ALEX: Gladly! I'm a big fan of NPR [National Public Radio] when driving, exercising, or working at my day-job. And, as an avid reader, I never feel I have enough time in the day to read all the stuff I want. Before starting this project, I'd take a work with me by converting a Project Gutenberg text or a long online article to an MP3 or AAC using my Mac's text-to-speech ability and a GUI/program I released called Audiobook Studio. Very utilitarian, but it's tedious to listen to a lot of it. A few years ago I sold my recording equipment because of space and money considerations, and have since been looking for an excuse to replace it. When the back of your mind constantly looks for new ideas, occasionally one comes up that seems worth pursuing.

In college I was an English major and a Theatre minor, and this project has been a great way for me to combine these two great interests. I get to explore great works in depth, revisit some old favorites, and give a lot back to the community at large.

ALEX: Right now it's limited to people who have home recording studios--which is anything from a cheap 4-track and a microphone to big sound-proofed basement-studios. I imagine people who have quiet enough computers can probably get pretty good sound with a decent mike plugged right into their computer. Tape hiss is not acceptable. The sound of computer fans isn't acceptable. A few people have managed to get some pretty good recordings by plugging a microphone into a video camera, but it takes some tinkering to get it to work right. I'll be putting up some tips and standards on the site eventually--and maybe even offer training and discounted equipment, or put together a network of volunteers with home studios where performers can make arrangements locally.

Ideally I'd like to figure out the cheapest and easiest-to-use equipment package to recommend to people. The best option I've seen is the Fostex MR-8 recording package or the Pandora PXR4 recording package from Musician's Friend (musiciansfriend.com). Add in a pop filter and you've got a really good portable studio for under $400. But I haven't played with the Fostex yet, so I don't want to recommend it just yet. But what I've been telling people so far is that it needs to sound better than the built-in microphone on a cassette deck. People interested should know that the majority of the work and time involved is in editing out the bad takes. So your quickest and easiest way to get working is to probably get a quiet Mac (Apple laptops are the quietest), a decent microphone, and a pop filter, fire up Garageband (included with new Macs), and do all their work there. And please let me know what you plan on working on. Not only will I be able to make sure that no one else is recording the same thing, but I can make sure the work is in the public domain so you aren't doing all this hard work on something that's protected by copyright. See the site for royalty rates and a query form. For the sake of Telltale, a performer who can record herself or himself is considered a "Producer".

ALEX: I think they're only inexpensive compared to what big publishers charge, but pretty spot-on when it comes to the value that the customer gets out of it. Audiobooks in general are expensive to produce, and therefore expensive to purchase. You've got to pay the author, the performer, the audio professional(s) doing the recording and editing, and then the sales people and the manufacturing people and the shipping people. So bandwidth is cheaper than manufacturing and shipping. Home studios are cheaper than professional studios. The bulk of revenue goes toward paying artists involved (the performer, the performer/producer, and/or the author), and then bandwidth/hosting costs.

ALEX: In a way, but since the library doesn't exactly exist yet, I see them as the mainstream music scene vs. our indie scene. Because if you listen to independently produced music, you know it might not always have all the bells and whistles and distributions and promotions, but the quality can be good enough that in many cases you can't tell whether an artist has got a record deal.

ALEX: You can sample up to a minute of most of the works in MP3 format. Then you can download works by paying via Bitpass, or you can order an audio CD via Paypal (US only right now). BitPass works just like a prepaid phone card, and no personal information is transmitted to the payee (in this case Telltale Weekly). That means you can buy any and every audiobook we offer, and we still won't know it's you (or even that it's the same person!). Bitpass "cards" can be funded via a credit card or Paypal account.

ALEX: Audio CDs burned on to CD-Rs. You can play them on most commercial CD players and computers, and rip them and convert them to your favorite format.

ALEX: Not much convincing needed. For modern authors, Telltale Weekly's a reprint market--so their royalties are all profit, with very little work, unless they want to read and record their work themselves--which is encouraged if they have their own recording equipment. Also, because there doesn't seem to be as much interest in the publishing world in doing audiobooks of short stories, Telltale Weekly can pretty quickly become a big percentage of the short audio fiction market--if it isn't already.

ALEX: I'm staying away from longer modern works until I have a network of people who are interested in recording such things. But some classic SF novels are certainly on the way.

ALEX: I've done some reader's theatre, but most of my experience is in traditional stage or film. The variety of work I've done from different time periods (Shakespeare, Williams, Ibsen, as well as modern work) prepares me for just about anything (in English). I also have a real love of literature and the spoken word, and when you read something for which you have a passion you can really find your voice with the work. As a writer, I've found recording a reading of a work gives you a great deal of insight into its structure and details. By the time you've finished rehearsing every line, recorded every paragraph correctly, looked up every word of which you aren't sure about the pronunciation, and edited together the best takes, you know that piece inside and out.

ALEX: I'd like to slowly increase the amount of modern short SF fiction. I'd love to attract some of my favorite modern authors (well-known and obscure) and I'd like to read a few of them myself. If Telltale grows big enough, I'd love to get the rights to record some classic SF that isn't in the public domain. But the main focus of the project is and always will be the recording of work that will, after five years, be offered free to build that audiobook library. At first I thought this might limit the amount of SF, since it has to be originally published prior to 1923, but there's a lot of SF out there. Even limiting it to just Science Fiction, you've still got Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevensen, Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and of course H.G. Wells.

ALEX: Yeah, but we'll have to hit even that one again if we want it to be free in five years.

ALEX: I've contracted with the Amaryllis Radio people to release at least three more episodes of their SF drama, one per month. If it's popular enough, I'll continue beyond that. I believe fifteen are currently finished and ready for release with more in post-production. I have a feature-length SF audio drama on the way, probably by the end of April, but nothing I canannounce just yet. I've got at least one big SF surprise within the next quarter or two (a 100% free surprise) so stay tuned. A voice-actor who has more experience in producing audio content than I do is finishing up War of the Worlds for the project as we speak. I'd like to have Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs up by the end of the year. I imagine WotW and one of the latter two will meet that six month mark. And throughout April, I'll be releasing a total of four previously-published humorous SF stories by Tom Gerencer.

ALEX: Interestingly enough, I'm more of a nonfiction and poetry guy when it comes to listening to audiobooks. Maybe my ears are trained for NPR, but I get annoyed with audio fiction sometimes, especially the denser stuff that I like to read in print. I'll have to rewindconstantly because I like to take time with the richer passages. That said, the BBC dramatization of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is probably my all-time favorite audio recording. And I love to hear Harlan Ellison read both his own work and work by others. There's a classic Philip Roth work called Defender of the Faith for which he gave a great performance on tape, and the first Voice from the Edge collection is tops. The Teaching Company sells lectures on audio and I found one once about science fiction literature by a professor named Erik Rabkin. One of fastest 8 hour drives I've ever had, listening to that one.

ALEX: Hey, I'll have to read your review!

ALEX: Yeah, SF is often a driving force, pushing the boundaries of all media. The top authors at Fictionwise are all SF. Special effects films (largely dumbed-down SF) have changed filmmaking since George Lucas came along, and the Star Wars and The Lord Of The Rings radio dramas are some of the most popular ever made. Cory Doctorow released his first two SF novels for free online with a CCL even while they were in hardcover. And there's a real renaissance in independently produced audio drama right now and a lot of it's driven by SF works.