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 ]
Industry group says rise of vocal technology could upend many creative fields, including audiobooks – the canary in the coalmine for voice actorsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastVoice actors say they’re... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-06-29 20:00:00 UTC ]
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Washington D.C.'s Folger Shakespeare Library reopens with an impressive new exhibit, audiobook narrators get their due, and more. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-06-24 15:00:00 UTC ]
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Spotify has a new plan for US subscribers that keeps you on the old $11 monthly pricing — as long as you don’t mind ditching audiobooks. The new Basic tier includes the music and podcast content you get from Premium but without 15 hours of audiobook access, a recently added feature we suspect... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-06-21 18:36:40 UTC ]
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Golden Voice narrator Kate Reading joins host Jo Reed to discuss her career in audiobook narration. Her experience with audiobooks began with her first job at the Library of Congress’s Talking Books program, which gave her an education in audiobook narration. In their conversation, Jo and Kate... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-06-21 08:01:04 UTC ]
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This week has felt like a month worth of news, now that we've wrapped up Apple's WWDC 2024 and Summer Game Fest in LA. In this episode, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss their final thoughts on Apple Intelligence and the company's upcoming software, and they chat about some of our coverage... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-06-14 11:30:57 UTC ]
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Spotify has once again drawn the ire of the music industry. The National Music Publishers' Association has called on the Federal Trade Commission to examine the streaming service's addition of audiobook content into all of its paid subscription plans. According to the group's FTC complaint,... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-06-12 23:52:55 UTC ]
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A survey from BookNet Canada found that 58% of audiobook listeners in the country obtained their books from free sources, such as the library or YouTube, while 62% of e-book readers and 51% of print book readers found free sources for their reading material. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-06-11 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The Hogwarts sports game Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions now has a release date. The multiplayer title, announced last year, will arrive on PC and consoles on September 3. The game, a companion to last year’s Hogwarts Legacy, is “a complete, standalone Quidditch experience” that “engages... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-06-07 21:29:33 UTC ]
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The newly released 2024 APA consumer survey shows a rise in US audiobook revenues, 63 percent saying they use a subscription. The post Audio Publishers Association Survey: 9-Percent Growth appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2024-06-03 13:01:03 UTC ]
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As part of its efforts to force Spotify to be more transparent about how it pays authors, the Coalition of Concerned Creators commissioned a survey to discover how audiobook listeners felt about the service. It found mixed results. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-06-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The audiobook market in the United States is steadily growing, the Audio Publishers Association reports, with revenue increasing by 9% to $2 billion in 2023 and 38% of American adults having listened to an audiobook in the last year. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-06-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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'AudioFile' has named the three winners of its annual Golden Voice awards, which honors voice actors who have made significant contributions to audiobook publishing. The recipients are Dominic Hoffman, Robert Petkoff, and Kate Reading. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-06-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Audiobooks continue to be a major bright spot for the industry. According to Audio Publishers Association, in 2022 alone, publishers’ audiobook revenue grew a whopping 10% to $1.8 billion. Here, PW takes a look at the publishers, platforms, and production companies bringing you the best in... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The world’s most popular streaming service has expanded into audiobooks, with a suite of services to offer publishers, authors, and agents and with a listening base hungry for audiobook content. (Sponsored) Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-20 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Welcome to the shiny new version of Best of Book Riot! Who doesn’t love a glow-up? 💔 Nobel Prize-winning author ... Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-05-15 15:31:13 UTC ]
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How many of these free audiobook sources have you tried, and which ones are your favorite? Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-05-15 10:00:00 UTC ]
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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... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-05-10 17:25:03 UTC ]
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HarperCollins eked out only a small profit in its latest quarter, with a 14% increase in digital audiobook sales insufficient in offsetting softer sales to Walmart and Costco and slowing sales of romance books and children's books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-05-09 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Audiobooks are fast becoming ‘a major route to market for consumers of books’, the trade body saysThe number of UK audiobook downloads increased by 17% between 2022 and 2023, according to new data from the Publishers Association (PA).Revenue from audiobooks rose 24% across the same period to... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-05-07 15:28:43 UTC ]
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'Blood at the Root,' LaDarrion Williams' first novel in a three-book deal — a series that centers on a Black boy in a YA fantasy saga — is the kind of fiction he wishes existed when he was a kid. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-05-03 10:00:51 UTC ]
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