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 Janet Evanovich, Michael Crichton, Mary Kay Andrews, Elizabeth Lowell, Jane Heller, Laurence Shames, Stephen Coonts, Elizabeth George, Daniel Goleman, Stephen J. Cannell, Edith Wharton, Marcia Willett, and Al Gore.

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."