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Audiobook Business News
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These guys set up an entirely new breed of VC fund in Stockholm - and are investing in audiobooks...
"We want to be a complement [in between] business angels and the international VC funds."
Byron Wagner's insight:
The fund’s first investment is Stockholm-based Kitab Sawti, an audio book company focusing on the Arabic market. Stockholm VC says it wants to invest in 30 companies in the coming years.
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Alex Watt offers a humorous defense of listening to audiobooks versus reading physical books.
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Apple and Amazon have agreed to end an exclusivity agreement that made Audible the only seller of audiobooks inside of iTunes.
Byron Wagner's insight:
This is "Yuuuuge..", to coin a phrase
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When we remember Bob Deyan, we should remember him as he would have liked to be remembered… not with heavy hearts, discouraged by the ALS that brought this big-hearted man down, but rather with a s...
Byron Wagner's insight:
I'm very sad to have to post this, and very glad to have known him...
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What would a live studio need if it worked directly on IP networks? That was the task BBC R&D set itself with a project that began in 2012 and which will hit a peak when it plays a central role in the world’s first live end-to-end IP production in Ultra HD to be conducted at the Commonwealth Games.
IP has been used by many broadcasters, BBC included, to link a studio to remote locations but the missing piece has been an IP production experience using internet protocols to switch and mix the videos. The BBC R&D trials conducted during the CWG next month promise to do just that, while also testing the limits of network performance by shunting 4K data around the UK in a collaborative production workflow – live.
“The concept is to introduce software and IP into the overall chain so it can be used alongside existing technology like DTT,” said Matthew Postgate, controller, BBC R&D. “IP will enable us to be more flexible with services we already produce, and longer-term, to introduce new kinds of services.”
BBC R&D describes IP Studio as an open source software framework for handling video, audio and data content, composed of off-the-shelf IT components and adhering to standards like IP packet synchronisation protocol IEEE1558. Via Nicolas Weil
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You\'ve got tickets to the Audio Publishers Association\'s Convention (APAC) and/or the Audies Gala in New York next week? Great! But arrive prepared. APAC panelist and double-Audie nominee Johnny Heller sets the stage with this unofficial - and sometimes irreverent - guide to what\'s what ...
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Byron Wagner's insight:
Have you ever recorded an audiobook before? Producer Paul Fegan shares his experience working with a narrator on their first audiobook at Bitsixteen, Fegan's professional recording studio in Dublin, Ireland. Learn about what worked and also what Paul would have done differently!
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As producer, director, sound engineer, and narrator, Ross Ballard II wears many hats for his independent audiobook publishing company.
Byron Wagner's insight:
"We consider ourselves a boutique audiobook studio that can spot the diamonds in the rough, undiscovered books that the large Oprah Book Club type publishers won't touch. We give voice to works that would never see the light of diction if it weren't for us. I'm constantly amazed at how many really good authors with good books are going begging for attention from publishers that don't appear interested in discovering new writers. They seem happy enough to just continually pound their audiences with the same genre and slap a known name on every book their selling... We record a different set of "night fighters" -- authors who toil away at their day jobs then burn the midnight oil creating wonderful characters and storylines. They are not artists starving for their breakfast. They are artists starving for attention. We like to point to these ink slingers and say "Ha! We found them first!""
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Amazon solidified their position in audiobook publishing today. The Sunday Times (paywall) reports that Amazon has licensed the back catalog from the bankrupt audiobook publisher AudioGo.
Byron Wagner's insight:
The Bookseller reports that this deal only includes 5,000 titles, and that it won’t take effect until February.
AudioGo was one the leading audiobook publisher in the UK. Originally known as BBC Audiobooks, it was spun off in 2010 and sold to a group of private investors and venture capitalists. AudioGo currently has a catalog of over 10,000 titles, including audiobooks from leading authors like Dick Francis, J.K.Rowling, Stephen King, and more.
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Librarians and teachers will have access to over 31,000 digital downloadable audiobooks through Mackin's MackinVIA platform.
Byron Wagner's insight:
School distributor Mackin Educational Resources has joined with digital content provider Findaway World to provide access to over 31,000 digital downloadable audiobooks from Findaway through Mackin's MackinVIA platform. Through the platform, librarians and teachers will have the ability to choose from a selection children’s and young adult titles that can be either streamed to a computer or downloaded to a mobile device through the MackinVIA app.
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With more people carrying smartphones and digital devices, audiobooks are becoming more affordable, more accessible and more popular.
Byron Wagner's insight:
“I read all the time. It’s all I do. I have on my smartphone, 34, at the moment, 34 recorded books. I got up today and it was pitch-dark in downtown Provo and I went for my morning walk listening to a book. And I’ll drive back to Salt Lake City Airport listening to a book. I shaved this morning listening to a book. I go through three hours of listening to books a day. I go through 70 books a year. Over a decade, that’s 700 books — adds up — and a little bit of it sticks,” the Pulitzer Prize-winner said. “So read. Read, read, read more.” 
Angela Quach's curator insight,
November 8, 2013 6:03 PM
This article speaks mostly of the pros of ebooks. Coming from a news site, they seem quite reliable, and they do update often.
This article seems much too focused on the pros, and is definitely biased, though it does make good key points. It fails to show the negative sides of eBook, and though the con below is more my opinion than anything, I still believe it is one thing taken away when books are not read by us, but by another to us.
Books are now being read to us instead of being printed; it is convenient for those who need to multitask. However, the power of imagination is slowly deteriorating when someone else reads it to us, and it makes the reading just a little less fun.
Angela Quach's curator insight,
November 11, 2013 1:31 PM
This article is from yet another reliable news site that updates quite often. The article is better than the first, and it does discuss one of the negative sides for ebooks.
Ebooks are prospering, and that is good, since it has become much easier on the consumers' pockets, especially with this time and economy.
However, since ebooks prosper and are more convenient, nobody buys books, and hence the bookstores lose business and are in decline. Borders had claimed bankruptcy, one of many bookshops to fall into the pits.
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Oregon-based Blackstone Audio has acquired the unabridged audio rights to four books by international bestseller, Gabriel García Márquez.
Byron Wagner's insight:
Speaking to the major purchase, John Stanton, CEO of Blackstone, said: "Mr. Márquez’s works are among some of the finest ever written, it is a great honor to be trusted to bring these important works to the audiobook market.”
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The England midfielder gets involved in the magic of Alice In Wonderland, narrating a new audio version of the book
Byron Wagner's insight:
"Frank Lampard is often called the 'most intelligent' footballer in the Premier League, he's written his own children books and is rumoured to have an IQ of over 150, which would put him in the top 0.1% of the population.
So it makes sense that he'd join the likes of Michael Sheen, John Humphrys and Caroline Quentin in supporting a campaign to open up the world of reading to blind and partially sighted people. Lampard lent his voice to a new Alice In Wonderland audiobook, narrating the following section of the famous story for Royal National Institute of Blind People day." |
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Avid audiobook nerds tired of dealing with Audible’s nonsense or long library queues now have a new way to get a steady stream of the good stuff. Scribd just announced it will be reinstating …
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From the outside, it looks like another suburban house. But inside it's Deyan Audio Services, a pioneer audiobook maker.
Byron Wagner's insight:
Yay Deb!!!
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Each year, Germans buy more audiobooks than e-books, and the voice actors are as big as rock stars.
Byron Wagner's insight:
This past summer, 20,000 Germans filled a Berlin stadium just to listen to the most popular audiobook series. Tomas Urbinagets inside the audiobook craze.
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A funny thing can happen when you tell a narrator that they’re going to be recording a “Non-Fiction, Audiobook”, because what many of them hear is “Non-Acting, Audiobook.”
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The rise of digital audiobooks has created more work than ever for book narrators. But the availability of subscription serves has left less cash for production costs—just ask Caddyshack alum Peter Berkrot.
Byron Wagner's insight:
Thanks to Amy Rubinate for the heads-up on this...
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In some countries, much more than maybe in the US, it’s considered gauche at a social occasion to ask a stranger, “What do you do?” But at a meet-and-greet of voice over professionals, it’s understandably standard procedure.
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Byron Wagner's insight:
Better Read, Better Paid is a five-week course study that burrows into sophisticated insider techniques and methods to advance audiobook storytelling and dialogue skills.
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Recorded Books gives 20 libraries audiobook collections valued at $1,000 each as part of virtual trade show. | Virtual Strategy Magazine is an online publication devoted entirely to virtualization technologies.
Byron Wagner's insight:
“Our library is thrilled to win an audiobook collection from Recorded Books,” said Sally-Adrina Taylor, Rapid City Public Libraries, Public Services – Library Associate . “Audiobooks are a popular resource at our library, and we look forward to adding these titles to our collection for our patrons to enjoy.”
Recorded Books sponsored The Digital Shift: Reinventing Libraries and as part of the event, attendees were asked to complete a survey on library trends, which registered them for a chance to win a $1,000 audiobook collection.
“We are thrilled with the number of libraries we were able to support with this giveaway,” said Rich Freese, Recorded Books CEO and President. “Audiobooks continue to be a very important media for libraries and we gain great satisfaction in this opportunity to thank our loyal customers for the support we have received throughout the years,” Freese added.
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I recorded an audiobook for the first time this summer. I’ve waited until now to write about it because the release of the book was timed to coincide with this week’s 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.
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This month, a former Secretary of Defense, a Tony Award nominee, Audie Award winners, actors, and authors will be heading to the studio to record audiobooks for the likes of Penguin, Hachette, and Naxos—just to name a few.
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A Jordanian startup taps into Islam’s rich oral tradition
Byron Wagner's insight:
In a small recording studio in Amman, Jordan, a slight young woman sits in front of a computer, adjusting pitch and sound levels. “Excellent! Go,” she says, waving to the man standing on the other side of the soundproof glass. Seconds later, a rich baritone floods the control room. The words are centuries old, from a collection of classic Arabic poetry to be released as an audiobook later this year by a startup called Masmoo3.
Its founders are brother and sister Ala and Alaa Suleiman. The idea came to them in 2008 when Ala, 35, a computer engineer and a devotee of English audiobooks, couldn’t find an Arabic-language version of Steve Chandler’s 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself. Audiobooks are rare in the Arab world, despite a strong oral culture and persistent illiteracy (a quarter of adults in the region cannot read). Muslims listen to Koranic recitation and religious sermons on audio cassettes, CDs, and their mobile phones, so the Suleimans were certain there’d be demand. Ala estimates the market for Muslim audio materials is as large as $300 million. “If we can get 10 percent of people who listen in the Arab world, this is the ultimate customer base we want in the next five years,” he says.
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A total of 57 employees were made redundant at audiobook publisher and retailer AudioGO, following the formal appointment of BDO as administrators yesterday (31st October).
Byron Wagner's insight:
Other employees (AudioGO originally employed close to 100) remain in place to assist the administrators with the next steps in the process. The Bath-based company suspended business operations on 22nd October. A statement from BDO said: "Discussions were advanced with a number of potential financial buyers, trade buyers and investors for the UK business, but it was not ultimately possible to finalise a sale of the UK business as a going concern or to secure the investment needed." |
Transcript of the chat session...
LeaFebruary 8, 2013 - 10:01 amAs a listener, if I concentrate on the performance of a well-narrated book, I stand in awe of the talent and training it takes to make these characters come to life. I’m amazed at the rapid change of voicing required to clearly and consistently perform one character then another then another in a multi-person conversation. And I’m thoroughly impressed that I don’t hear a single intake of breath. In my mind, I can’t see how all of this is possible without training, an immense amount of practice, the guidance of a director (at least in the first stage of learning to narrate), and some degree of raw talent.