When is a book not a book? When it is performed by a starry cast of hundreds. Except it has always been more complicated than thatNews this week of a 17% hike in the UK’s audiobook sales might seem like a niche business story, but it raises an existential question. What exactly is an audiobook today? Is it a book? Is it a play? Or is it becoming something else entirely? What is clear is that a jostle for market dominance is driving it into new dimensions. The streaming platform Spotify followed its move into podcasting two years ago with the launch of an audiobooks business. Though it has yet to start making its own recordings, last autumn it made a deal for 200,000 audiobooks to be available to its premium users.Not to be outdone, Amazon-owned Audible – accustomed to being the market leader – upped its game, hiring the Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes to record multi-voice versions of the Dickens novels Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, and announcing last month that it had reached an agreement for a recording of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, voiced by more than 100 actors and featuring a “groundbreaking new soundscape”. The new Potter audiobooks, it said, would not usurp but “sit alongside and complement” conventional recordings by Stephen Fry and Jim Dale, which Audible also hosts. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-05-10 17:25:03 UTC ]
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Imagine buying a car that locks you into one brand of fuel. That new BMW only runs on BMW gas. There are plenty of BMW gas stations around, so convenience isn't an issue. But if a different brand of gas station offers a discount, a membership program, or some other marketing campaign, you can't... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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W H Smith says it increased its market share over the Christmas period, with retail analysts... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hachette Ireland has promoted commissioning editor Ciara Doorley to the position of editorial... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Children's publishing emerged relatively unscathed from a recessionary 2011, with 13 of the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Apple can improve education and empower authors to create ever-better digital books without limiting customers. Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2012-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Even as more consumers buy dedicated digital reading devices and tablets, a hybrid market for books is developing in which readers will buy both print and digital books. That was one of the main conclusions from Verso Digital’s “2011 Survey of Book-Buying Behavior,” presented by the company’s... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-01-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Booksellers Association has pledged to write to the chief executives of all 390 local... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Children's publishers remain confident that the printed book will be the dominant format for... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Tip Sheet called up Sarah Bagby, owner of Watermark Books in Wichita, Kan., to find out what’s being exchanged during the annual post-holiday gift-correction season. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Scottish actor David Tennant, known for his roles in “Doctor Who” and with the Royal... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers are planning to up their marketing campaigns over the crucial festive period,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Playboy magazine will relocate its editorial, art and photo departments from Chicago to Los Angeles in April 2012, ending an almost 60-year occupancy in its Midwest headquarters. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-12-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The History Press is in consultation with a "small number" of staff over redundancies,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury has set up a literary events arm called Bloomsbury Institute, hosting literary salons... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The only non-fiction title shortlisted for the 2011 Guardian First Book Award has taken home the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Scholastic UK is building its younger fiction in order to replicate its strength in the Young... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The surge of students attending higher education institutions ahead of funding changes in 2012... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Guardian has put its PaidContent website up for sale with a price tag of $20m (£12.7m), three years after it bought the New York-based digital publishing and events business. Continue reading at Media Week
[ Media Week | 2011-11-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The British newspaper publisher says the pioneering Web site is "is a high-quality asset but our focus in the US is on building the Guardian." Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2011-11-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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