Recording Books

[vanese]

I have written a few children's books and would like to put them on the web whereas parents can pay a small fee per book to be read to there child via my voice recording. How do I get something like this to work?

[BlobFisk]

Hi vanese,

This requires a couple of few different things:

1. Credit Card validation (paypal etc.) to take payment for your product,
   
2. You then need to be able to authenticate them as users that have paid the fee and present them with the file to be downloaded or streamed,
   
3. A way of streaming the file - be it in Real Audio, WMA, MP3 etc.
   
4. LOTS of bandwidth...
   

HTH

[vanese]

Thanx Bob, how do I do the recording part.

[BlobFisk]

You'll need some form of audio software. Audacity is free, but for more features you can look at Cool Edit or SoundForge.

Then all you need is a microphone!

HTH

[korkus2000]

Recording should be pretty easy. You can either record on a non digital medium like tape then digitize the soundtrack or just record straight into a program on the computer with a microphone.

To get nice quality, worth paying for, you need to set up a room that will have nice sound canceling. You want to make sure that it is silent and not much echo or reverb. A mid sized room with carpeting on the floor and maybe some soft material in a few places on the walls. Foam is usually used in 12" x 12" squares. You only need like 5 or 6 in a 10'x15' room. You may not even need foam on the walls if the room doesn't have a noticable reverb.

Here is a free program that you can use a computer microphone to record into a wav. You can then use a utility to convert to mp3 if needed.

[audacity.sourceforge.net...]

I just started using it and the software is extremely robust for free.

[BlobFisk]

It's worth mentioning that many radio stations allow you to record in their production studios after hours...

[vanese]

Thank you guys soooooo much for all of your help.

[vanese]

You then need to be able to authenticate them as users that have paid the fee and present them with the file to be downloaded or streamed,

Blob, can you please explain how to do this in dummy terms:), and do you guys think that I will be able to pull all of this off myself? Or would it be easier to have someone do it for me? Now, I did build my own site, paypal and all, but this seems to be a bit more intimidating.:(

<Sorry, no personal URLs. See TOS [webmasterworld.com]>

[edited by: tedster at 8:39 pm (utc) on May 16, 2004]

[bunltd]

Vanese: while I was working with someone who wanted to do something similar I found a service called Instant Audio.

it's a service that hosts/manages your audio for you, and you can even record by phone, you simply link to your clip from your site. They give a lot of examples, and have a tutorial you can view to see how the system works.

LisaB

[BlobFisk]

Hi Vanese,

Trying to do this requires a good degree of web development proficiency - especially since you are dealing with information that needs to be secured (ie credit card details).

If you don't feel comfortable that you can develop these there are many off the shelf and online alternatives. Have a look in the eCommerce Forum [webmasterworld.com] for some excellent threads on these.

HTH