Over the last couple of months, I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of audiobooks, thanks to being a judge on this year’s Audie Awards. The Audies are hosted by the Audio Publishers Association and seek to highlight the best audiobooks of the year across a wide variety of categories. Unfortunately, the one rule of Audies is that while I’m allowed to talk about being on a judging panel, I’m not allowed to share which one. But what I will say is I’m in a category with a significant amount of listening to a lot of different books.

My selections are due on December 12, a mere week and a half away. I’ve got about five titles left in my list, which feels extremely doable. As I listen to one of those books, I thought it’d be fun to share a few of the things that I’ve learned from this experience. For readers who are curious about becoming part of the Audies in the future, details for how to be a judge are on the APA website, and if you like listening to audiobooks, I cannot recommend the experience highly enough — even though, as you’ll see, I might not choose to do the category I’m in again.

 

 

• The judging round I’m in comes in two waves. I got my first round of titles in late September, then my second round in early November. The very first thing I did was look at the list of titles and their time. I’m required to listen to books all the way through in my round, as opposed to the first hour or so, and I needed to come up with a game plan. My approach was going from the longest audiobook down to the shortest. When I finished the first round, I realized this worked really well and made me excited for the shorter titles by the time I got to them, so I took the same method for round two. This is why finishing up five books in a week and a half feels so doable at this point. They’re all under 8 hours, meaning I can listen to them in a day.

 

• The bulk of my audiobooks have been in the 10+ hour range. As someone who prefers shorter books to longer ones, I came to the experience nervous, but realized pretty quickly that while the narrative mattered, for the purposes of the awards, I needed to focus more on performance aspects than I did whether or not the story captured my attention wholly. But in many cases, it did grab my attention anyway. I had one book that was the second title in a trilogy, and I’d not read the first one — but I loved the audiobook and never felt like I missed out on anything vital by diving right in. I did note this, in part because I think that’s a pretty powerful sign of a masterful audiobook.

 

• We are not allowed to listen at any speed faster than at speed. As someone who listens at 1.25 or even 1.5, this has been the most difficult part of the process. It’s so slow. But that slowness is purposeful: you really do have to focus on the performance.

 

• My category included both fiction and nonfiction, but I was sad to see only two nonfiction titles in the whole of 20 or so audiobooks. I’ve got the second one yet to listen to, but I found the first to be among the best I listened to. My general listening tends toward nonfiction, so I’ve got a bit of bias there, but I’ve been surprised that the judges in the prior round did not think there were more than two nonfiction titles worthy of a second listen, as my own year of listening has suggested quite otherwise.

 

• That said, I learned how quickly I can adapt to fiction on audio. I used to listen to novels all the time while driving, but that fell away for me. I was nervous I’d be unable to keep with one, but this experience has proven quite opposite. In fact, I had to listen to the audio of a book I’d read in print, and I think that, despite how much I liked it in print, I liked it even more in audio.

 

• There is a big lack of diversity in my collection of audiobooks. I can’t put my finger on why, of course, but I was disappointed to see so few books by authors of color in my rounds, and more, disappointed to see so few performers of color reading the titles. It wasn’t — and isn’t — entirely surprising, though, that I’ve found those books to be at the top of my list, particularly as accents have been authentic and added such depth to the narrative in ways that really made those books come alive.

 

• Speaking of performers, I’ve had multiple books performed by a voice that many people adore. As I’ve listened to multiple titles by them, though, I’ve come to discover while I can see why they’re a great performer, I don’t like them personally. I don’t know so much if it’s them, or it’s the fact their voice tends to perform many thrillers where the strong female character in the book is seen as masculine. It’s been interesting to see this trend play out, wherein a strong female character is given a deeper, more masculine voice. I can’t say I like it, and the more I hear it, the more it bothers me.

 

• Children’s voices in audiobooks are not good. A number of my titles have included a performer giving voice to a child, and nearly all of them have sounded exactly like that: an adult trying to sound like a child. It’s grating and pulls me out of a listen in no time, as I hope for that part to end as soon as it can.

 

• Something I’ve thought a lot about are Audible originals. For those unfamiliar, these are audiobooks available through Audible only, and they can be titles done just by Audible or titles that Audible has acquired to record and produce. What’s bothered me about these particular titles has nothing to do with the performance — they’ve been good. Instead, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering about accessibility of these titles to a larger listening audience. To listen to them, a person needs an Audible account. They’re not available in stores, via outlets online that sell audiobooks beyond Audible/Amazon, and most crucially, they’re not available for libraries. This isn’t one of my judging criteria, but equity in access is something I cannot stop thinking about. How can we name a book as the best if only a small number of people can acquire it? It doesn’t leave a good feeling in my ears.

 

• The round before mine was not required to listen to audiobooks all the way through, and at times, that showed. It’s not a lack of judgment on their part, but rather, really allowed me a chance to see what they saw initially and then see where and how the rest of the audio did or did not hold up. They were super into thrillers and mysteries, which are two genres I don’t especially care for, and yet, I quickly learned how fast I can discern what makes a good audiobook for one of those genres and what doesn’t.

 

• I’ve kept notes on each title via a spreadsheet with four categories: Performance, Direction, Production, and Content. The bulk of my notes fall in the first and third category. What’s been most interesting in my listening is how clear production can impact the overall book in ways that a general listener would never notice. One of my books had a weird production issue where each chapter would become more or less echo-y, depending upon where the performer was in relation to the mic. This became easier to discern as the problem when I switched from listening without headphones to listening with. It took me hours of that 14+ hour audiobook to put my finger on it, and when I did, I realized that it was something most listeners would potentially notice but never put a name to.

 

• A number of my books have had British, Canadian, or Australian accents, which has been neat. Some are more engaging than others, and some have impacted the experience. I had one with what was clearly a performed accent — not all of them were — and it immediately put me off and kept me off. That title is at the bottom of my list because the performance was so grating. A title with an Australian accent, performed by an Australian narrator, is among those titles near the top of my list for being so compelling.

 

• The thing that’s most surprised me about this experience is that I haven’t once gotten sick of listening to audiobooks. If anything, this has made me even more drawn to audio, especially as I discover the genres that work for me beyond nonfiction. In past book judging panels, I’ve found myself utterly burned out, but this has had the opposite effect. I cannot wait to listen to the loads of non-Audies audiobooks I’ve been building up in my personal library, and I am not worried that I’ll be analyzing them to the point of disliking them.

 

• Although the book is neither at the top of my list nor the bottom, one of my favorite listens was a queer, interracial romance. I’ve dipped my toe into reading romance and have enjoyed it, but never had I considered listening to it on audio. Let me just say it was pretty hot, and I’m glad I wasn’t driving while listening to it.

 

• How did I accomplish all of this listening? I worked it into my every day routine in more ways than I already do. I listened every time I was in the car by myself, and I gave myself spare time getting from place to place so I could listen for a bit in my car when I arrived. I listened every morning while getting ready for the day, and I used time while working on activities that didn’t require intense concentration for work. I packed my audiobooks with me when I’d work at the local cafe, which let me knock out 4 or 5 hours of listening at a time, and every opportunity I had to go for a walk, I took, audiobook in ears. I also downloaded a few mindless phone games — Candy Crush and Word Scapes being two I’ve really taken to — so that at night before going to bed, I could listen for a stretch of time and also do something while listening. It became routine pretty quickly, and in fact, now my husband and I unwind before bed by playing a couple rounds of Word Scapes together. For the most part, I kept notes in my spreadsheet as I listened, but there were a few times that I’d have to scramble for a piece of paper or my Notes App to jot down something I did not want to forget.

 

• Last, but not least, we do not talk as a committee of judges. All of our listening and decision making is done individually, and I have no idea who else is in the same category as me. This is a fascinating experience, as my judgments and insights are only ever shared in a final form with the titles I wish to move forward. Will other listeners on my committee agree? Disagree? Working in solitude is fun and really forces me to listen carefully, but it’s also been strange not to be able to talk with fellow judges and ask what they thought or if they noticed the same thing I did (or if they, like me, have found this trend of masculine sounding women voicing thrillers to be bothersome).

 

I can’t talk about my favorites yet, but I’m so excited to see what the final slate of titles for my category will look like and be able to share those with other listeners. I’ve really felt myself grow as a listener, as well as a judge of audiobooks, and I’m eager to take this knowledge forward and listen to more books than I initially thought possible.