The trend towards digital audio consumption was also upward before the pandemic began. Listening to podcasts and audio books with the option offered by mobiles has become a common practice in public transport, in the car, before going to sleep, while having breakfast and cleaning the house. It's becoming easier to hear your favorite shows and your books on demand, with more choice than traditional radio offers. The phenomenon of audio books has also erupted in recent years, even more so as a consequence of the reduction of closures, quarantines and the possibilities of face-to-face socialization that the pandemic has brought. However, whoever wants to hear audio books in Basque will find a niche where there is prosperity in other languages. Books published on the EITBpodcast portal, for example, have shown that this very week you can begin to fill that gap, but it remains to be seen what the future will mean, if you will systematize the production of audio books and under what conditions.

Audio books do not speak Basque. The literature
read today is quite widespread, in the Anglo-Saxon world, but also in the Spanish and French states. A clear example of this is the American platform Audible. Created in the last years of the last century, in 2008, the giant Amazon bought for 300 million dollars. In the first flowering of podcasts and iPod, the format of audio books that existed long ago quickly expanded. Audible is currently the leading producer and distributor of audio books in the United States, but not only in the United States, but has enjoyed great international prestige in recent years.

In addition to distribution, Audible participates in production through the Audiobook Creation Exchange platform created for this purpose. In it, the reader, author and editors can get to know each other to create audio books and then disseminate them through Audible. The platform is ten years old this year. Over 160,000 audio books were produced in the first eight years. However, in this market square the works are auctioned at a lower price. Many complain that this affects the quality of the audio books produced and the working conditions of workers.

There are more platforms for listening to audio books, like Storytel. In most cases they operate through a monthly subscription system, although sometimes they can buy or rent loose copies. There are free alternatives to them, such as Librivox, where works in the public domain can be found.

In all of them, however, there is hardly any presence of the Basque Country. In Audible you can find a few examples in Basque, almost all children's stories, and the quality of their voice is doubtful. Outside it, therefore, you can find audio books and other loose pills that have been appearing quite scattered over the years. Perhaps one of the best known books is the CD that includes Joseba Sarrionandia's book "Hau da nire ondarosoa" (Txalaparta / Esan Ozenki, 1999) and Raymond Queneau's book "Style Exercises" published in 2005 by Igela in the translation of Xabier Olarra.

However, today you have to go to the Internet in search of audio books. It is not easy to find complete books in Basque that have become common at the international level, but rather stories and loose poems. On the website of the editorial Susa and on the portal armiarma.eus you can read several texts, many of them in the voice of the writer. From Wikipedia you can also hear some literary texts, also in the voices of writers. Literary texts can also be heard on the project website Booktegi.eus and on the portal of Pako Eizagirre aittu.eus. The short story drafts that represent the future of the alternatives and utopias and then all the fables in the collection are also available in the voices of the writers on the project website. On the web Etxegiroan.eus there are also many stories and books that can be heard, both for children and adults. The website will soon be eleven years old.

For ten years,
other Xerezade Beste portals have been completing a catalog. The podcast Archivo de Xerezade has taken an amateur journey, mainly making dramatized readings of the narrations. The project by Ana Morales and Jasone Larrinaga has reached ten years in June of this year.

According to Morales, from a young age he liked to hear literature, but it has been a domestic issue for a long time: “As a child we read between the elders and the siblings... I knew there were audio books, but around me they didn't exist. In 2006, some friends gave me an iPod and one explained to me that I could hear podcasts. So I started looking at what was there, and I saw that there were a lot of podcasts that were read and dramatized literature. He always told me that something like this could be done in Basque.” And he thought if no one else did it, he would. However, I didn't know where to start and it seemed like a teamwork. Her partner, Jasone Larrinaga, then joined the invention.

Given the lack of tools at home, they went to the Bilbao Hiria station. Mieltxo Monfort, his director, welcomed them warmly. Among them, Saioa Gabikagojeaskoa joined the project. The Xerezades Archive was initially recorded in the radio studio and later edited at home. However, after about five years they decided to start recording at home with the right means. It is currently distributed by the Rosa network and launched a blog xerezade.org that has now become a website. Larrinaga and Morales continued with the session, although the frequency has been decreasing. Now they do it every time they can, but they try to publish one per month. “Our bet is never to stop doing it.”

Over these years, they have published over a hundred audios. For a couple of years, in addition, audios have been offered accompanied by works of art by women. They've also jumped out of the Internet into the street, organizing Xerezadejayak, to enjoy reading literature aloud with their friends. By 2020 they should have done the next one, but it was suspended, they hope that next year they will be able to do something.

For Morales, there seems to be a lack of confidence in reading through audio books, it is believed that you have to read it on paper. “But that’s a very recent mindset, enjoying ear literature is a very old thing, in convents, in radio novels… it’s nothing new. For me it is very gratifying to read aloud, you realize that you take another taste of things and find other nuances, with breaks, with emphasis...”.

In the case of audio books, he believes that publishers should wager: “They fear them and do not dare to make the investment. It can also be for bias. We should dare.”

To fill the
gap in 2018, four years after its creation, they announced the launch on the eLiburutegia portal of 300 Basque audio books in Daisy format designed for people with reading difficulties. In Spanish there are as many other books in Daisy format in eLiburutegia and 80 Daisy audio books more. According to Morales, it is because in the eLibrary there are no audio books in general.

This gap has been accentuated in the last year and it seems that gradually the sector’s agents and institutions have begun to pay attention to the gap in the production of audio books in Basque.

At the beginning of the year, the Basque Government hired the company Dosdoce to produce a report on the production and marketing of audio books in Basque. Likewise, the EITBLab laboratory, created this year, has also focused its attention on the production of audio books. The first copies have been published this week.

Actor, director and bender Iñaki Beraetxe, for his part, started recording audio books on his own and, from there, the producer On Time has built a small study with the aim of learning the trade of audio books and starting to work. Although today it is easy to have technical means to record oneself, professional production requires more expensive resources, time and work. Beraetxe is also president of the Bieuse Basque Bending Association, and states that there is still no agreement to regulate audio books and that the market is quite deficient internationally. He says that as an actor, it takes a lot of work and a lot of work. In general, they estimate that it takes three hours to record one hour of the final result.

In Catalonia, the production of audio books is well developed. Speaking with the professionals in the area, Beraetxe states that they attach great importance to the different works to be performed: reading the book, determining the narrator and the dialogues, performing a proper casting, deciding how the interpretation will be... Because it has to be borne in mind that it will normally be heard by the helmets and you have to have a proximity. Considerable attention must also be paid to sound effects, mastering and equalisation.

As for reading, he says it is also special, because you have to know how to read the book: “This kind of work has been a challenge for many.” In the Dubbing Association, it seemed that audio books could be a job opportunity, even if they were thin. However, what seemed to be humility is now, unfortunately, standing still. The success of what has been done remains to be seen.

The first batch of EITB,
according to Itziar Aranguren of EITBLabe, the laboratory analyzes what can be the products of public value for the Basque society, especially considering the digital divide that the Basque country has. In the midst of the boom in digital audio consumption around the world, they saw that they were not produced in Euskera. Consequently, the situation was analyzed and relations were established to initiate the production of audio books. So they realized that the producer On Time came to the same conclusion and was already taking some steps: “We decided to row together in the same direction.”

The first step they had was to make an appropriate selection of titles for the maximum dissemination of that public value: "The goal has been, above all, to choose different jobs that people like differently."

So the request for production of audio books was made to On Time. In Aranguren’s words, the result obtained is above or above international standards: “We want to give the Basque Country a quality product, which has produced very well prepared audio books.”

This first part of the experiment will consist of three phases. This week the first three audio books have been published on the EITBpodkast portal: Collection of short stories to sleep for children Lo potolo (Alberdania, 2019). The science fiction novel, translated by Lander and Zigor Garro, by Albert Sanchez Piñol Larrua beltz (Txalaparta, 2008), Bihotz handiegia (Susa, 2017), by Eider Rodríguez, read by six women from Euskadi Irratia, and finally by Jenisjoplin (Susa, et al. In the second phase they audio the four books that have come out of the Go!azen series. In this case, the actors in the series have made announcements. The last part of this first batch will take place on November 25, with the publication of the audio book of a novel in Basque that has not yet been published, and that has as its theme violence against women.

Aranguren points out that when selecting books, consideration has been given to the criteria generally applied to audio books, i.e. works dealing with the fleeting character of audio. To do so, they reflect with many writers and affirm that the attitude of the writers has been satisfactory. They have opted for the selection of books of different genres, rhythms and themes to reach as many people as possible.

The publication of audio books also has a sub-goal of promoting reading. Because there are a lot of people who listen to the audio book and then read the book on paper. In addition, the books selected have already received a warm welcome when they were published on paper.

In the production studio On Time, the writer Uxue Alberdi first recorded her verse in the book
Lo potolo in the voice of the writer. With the excuse that Jenisjoplin also proposed to record it. Iñaki Beraetxe collaborated to do this.

According to Alberdi, reading for an audience is not the same as recording what will be heard alone, and for him it has been an opportunity to learn: “There are writers who feel comfortable writing and are already, others who also participate in groups of readers, for example, and more. I'm very interested in the word and the communication, that cloak of mouth-to-mouth, first order, both in person and in a recording. I enjoyed recording a lot, when I put my breaths in a voice and when I didn't... I was fascinated by the voice with the word and it was a great opportunity to work on it. In addition, it relaxed a lot with whispers for almost three hours.” For the recording of the novel, a total of eight sessions of three hours, eight mornings were held.

As for the audio books, Alberdi says that here there is not much culture and customs for that, but that is believed, that you have to do it, because the few that exist are not very socialized either. “I’ve always liked to hear the texts in the voice of writers, especially in the car, since I was young. I'm wearing a Julio Cortazar double CD instead of music. I also hear them when I go for a walk.” In this sense, he states that the culture of podcasts contributes to the dissemination of audio and similar books. However, he considers that reading and listening to audio books are two non-substitutable experiences, and that audio books can help people with reading difficulties to enjoy literature, learn the language...

For Alberdi it is also learned by doing on this issue and what not to do. On the one hand, it considers that the Basques tend towards conservatism, which is believed to be perfect if everything is done. On the other hand, he says that there are other interests that are against and that balance has to be sought. "Creating a distrust between different interests is normal, but the path is conflict. There are these two forces, and the way will come out of those discussions."

According to Joxe Felipe Auzmendi, of the producer On Time, the production of audio books has the same price regardless of language, the problem is that the market of books in Basque is very small and the solution is to go to the institutions. “Someone must take the bull from the branches: the administration, the writers and the editors. And if you start to do it, you have to do it in an orderly fashion. But for that, an approach must be made.”

The systematic production of the audio books of most of the books that are currently published in Spanish is lacking. Therefore, Auzmendi proposes a selection of writers and editors, as was done with the Department of Universal Literature. “With a good heart we would agree at least 90% of those selected. But here we spend years thinking and talking, and in the meantime, there are no audio books in Basque. The effort made by EITBpodkast is very tidy. People may not want to put it there, but then where do we put it? There is a better alternative to do so.”