Petition to Resume Unabridged Audiobook Backlog

The Essential Legends line updated prominent Legends novels with updated covers and newly recorded unabridged audiobooks.

We finally got unabridged productions of Stover's Shatterpoint, Darth Maul, and Stackpole's X-Wing books, to make a few.

But the newest upcoming Essential books do not include unabridged audiobooks, which suck. Hard.

I would re-buy an unabridged audiobook in a second (and have for all of these). I have no interest in the same story with a new cover.

It's an oversight to appeal to the contemporary reader without an unabridged audiobook, not to mention ableist. This leaves out more people than you think, not just the visually impaired. Many on the spectrum and those with ADHD. And more.

If the goal is to bring in new readers, an unabridged audiobook is a no brainer, from younger readers who consume content differently than when I was young, to older readers who balance work, raising a family, and a love for reading.

Sign this petition, whether you are an audiobooker or not.

https://www.change.org/p/calling-fo...uction-on-the-backlog-of-star-wars-audiobooks


PS, if you sign it, let us know in this discussion!

 

Oh I totally agree. But I don’t think change.org petitions will do anything. If you want to change this tell people to buy the audiobooks. Sales will be the only thing to show that they should be continued.

as someone who has ADHD and dyslexia my favorite way to read is by listening and reading at the same time.


But if you really want these to continue convince people to buy the audiobooks. I do truly think that’s the only way. Plus more chatter about it on social media. Both of those are much more likely to show Lucasfilm.

look at TCW. I really don’t think it was the dozens of change.org petitions that did anything. I think it was how much TCW was watched on Netflix and how much TCW buzz was still on twitter and the like for over 6 years.

 

I don't disagree about change.org. But it won't hurt.

 

Oh it won’t. But sharing the change.org link is more impactful than actually signing it. Creating this thread is more impactful. Because it gets people to learn about the issue and that they have stopped making unabridged audiobooks.

 

Had more to do with the fact that they had a new streaming site that they were trying to fill up with content and the fact that Filoni really wanted to do it.

 

Yes those factors helped. But fan interest if it wasn’t there Lucasfilm wouldn’t have done it.

 

I'm sure the streaming numbers for TCW on Disney+ helped as well. People who somehow didn't discover it when it was on Netflix discovered it on D+.

 

I wasn’t including it in my speel just because season 7 was certainly in production when D+ launched.

 

Check out these FB comments! Almost all are like...we want the unabridged audiobooks for these!



Wonder why they stopped.

*Well that link didn't work screenshots:

 

Odds are that we have to buy the paperback copies to get the audiobook versions going again.

 

I'd say they'll do whatever makes them money. I'm wondering if the newer unabridged audiobooks they made for previous Essential Legends books didn't do well enough to justify the investment.

 

Almost certainly. Disney seems to be in a cost cutting mood. Especially with LF Singapore going the way of the dodo. If they are willing to cut that 15% of the company. they are very willing to cut anything that wasn’t making a profit or soon wouldn’t. You have to actually put in a bit of money to do an audio book.

doing new cover art is almost certainly way cheaper. Way cheaper

 

I won't go into that the new cover art is ugly. Lol. But I agree on your point.

I'm also not sure if audiobooks are less profitable. But maybe?

Audiobooks are very popular these days. And people are not buying as many hardcopies. A new cover works the same for all mediums.

But in talking profit, not sure how well an audiobook for an old book does. Not real buzz or anticipation. Plus all the production cost.

And I think also the time. If they want to churn out these Essential Legends book (are they essential even...who is raving about Fatal Alliance?), the time to produce new audiobooks simply can not keep pace. That is best case scenario. Although I'd feel better about it if at least one had a new audiobook. Last two waves, no audiobooks (unless the audiobook already existed).

Hopefully, the effort isn't dead. I really wanted unabridged I, Jedi, among others.

@DarthInternous
Can you speak to this at all?

 

The Essential Legends Collection is like the biggest missed opportunity to me. Cover art is almost uniformly worse than the old covers. No promotional bonus material (interview with or introduction by the author, new short story, etc). Short stories that came with previous printings not included. Only includes books that were still in print and widely available anyway, omits rare and out-of-print young readers books. Not every EU adult novel is being included, so people who just want a uniform look to their collection won’t even get that. The new audiobooks were the only perk, now they don’t even do that anymore.

Without the audiobooks, I don’t understand why they even keep releasing these. Are there that many people eager to pay twice the price for old books with worse covers?

 

I would have to assume there are. Or else they wouldn’t continue them.

 

I suppose I can. First - everyone involved with the ELC is entirely aware of the desire for and utility that unabridged audiobooks bring and how much the reading community values them (we don't need petitions for that). It was one of the big benefits we saw in starting the ELC in the first place. As for why they stopped, it isn't because we don't care, or think readers don't care. Maybe some other day we'll discuss the exact reasons, but for now I would characterize it as a "pause" rather than "abandoning" or "cancelling" or any of that stuff. I would imagine (and hope to) that we will get back to making these at some point, though I'm not going to give you an exact date or estimate or anything, so as to not set artificial expectations just to sound good.

I realize that silence is often annoying, but its one of those instances where since the whole explanation can't be shared yet, or there's some uncertainty, that sharing a piecemeal or incomplete one would probably be unhelpful, and so we simply say nothing. (I know silence can often lend itself to a belief that something nefarious is going on, that's not the case at all.)

 

So you're saying there's a chance! Lol.

In all seriousness, thanks for the breakdown! I appreciate the honesty a ton (including that there are things that can't be shared at this point for a variety of reasons).

But maybe unpause for I, Jedi?

*Edit: to be clear, I didn't think there was a big cover up to keep us from listening to Corran Horn pining about his identity crisis issues.

 

The secrets Lucasfilm doesn’t want you to know.

 

You’ve given me hope that the unabridged Legends Audiobooks may return one day. And that’s more than I’d thought we’d get. I have hope that one day we may get more of these excellent audiobooks that bring back fond memories of days gone day. Thank you, @DarthInternous!