The charm of audiobooks is that you get to have a book read to you. It transports you back to when you were a kid and your parents and teachers would read you stories. It is less time-consuming than sitting down and picking up a physical book, making multitasking possible. You can sit back and listen, listen while exercising, or driving to work. But do you ever feel like the delivery of an audiobook comes across as flat? Do you ever find it hard to become fully immersed in an audiobook like you can when reading the words on a page?
Graphic audiobooks are becoming a popular way to listen to books and aim to change the audiobook experience. Here we will get into a few reasons why a graphic audiobook is not your ordinary audiobook.
A Cinematic Reading Experience
Books often have the power to transport readers — or listeners — to different and unknown worlds through words alone. As author Paulo Coelho once said,
“The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader.”
GraphicAudio, owned by RBMedia and one of the leading publishers of graphic audiobooks, has taken that message seriously. Their company tagline, A Movie in Your Mind, boasts a more immersive audiobook experience that explains why graphic audiobooks are rising in popularity.
The biggest and simplest difference between audiobooks and graphic audiobooks is that graphic audiobooks offer a more dramatized version of the books. Each character has a different voice actor, paired with background music and sound effects. The stories transport readers right into the scene, making it an increasingly popular fusion between imagining the story in your head and listening to it happen.
Are You Entertained?
Many people enjoy graphic audiobooks because of the full experience. It is more than just reading; it is truly a fusion between reading and hearing a story come to life. More than anything, graphic audiobooks are meant to entertain. Already, listening to an audiobook is a more passive way to take in a book, but with the added auditory effects of a graphic audiobook, it becomes that much easier on the brain and leaves a little bit less to the imagination.
However, graphic audiobooks won’t work for every genre of book. The very nature of graphic audio is to fuse books with a more entertaining experience. This type of listening will work best with books that seek, more than anything, to entertain. It lends itself best to stories that involve high action, suspense, or heavy dialogue, in which extra auditory effects can add to the story. For a more literary or intellectually focused book, a regular old audiobook would probably work best.
Listening vs. Experiencing
If you’ve ever listened to an audiobook, especially while doing something else, you know how easy it can be to zone out for a few minutes and get completely lost in who is saying what or what is going on. This is one aspect of listening to books that can be solved by graphic audiobooks.
While audiobooks simply have a narrator read through the book word for word, most graphic audiobooks offer an abridged version of the book. With different voices for each character, it is easy to know exactly who is talking. With the use of background sound effects, especially in an intense action scene, it is easier to figure out and fully comprehend what is going on. Because of this, graphic audiobooks often edit the book and take out extra words, such as “he said” or onomatopoeias that can be redundant when the listeners can hear the actual sounds as part of the audio. This makes graphic audiobooks more about the experience and less about listening to someone read the book.
The Price of Listening
Another major caveat that can deter people from choosing graphic audiobooks over regular audiobooks is the price. Since it is more closely aligned with the entertainment industry than normal audiobooks, a graphic audiobook is usually more expensive, with prices similar to those of a physical book. This is largely due to a much greater production cost that comes along with a full cast of characters, music, and sound effects. But many listeners find it worth the price. After all, you are paying for much more than just a recording read aloud.
In the end, it is all about what reading experience is for you. Are you willing to pay a little more to be fully immersed in your favorite fantasy world? Or would you rather stick to listening word for word and staying 100% true to the book being read? Both serve a different purpose in the growing audiobook industry and just might be worth a try.
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