Recording vs. Release credit for Audiobooks

MusicBrainz
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I’ve been listenig to the last little bit of audio in my digital audiobooks to try and add additional credit in MB. Usually, the audiobook will have a couple releases, one with an individual track, for the m4b, and another release with a set of tracks, for a set of mp3s or representing the chapters in an AAX from Audible. When there’s only one recording like for the M4B / AAX, distinguishing between it and the release feels kind of arbitrary, which makes it that much more confusing.

A lot of these additional relationships seem like they could be put on the release or on the individual recording / recordings. I’m pretty confidant about putting the executive producers at the release level, but less for others. The credits at the end of the book commonly include the producer, director, production company, recording engineer, engineer, sound designer, whoever did post-production, and whoever did quality control. I’ve also heard credits like “coordination handled by” and “scheduling by”. I’ve just been pretty everything besides mastering and executive producers at the recording level.

I’d appreciate any thoughts on what should be attributed at the recording level and what should be attributed at the release level for audiobooks.

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When you know something is relevant to every recording, then it can go at either Release or Recording level. Producers, recording engineers, etc. All fine at both position.

What is a tricky headache are the performers. You should only credit these on the recordings you hear them on. Which can get tricky to do.

You’ll get a couple of key artists who are talking on every track, then others who only pop-up for a couple of lines part way through the show. These are the people who are the hardest to link to the exact correct recording (unless you listen to your audiobook\audio drama with a pad of paper)

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Yeah, aside from listening to the any short tracks, like the opening and ending credits, I usually attribute all of the narrators… until I get around to listening to it next, with a pad and paper, of course.