Barnes & Noble is trying again with a full-fledged offering of digital audiobooks, available for single-title sales or through a monthly subscription priced at $14.99. They promise a catalog of over 300,000 titles. In a bit of brand confusion, the new initiative is called Barnes & Noble Audiobooks, though it’s tied to the all-but-dead Nook brand, since customers will listen to their audiobooks through the Nook mobile apps. (Separately, BN recently had to discontinue in-app purchases through their Android Nook app, after Google changed their terms to require the use of the Google Play billing system.)
Audio
Spotify Releases “Bookcast” of Parton-Patterson Novel
Spotify announced the release of its first “bookcast,” an audiobook/podcast hybrid of portions of Dolly Parton and James Patterson’s Run, Rose, Run. The bookcast combines excerpts of the audiobook narration with songs Parton wrote and recorded as the soundtrack for the book. The project functions as a preview for the novel (out March 7) and the soundtrack (out March 4). The first two four-minute episodes are available now, with another released next week and the last six dropping on March 7, when the book is available. “This unique audio experience exemplifies the limitless potential of audio and Spotify’s commitment to […]
Bertelsmann’s RTL Will Launch Multimedia Streaming Service that Includes Audiobooks
Last month, Bertelsmann unveiled the first part of an ambitious digital multi-media subscription service in Germany from their giant broadcasting subsidiary, called RTL+. Starting with a rebranded version of their previous service streaming service, by the second quarter of next year the new multi-media subscription will combine “video, audio, magazine, and book publishing assets” from across Bertelsmann divisions. Bertelsmann ceo Thomas Rabe told FAZ, “Our idea is: one app, all media,” adding that, “There is no other offer like this in the world.” Their goal is 10 million subscriptions by 2026 in Germany and the Netherlands. RTL’s existing video streaming […]
Spotify to Acquire Findaway and Storytel Will Buy Audiobooks.com
Two big acquisitions will fuel hopes for players of scale to challenge Audible’s dominance in core markets. Spotify will acquire distributor Findaway as part of their goal to develop a meaningful presence in the audiobooks market, pending regulatory approval. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021; the terms were not announced. Findaway bills itself as the “world’s largest audiobook distributor,” and is a key player in distributing digital audiobooks to Apple, Google, Overdrive and others. The company also provides tools for independent authors to produce and distribute audiobooks and sells audiobook players to brands. “The […]
Zauner Tops Libro.fm’s Bestselling Audiobooks of the Year
Libro.fm announced their top 10 audiobooks of 2021, “based on sales through 1,500+ independent bookstore partners.” Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, narrated by Michelle Zauner (Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group) The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, narrated by Rebecca Lowman (Simon & Schuster Audio) Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid, narrated by Julia Whelan (Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group) The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, narrated by Julia Whelan (Macmillan Audio) People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, narrated by Julia Whelan (Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group) Klara and the Sun […]
Swedish Study Finds Print Bestsellers Are Longer, More Complex Than Top Audio Titles
In a paper published in the Journal of Cultural Analytics, Karl Berglund and Mads Dahllöf of Uppsala University in Sweden compared bestselling print and audiobooks and found marked differences in the top titles in each format. Berglund and Dahllöf analyzed print bestsellers and the most popular digital audiobooks on subscription platforms (“beststreamers”) published in Sweden between 2015 and 2019, a total of 172 novels. They found that “Print bestsellers are longer, syntactically more complex and varied, and seem to focus more on depiction. Beststreaming audiobooks, by contrast, are shorter, more straightforwardly written, and appear to highlight plot and dialogue.” Even […]