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Purpose: Audio books have a special stand in the publishing industry. Publishers around the world produce audio books with different criterions and standards. This study aimed to identify and introduce the most important criterions for evaluation and production of audio books from the producers' point of view.
Methodology: this study was performed with qualitative content analysis of interviews that transitionally done with seven producers of audio books in Tehran. A purposeful sample of the producers was selected and have been conducted a deep and semi-structured interview with them. Initial codes were extracted after data analysis and were monitored, evaluated, and recognized in a multi-stage process. Finally, we obtained four major categories and 21 subcategories of criterions.
Findings: The results of this study pointed that most important production and evaluation criterions of audio books from the producers' point of view were placed in four major categories of “content”, “presentation”, “technical”, and “other criterions”. in total, 21 sub-categories have been extracted: Audience, using motivation, selection criteria, subject, copyright, edition, hardware, software, human resources, audio quality and features, publication format, distribution, narration, music, fractionation and naming, , searchable, bibliographic information, advantages, disadvantages, common causes, and production problems.
Originality/Value: This study identified production and evaluation criteria of audio books from the producers' point of view for the first time in Iran. Participants proposed examples of criteria that can increase the quality of audio books.