Audiobook Abridging

Abridging a book for audio is an art requiring much skill and sensitivity. It's an exceedingly difficult task to take a book of more than 80,000 words and painstakingly trim it down until it meets the requirements of the medium (less than 30,000 words for a three-hour audiobook). Often, more than half the original text must be cut, while still preserving the integrity of the author's words and the complexity of the story or information presented.

It's a difficult task, but one I thoroughly enjoy. I've adapted nearly 100 books for audio, both fiction and nonfiction, in a wide range of categories and writing styles. This list of the authors whose books I've abridged includes Michael Crichton, Janet Evanovich, Mary Kay Andrews, Elizabeth Lowell, Jane Heller, Laurence Shames, Stephen Coonts, Elizabeth George, Daniel Goleman, Stephen J. Cannell, Edith Wharton, Marcia Willett, John Gray, and Al Gore.

Recent projects include One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell (author of Sex and the City) for Harper Audio, Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich for Macmillan Audio, and Eight Days to Live by Iris Johansen for Brilliance Audio. Click here for a complete list of completed projects.

My article about audiobook abridging, "To Make a Long Story Short," appeared in the March 2006 issue of Writer's Digest. I wrote about romance on audio in an article for the Romance Writers Report entitled "Romance Is in the Ear."