The process from recording to publishing in Librivox's catalogue is kinda long.
An hour of recording, took me nearly 5 hours of editing. I don't know if this is normal or if I'm just that much of a noob. So between re-read, editing and meticulous perfectionism that is almost paralyzing, I get to procrastinate. And when I procrastinate, I wonder, “Why would anyone bother?”
Actually, why would 5000 any ones bother? Since, you know,
Over 5000 readers have completed at least one section, 272 readers have each completed over 100 sections, and 17 readers have each completed more than 1000 sections. [Source]
(No wonder English is becoming the common language of the literate.)
Behind every one of those thousands of books and recordings is a Proof Listener. Someone who listens to the first recording, notes the mistakes and survives the burps and farts accidentally unedited out from the original recordings.
A Proof Listener is someone with a saintly strain in their genes, if you ask me.
For, if reading for Librivox provides the instant gratification of being able to speak forever uninterrupted, then what do Proof Listeners get? And if, in the long run, the reader's voice gets immortalized in the public domain, unless he is a Dedicated Proof Listener (which is, by the way, very flattering to have), the rest of the Proof Listeners don't get that much credit.
Hence, it is my suspicion that if audiobook readers carry the threat of spreading about their deranged obsession with their own voices, Proof Listeners are God’s way of guarding the general public from that sort of insanity. Listeners who enjoy listening to the voices of narcissistic people talking to themselves endlessly. Listeners who, in one way or another, share a passionate ardor for literature in spite of their social and educational backgrounds.
Like this Proof Listener
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