Harper Collins will create AI audiobooks of select foreign language backlist titles, working with text-to-speech software company ElevenLabs. “The agreement will lead to the production of audio versions of select deep backlist series books that would not otherwise have been created.” ElevenLabs’ interface can create an audiobook in about an hour that will, according to Harper, “reflect the emotion, intonation, and pacing of the written word in audio, delivering a high-quality experience that sounds human,” the Bookseller reports. A release from ElevenLabs states that “HarperCollins will continue to devote time and resources to voice actor-led productions which are intrinsic to […]
Audio
Spotify Will Raise Prices to Help Pay for Those Free Audiobook Hours
Spotify plans to raise prices later this year in the US to help cover the cost of the 15 hours of audiobooks per month that they added last year, Bloomberg reports. They also report that Spotify will add a new basic tier with no audiobook hours for $10.99 a month. (That’s the current price for the premium plan that does include audiobooks.) Bloomberg says Spotify will raise prices $1 a month for individual plans and $2 a month for family/multi-user plans in five markets by the end of April, including the UK, Australia, and Pakistan.
Spotify’s New Audiobook Plan To Launch In Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand
Spotify’s new audiobook plan, which gives Premium subscribers 15 hours of audiobooks per month, will launch in Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand on April 9. The plan previously took effect in the US, the UK, and Australia last fall. Subscribers will have access to 250,000 titles. Payment terms for publishers and authors remain opaque.
News Corp CFO Discusses Audio and AI Partnerships
At the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet, and Telecom Conference yesterday, News Corp CFO Susan Panuccio addressed Harper Collins’ disappointing results last year, partnering with Spotify, and the use of AI technology. Panuccio attributed Harper’s 2023 sales, which fell 10 percent, to “the Amazon reset with their logistics” and inflationary pressures on manufacturing. Additionally, she said, “quite frankly, we didn’t have as good of frontlist as what we have had in other years.” Still, Harper has succeeded in cutting costs and is in good shape for the rest of the year, she said, with the 5 percent reduction in headcount, as […]
Distribution: Storytel and OverDrive
Storytel will make over 25,000 audiobook titles produced by company-owned publishers available to OverDrive’s library clients around the world. The companies note, “This agreement will offer access to an unparalleled and culturally diverse selection of tens of thousands of premium audiobooks in 20 languages.” Storytel head of catalog management expansion markets Stefanie Lamprinidi says in the announcement: “We are excited to be entering into this partnership with OverDrive to offer our vast and diverse language catalogs of high-quality audio stories, spanning the wide range of local and international titles to libraries, schools and their users around the world,” “We share […]
Spotify Launches Audiobook-Only Plan
Spotify has introduced a paid subscription plan focused on audiobooks in the US. For $9.99 per month, the Audiobooks Access Tier allows users to listen to 15 hours worth of audiobooks. Music and podcasts remain ad-supported, like a free account. (That’s one dollar per month less than Spotify’s Premium plan, which includes 15 hours of audiobooks along with ad-free music and other features.) “Spotify offers several subscription plans tailored to fit a variety of users’ preferences and will continue to invest in giving our listeners more options to cater to their unique needs,” the company said in a release.