires emphasis.
As a name for the forum I’d go with “Audiobook Narrators” (isn’t that what persons who narrate an audiobook are?) or “Voice Actors” (although that might broaden the field to include any kind of recorded vocal work). If one is participating in ACX, then one’s title(s) would be Producer, Engineer and Narrator all in one.
You say to-ma-to I say to-mah-to…
I vote for ‘Audiobook Production’ …