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 ]
A one-off edition of a Harry Potter spin-off book, handwritten by JK Rowling, is being sold by its owner. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2016-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Dull Margaret, a darkly humorous tale illustrated by the artist DIX, is tipped to be a hot property at the Frankfurt book fairThe actor Jim Broadbent is making his first foray into fiction with a graphic novel inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 16th-century painting of a “strong, intense... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sales of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has given US-based Scholastic Corp a huge boost, as the company has today posted a first quarter revenue increase of 48%. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sales of 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' helped add almost $70 million to Scholastic’s trade division in the quarter ended August 31, and drove a 104% jump in revenue in the company’s children’s book publishing and distribution group. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-09-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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J K Rowling and Jack Thorne’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) has held on to the number one spot for a sixth week—by the tips of its fingers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-09-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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“War and Peace” star Tom Burke is to play Cormoran Strike in the BBC’s upcoming adaptations of JK Rowling’s adult crime novels written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-09-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) has racked up five weeks as the Official UK Top 50 number one—but the gap is closing. According to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market, the playscript sold 36,485 copies for £455,824, just 7,503 units above runner-up The Girl on the Train... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) has snatched the Official Top 50 number one for a fourth week, according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-09-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Paula Hawkins is back on top of the iBooks bestseller list with 'The Girl on the Train,' pushing J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts 1 and 2' down into the #2 slot. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Illustrated tales introducing youngsters to ‘iconic works of classic literature’ such as Jack Kerouac’s beatnik adventure are missing the pointMy daughter is five, and all for knowing about what her parents are up to. Her father was reading The Lord of the Rings on holiday last week, and she... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-08-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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J K Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) once again easily triumphed at the top of the charts, shifting 86,525 units last week through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts 1 and 2' continues its domination of the iBooks chart as it nets another #1 slot, followed by Amy Schumer and Paula Hawkins. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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J.K. Rowling is revealing more details about the school of witchcraft and wizardry in new ebooks. The books follow the July debut of the West End play 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.' Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2016-08-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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German readers were as wrapped up in Pottermania as readers in America and England in July, as the eighth installment in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts 1 and 2, took the top of the fiction chart in Germany at the end of July. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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J.K. Rowling and Paula Hawkins kept their #1 and #2 slots, respectively, on the iBooks bestsellers list as 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts 1 and 2' and 'The Girl on the Train' continue to captivate audiences. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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JK Rowling just can't seem to let Harry Potter go. Having launched the "eighth book", in the form of a two-part play, the best-selling author has revealed three new texts will be released next month. Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2016-08-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) has once again taken the Official Top 50 number one spot, with 168,389 copies sold for £1.86m in its second week on sale. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In its debut week, print units sales for the #1 book in the country, ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts 1 and 2,’ are more than double those for the next 99 books combined. Plus Colson Whitehead’s ’The Underground Railroad' gets the Oprah nod and the #3 slot in Hardcover Fiction, the... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Arthur A Levine) sold nearly 2.6m print units in its first week through BookScan US, the third-biggest single week total for a book since accurate records began. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mass merchandisers accounted for 33% of the first week sales of 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts 1 & 2,' according to Nielsen BookScan. The uptick was a much needed boost for the embattled retail channel. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-08-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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