and thanks for joining us for the about books, program and podcast produced by c-span's book tv. this series looks at the business of publishing with news updates, insider interviews and timely information about new website. book tv talk and now a focus on a recently released audiobook, the january six tapes is a 20 hour unabridged audio book of the house. january six committees hearings about the 2021 riot at the us

capitol. it was released by pushkin industries brendan newnam oversees the audio book program at pushkin. and he recently joined us to talk about the project. mr. newnam why an audio book? what are we going to get from that that we can't get from reading the hearings or watching them? well, you're speaking to someone who's worked in audio most of his career as a broadcast journalist. and i do believe the audio medium in general has an intimacy and a portability that other mediums do not. you can't read a book while doing the dishes. you can maybe read a book at the gym. so in general, i think the format allows itself, you know, it allows it's a media that allows people to take a different places, specifically with these hearings. the testimony is so compelling. it was so well put together. the committee did such an excellent job in creating our filling the mandate of house resolution five of three that we

thought it was best to share directly with people, as opposed to just a summary of it, which, you know, they'll produce the summary, it'll come out into the world. people will be able to read that book. also, they'll probably be a narrator reading the summary of the book, but it really isn't as moving as hearing the testimony from the capitol police officers, from the former attorney general and all of the witnesses and testimony that was gathered for the committee. so this audio book will be unabridged. it is unabridged. we do put interstitials in to kind of help a listener at home who can't see something. so, for example, if someone nods their head instead of saying out loud, no. we have a narrator who says, tells the listener clues them in on what's happening. so we will fill in the dots, the blanks for visual cues. but other than that, it is unabridged. how much production went into this audio book? it's a fair amount of production. it's just in bulk.

i've worked on all sorts of documentaries. i would say the committee and their team did the hard part, which is collecting the voices, editing it, putting together a narrative. having hosts. and they did a pretty darn good job of cluing people in at home on who? who you're listening to and repeating things for people joining halfway through. so they did a lot of the legwork. but as far as producing this, it was a matter of gathering the raw audio. listening to a closely, finding those moments which would be disorienting for someone who's listening instead of watching or reading. and then having a narrator fill those moments and then mastering it in organizing it in a way that's accessible and easy for people to listen to. now, brendan newnam you also put an introduction on with preet bharara. why? well, as you know, preet, who now has a podcast state freed, but is the former u.s. attorney for the southern district, is very qualified to speak on constitutional matters which the january six events of january six really touch upon. he's also covered this a bit on

his podcast, talking to jamie raskin and others and we just wanted someone to kind of contextual wise these hearings. i think the other reason we wanted to put them in the world is people are busy, i'm busy, we're working day in, day out. when the hearings were happening, you would catch a little bit at night on television or maybe a little bit in the morning on the radio. but to understand how rich they were and how well executed they were, it and to stop it, to take some time your life, to actually listen to them requires an invitation. and preet seemed like a great person to to provide that invitation to people. so this audio book is available now. is that correct? that is correct. how many how many downloads? so far are you know? that's a great question. i haven't i honestly haven't checked since we put it into the world, because i've been on to my next project. but at least thousands last time i checked in. but i don't have the exact number at the moment. and if people were interested in

downloading these january sixth audiobook hearings where would they go? they could go to pushkin dot fm, which is our website, where we have an audio book store where people can download it and purchase it directly. the advantage of that is they can download the january six tapes and they can listen to it in any place. they normally listen to podcasts so they can listen to it in apple podcasts or they can listen to it in their spotify app or podcasts. so you can listen to it anywhere. or if people get their audio books are more accustomed to getting them through apple books or through audible. they're available there as well. how much does it cost that is. that is an excellent question. you caught me off guard there. either i'm on the little embarrassed that i don't have the exact number. i can look it up, but i don't want to i don't want to disrupt our conversation. and so i apologize. perhaps a producer can help us with that. well, mr. newnam, what is pushkin industries? so pushkin industries is an

audio publishing company founded a few years ago by the author malcolm gladwell and jacob weisberg, who is the former head of slate. and it's an audio publishing company that works in two formats primarily. one is podcasts. we have several dozen podcasts in the world from revisionists history, which is malcolm's. michael lewis is against the rules. joe la pause. the last archive mostly made up of nonfiction, popular nonfiction authors. they're intelligent. they have the integrity. they're journalistically rigorous and they're whimsical and they're engaging. and so that is kind of the broader programs and our podcasts deliver that seasonally, and they're free and available on all podcast channels and then we also have this audio book section, which is what i work on, which is another way people listen to information. and in that world we do two sorts of things. one, we create auto audio originals, which are

documentaries or audio books that we make from whole cloth. i recently did a project on paul simon that was a musical memoir. we thought this was a story better heard than read because when you're talking about the sounds of silence, you want to hear the sounds of silence. and we did just that. and so far we've created around a dozen of these audio originals. and these you can purchase as audiobooks through audible or directly through our website. well, one of the compelling things about the januar, three, six events and hearings was some of the visual elements, the members running through the halls of congress, etc.. how do you address that in this audio book? you know, video outstrips audio in many, many departments, and audio also outstrips video and others. so as i mentioned earlier, every time there's a visual element where the listener might be disoriented, we have a narrator come in explaining what happens. but if you listen to these as i

have in their totality, there aren't that many blind spots, maybe certain element of urgency that you would get a visceral feeling you might receive from seeing something is dampened because you're not seeing it. but i would say that that's maybe counterbalanced by the deep inside you get into the human voice and the emotion in many of these people speaking when they're talking about the events that happened, you know, for example, on, i believe it was day four, which is when they talked about the president's pressure on election workers. you had ruby freeman, you had all these georgia kind of election workers. they were so you can hear in their voice, they're quaking from this. it's just the anxiety and pressure they felt put upon them by the president directly and just the the importance of their position and the fragility of a democracy generally. and honestly being not seeing the visual element, just sitting with someone speaking and hearing their breaths and

hearing those beads provides a certain emotional immediacy that i would argue is maybe more profound than visual. so brendan newnam this is about 20 hours of audio book. the january 6th hearings, correct? that's correct. what about when the final report comes out? do you plan to follow up with the final report at the the final report is the summary itself, and that will be available many people will make that available if there is an additional hearing. yes, we will add an addendum chapter. there basically are chapters are days. we have day one through nine. if there is a day ten where they release their findings and have a ceremony around that and do kind of a committee hearing around that, we will release that as an additional chapter. so what are some of the pitfalls? what are some of the mistakes you can make when creating an audio book. i think what we look for at a project and we talk to many people about many sets of

projects, i think the key element is there needs to be a reason to tell it in sound. you've asked some questions about what about this versus print, what about this versus visual? if a story is better told that way, if something happened, if it's a historical story that happened in the 18th century and there's no audio component to it, then we'll probably stay away from it because there's maybe a better way to tell the story. so that's where we center most of our projects that are around music are around actors. they're around things about the voice or certain scientific things where sound is an important element. and so i think the one pitfall would be not doing that and undergoing one of these productions without thinking, thinking about that. the other is, i think, some audio is, is akin to writing where a lot of people can do it. now we have voice memos on our phone. we're used to zoom now after covid communicating with family members, but quality audio, which is mixed and clear and clean and and the brand is

groomed. is it it does have a different feeling and it and if you do not do those things, it tries the patience of the listener. and so i think they're just it's akin to film versus a video shot on your phone. there are qualities that can make it richer and a more satisfying space for listener. and i think if you are hobbyists were to try it i think they could get run up in in in in that as well. so brendan newnam of pushkin industries the growth of audio books has continued for the last ten years or so has been a big growth sector. yes. audio in general with podcasts has grown and we can see that continue to grow in the publishing industry. audio books is one of the most successful profit centers of print books, actually. and so those rights are valuable and continue to be more so and yes, more and more people appear to be listening each time there's a study or an analysis

done, the numbers appear that that people are growing. it's not too much of a surprise. i'm speaking to you right now. i'm wearing airpods. these didn't exist a few years ago. they make it even easier to be listening to things and also the offerings are richer. pushkin, as well as other companies are making things for the ears specifically that makes it more compelling. and i feel like the barrier to entry is a little bit lower and people are are listening more. how did you get into this? that's that's a that's a good question. years ago, out of out of college, i saw an ad in the local newspaper to date me. and it was for a research assistant for a job for a show that you may be familiar with called fresh air with terry gross. that was my first job out of the gate. i would run to the library and research actors and whoever terry was speaking with and i got bit by the bug. i loved the i loved the production, i loved the people that work there. at that time.

they were cutting tape in order to put together the interviews. i, i loved being surrounded by arts and culture and cultural journalism generally. and that was the beginning of my career and kind of love affair with audio. and you have your own podcast as well, correct? that is correct. over the years i've had a handful of podcasts. i and most recently i have a show called not lost, which is a podcast put up by pushkin. it's a travel show ostensibly where i travel from montreal to mexico city, visiting cities, and i tried to get invited to a dinner party in each town. the theory being that only by breaking bread with people in each of these towns can you truly understand what it means to live there and be there now. brendan newnam your physical book brunch is hell. have you done an audio book of that? i have. i did many when i released brunch as how we did the audio book and we narrated it ourselves. and that was kind of in the

style of what you'll hear many audio books, but not the ones in pushkin in that i went into an anonymous studio in manhattan and they just ran me right through it. i read it straight, straight through, didn't even do pick ups or or or slow down. i read and then they threw it out into the world. fortunately, i had some experience doing radio, so it worked out, but if i had to do it again, i probably would have been more deliberate and made it a little richer. brendan newnam is vice president at pushkin industries. the january sixth, 20 hours of unabridged hearings is available as an audiobook at pushkin dot fm. for 1499. mr. newnham we appreciate your time. country that are showing real, remarkable momentum. and a reminder that after words airs every sunday at 10 p.m. eastern time on book tv. well, thanks for joining us for about books, a program and

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hello, steve. how are you today? great to be with you. i'm delighted to be with you, too. i've got to just say. thank you. this was a fabulous read. exciting interesting fun and also a the best travel guide and the most