Sandra Felteau and Joanie Tremblay record their audio books at Studio Bulldog in Longueuil. (Photo: Le Reflet – Denis Germain)
To promote French culture, La Prairie’s Joanie Tremblay and her colleague Sandra Felteau founded the Narra application, which brings together nearly 10,000 audiobooks in French, including 1,500 titles from Quebec and Canada.
“It’s the most rewarding end of it,” Ms Tremblay comments on the role she plays in influencing the audio book industry. It’s supposed to be at the birth of something. There was a need in Quebec that was not being met.”
Laprairienne is aware that there is already a platform like Audible on the market, but above all she wanted to create one that would allow French-language books “not to get lost in a glut of English-language titles”.
The two women started producing audio books in 2019 at the Bulldog studio in Longueuil. This sound recording and post-production studio specializing in the production of audio books was founded in 2015 by her husband Mathieu Lacourse and his colleague Marc St-Onge.
Joanie Tremblay works there as Managing Director, while Sandra Felteau represents Distribution HMH, a publishing group. The latter became Mrs Tremblay’s first client and the two decided to prolong their association.
The self-described great reader worked for two years with her colleague on the application, which launched on the Apple Store and Google Play Store in October.
“Reading, no matter how you approach it, opens up a world of possibilities,” Ms Tremblay continues. [Nous avons] aims to help Quebecers fall in love with their literary culture.
alternative
Joanie Tremblay believes that digital consumption is increasing, especially among young people. The 36-year-old producer believes audio reading can be an alternative for those who don’t like holding books.
“Perhaps a young person who has trouble reading might want to do it differently,” she explains. It has been proven by various studies that whether we read with our ears or on paper, the effects on the brain are the same on the development of vocabulary and creativity. If it’s just to appeal to a population that has trouble reading, it’s an additional tool to read more and access literature.”
According to the publisher, audiobooks often become “a different work” than the original title, she clarifies.
“We add sound design, music, environments and it almost becomes a mini audio movie,” she comments. Otherwise, there are novels that adapt very well to the narrative, where the work is told almost verbatim.
The founders claim to have built their business model to ensure transparent and fair compensation for the publishers they work with. Additionally, they conducted several consultations with the local book community before launching Narra. They wanted to be sure they were responding to a need in the industry and initiating a dialogue rather than a negotiation with the publishers.
characteristics
The platform offers two different subscriptions, local subscription and a la carte purchase. The first allows you to get a monthly credit at a cost of $14.99 per month that can be used towards a catalog dedicated solely to Canadian books. The catalog is available à la carte and is offered at the price set by the publishers.
Among other things, listeners have the option of adjusting the playback speed, activating a timer, inserting bookmarks or comments during playback. Ms Tremblay advises that these are features intended for the general public but are more relevant to those who have accessibility issues.
“We’re not just about selling books. It also gives access to what we’re doing well here.” -Joanie Tremblay, co-founder of Narra
Popular titles available
-The little Prince;
-A thousand mysteries, a thousand dangers;
-The piston;
-The books of Kim Thùy;
The Harry Potter books were there, but they were removed for a while. You will be back soon.