Books on CD, podcasts, and now the website dublit.com continue to transform how people interact with literature. There was a time when a person had to attend a book reading and signing event in order to hear authors speak their own words. With dublit, that luxury is available at the click of a button.
What is dublit?
The website dublit.com is devoted to hosting audio versions of short-format literature at no cost to site visitors and contributors. The About Us page explains the name dublit "is short for 'dubbing literature'." Members can create "audioshorts," or recordings, of themselves reading or reciting original written work. It's also possible to upload a previously recorded file. Writers retain all rights to their own stories, and are given options to copyright audioshorts through Creative Commons licensing, if not already licensed.
The site allows members to listen to recorded work, create their own audioshorts, download recordings (and in some cases written text), rate audioshorts, react or comment on files, search by genre, and add a mini-dublit player to a website or blog. People can connect with friends and join shared-interest groups. It's also easy to share an audioshort by email. The site design feels like a combination of a social media site with an online library.
Find and Share Literature From Many Genres
Audioshorts span a wide expanse of genres and topics: poetry, nonfiction, essays, romance, mystery, science fiction, humor, erotica, travel, classics, cooking, children and teens, westerns, and much more. Members can tag audioshorts with keywords to help people who visit the site search for and find whatever kinds of stories they want to hear.
It's also possible to bookmark audioshorts and find them again in the virtual bookshelves under the Explore section of the site. The shelves have space for bookmarked files, dublit recommended pieces, dublit features, contacts' favorites, and a history of recent listens. From the Explore page, members can podcast audioshorts and subscribe to rss feed from dublit.
For story-lovers, audiobooks have been an important invention; they can make a commute fly by, offer background entertainment during spring cleaning, share another interpretation of a written work, breathe life into words. Audiobooks are one way for people who can no longer read a book to still access the world of literature, and the comfort and intellectual stimulation it provides. For writers, who may or may not have a book published, who are interested in another way to release their words into the world and connect with others through literature, dublit is one answer.
References
dublit.com
Marissa Bell Toffoli - Writer, editor, and poetry teacher Marissa Bell Toffoli interviews writers at http://wordswithwriters.com.
