Sound off Saturday (or S.O.S.) is a feature created by me to ‘sound off’ on all the juicy topics. Whether it be book topics, or anything in general, this will be the place for me to shout out my opinions. At the bottom [of each post] there will be a question posed to open discussion(s), so please leave your thoughts in the comments. Disclaimer: Link all outside posts to Dog-Eared & Bookmarked’s S.O.S. page if you use these discussion topics!
The other night I Tweeted about being aware of purchasing abridged audiobooks. A lot of the times they are cheaper, so people buy them thinking, "Wow, what a steal!" and then later realizing they bought a shortened copy of the book they wanted. In turn, that sparked a question from a follower asking what the difference between abridged books versus unabridged books are, and then later sparking the question, "Are ARCs abridged?" This all leads to today's S.O.S. post: Just what are ARCs, and more importantly can they be considered abridged?
Before I begin, I'll re-post my original thoughts on unabridged books versus abridged books. If you're interested, this was first posted on March 15, 2011 and can be found in the S.O.S. Topics Page [up above], or by clicking HERE.
a-bridge
Any book that has been shortened. Any book that has omitted material but retains the basic content. The gist of the book is still intact.
un-a-bridged
Not abridged. The book is in it's complete entirety, just as the author wrote it. Stealing from the dictionary... unabridged books are in their, "entire, complete, uncut, uncondensed" formats.
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Should you buy abridged books and audiobooks? Yikes! I would say "NO!" but, it really is a personal decision. For me, why buy a book if you don't want to read all of it? It's like school all over again. We run out and buy the movie instead of reading the book; or, buying cliff-notes and study guides instead of reading the books.
If we need to read the condensed versions, we need to stop and evaluate if we need to read the books at all. I buy books because I want to read/listen to them cover-to-cover. I would feel so cheated and guilty if I bought a shortened version. What a slap in the face to the author. "I liked the important parts of your book... just not the rest of it!"
If I see a book or audiobook that is abridged, I skip over it. The only good thing about abridged books are they're cheaper.
Abridged books are always less money; however, they're also less in content and greatness.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I've read some great articles about abridged classics for kids, so I wanted to touch on that quickly. Sometimes I feel like it's great to give a lighter version of a classic to kids. Why shouldn't kids be introduced to the classics? However, one argument against this shifted my opinion. If the material of the classic book is not appropriate for young kids, why not wait until they're a little older?
It doesn't make sense to push Classic Literature on kids when they are not able to understand and appreciate the material. Wait until the kids are older! They'll like the books better... and the books will stay in their original format.
To conclude, I say NO to abridged books. What do you say?
It's needless to say my thoughts on abridged books have not changed. I still think they have their place, but overall they shouldn't be purchased. If you want to read a book, you should read the ENTIRE book. Don't you like how I get on my soap box and preach it? Well, you should too because it's such an injustice to authors to read shorter versions of their books. The only exception would be if the author wanted the book abridged, and then again it would have its place. So, my final thought would be to be very careful when making a purchase; especially an audiobook purchase. Audiobooks can often be mistaken as unabridged when purchasing.
Now on to the questions:
Just what are ARCs? First of all, I didn't do research for this answer, but I do know enough about ARCs to have a pretty good idea on just what they are. ARCs equal Advanced Reader (or Reading) Copies. They are unfinished galleys issued by publishers to a select few people for review/ public relations purposes.
There are only a handful of ARCs that are made, as they are a lot more expensive to produce than finished copies, and they are NOT made for the general public. ARCs go to reviewers, librarians, and anyone else in the press field.
ARCs are distributed many months before the books official release in order to generate early buzz. Once an ARC is in the hands of a reviewer, that reviewer now has the job of creating publicity. So, now months leading up to the release, people are starting to hear about the book and wanting it. By the time the book is released, it already has people pre-ordering, or going out immediately to buy it.
ARCs are NOT FOR SALE. They should NEVER BE SOLD. They SHOULD ONLY be used as a key to publicity. Any ARCs that are on EBay, etc., should not be bid on. It is a terrible, horrible, thing for me to see ARCs selling on these websites. They should only be GIVEN away. They can be used for giveaways on blogs, or just given away in person, as long as there is no money traded in the giveaway. ARCs should be considered a gift.
To conclude with the answer, ARCs are unfinished, not fully edited, books only for publicity purposes.
Can ARCs be considered abridged books? Again I would like to state I did not do research for this answer. In my opinion, knowing what I do about abridged books and ARCs I will say no, ARCs and abridged books are totally different things. Abridged books are FINISHED and SOLD; whereas, ARCs are most definitely not finished, and are illegal (right?) to sale.
The confusion that can be associated with these two is this: people mistake ARCs as abridged only because they are not finished copies. However, abridged books are finished copies and sold all the time. They purposely omit content because it was approved to do so. With ARCs, they are still in the process of being edited, and usually many changes are made before it's complete.
In the end, just be careful when buying books. You don't want to get an abridged book unless you set out to buy one. Plus, ARCs are not abridged, in my honest opinion.
How do you feel about abridged books? Do you think they have their purpose? if so, what? Knowing what you do about ARCs, and unabridged books, do you consider them abridged?
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I definitely agree with you on abridged books, I never buy/read abridged books. like you say, if I don't want to read an entire book, why would I read it at all?
ReplyDeleteThe same goes for the abridged classics for children, a book should be read when someone is old enough to read it as a whole, so there is no point to force an abridged version of a book on a child who is otherwise not ready for that kind of read.
However, the abridged classics do have their purpose, for example in ESL teaching, where student are old enough for classics, but don't have enough language knowledge to deal with the complex vocabulary of a classic. As an ESL teacher, that is the one example I support and welcome abridged books, especially classics.
Interesting post. I would much prefer to read the unabridged version, it spoils some parts of the book. However, some books just drag on forever and don't get to the point, which is annoying. Thanks for posting! :)
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