Audiobook

Simply Audiobooks launched a new service today; they’re planning to do to audiobooks what Pandora and Spotify have done for music.

I think of audiobooks as content I download, but here’s something new. Rather than selling audiobooks, Simply Audiobooks has decided to try a streaming service. For $25 a month users are offered unlimited access to a collection of 11,000 audiobooks. You can listen via an HTML5 web app; most browsers are supported including Android and Safari.

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The SF publisher Apex Books has just announced its first 2 audiobook releases are now available from Iambik Audio. You can buy them now as DRM-free MP3s.

An Occupation of Angels, by Lavie Tidhar, is a murder mystery set in a world with real Angels. When one is murdered, the protagonist is ordered to find out how and why.

Open Your Eyes, by Paul Jessup, is a love story between an exploding star and a young universe.

Apex Book

A new audiobook publisher has just opened its doors today. eBook Voice is a small operation that wants to bring a personal touch to making your audiobook. Right now the total staff consists of just the founder, Morgan Barnhart, but she is looking to expand.  She’s willing to work with all sizes of projects.

image by Leo Reynolds

Today marks the opening of Audiobook Creation Exchange, Audible’s newest project.

This is more than simply an audiobook publication platform. It’s designed to bring together authors (who want to release their books as audiobooks) with the actors, studios, and publishers that are needed to make it happen.ACX also enables automatic distribution to major audiobook stores like iTunes, Audible, and more. And it really is designed to recruit all the participants. There are active registration buttons for everyone from authors to narrators and studio pros.

Do you know what this is? Amazon is side stepping publishers again and going straight to the authors. Of course, Amazon has owned an audiobook production company for some time now, but this is the first that it’s reached out to authors directly.

What would Superfly, Saturday Night Fever and The Graduate be without the music? Good movies, but something would be missing. Musicians have long seen the potential of partnering with filmmakers to release work, so what about partnering with authors?

The rise of enhanced eBooks offers musicians and writers a new avenue of creative expression, potentially. Imagine reading a new Jennifer Egan book with its original soundtrack by Sonic Youth. It would give a whole new meaning to the term audiobook.

It could help authors find new readers and bands find new listeners. Plus the music videos could be about characters from the book, making author promo videos a lot more interesting instead of just another talking head author shot.

What do you think?

The book and eBook distributor Ingram Content group has recently formed a partnership with Recorded Books, an audiobook publisher and distributor. Ingram will provide Recorded Books with access to its extensive collection of 14 thousand audiobooks from nearly 80 publishers. Recorded Books will then be able to distribute a significant and broader selection of titles to libraries through its OneClickdigital™ platform.

David “Skip” Prichard, President & CEO, Ingram Content Group, had this to say: “Digital audiobooks have rapidly gained in popularity over the last few years due to the widespread availability of devices and the convenience. We are thrilled to collaborate with audiobook leader Recorded Books to expand the availability of e-audio to listeners worldwide while simultaneously helping publishers and libraries deliver more content to more readers in more formats.”

The new content expected to be available by the end of June.

The UK based SF publisher Angry Robot Books will release its first audiobooks.

The publisher has signed a contract with Brilliance Audio, an Amazon subsidiary based in Michigan, to record audio editions of new releases and selected titles from the AR backlist. Brilliance Audio publishes more than 600 audiobook titles annually. They are a leading publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy in audio, having published multiple Hugo and Nebula nominees and winners.

Did you know that Amazon had a sub that made audiobooks? I knew about Audible, the audiobook retailer, but Brilliance Audio is new to me. But I see that Amazon bought the company 4 years ago, so perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise.

via ARB

image by brittstift

Audible is holding its semi-annual half-price sale right now, and the sale runs until April 29. You can chose from among 1100+ audiobooks from Audible’s stock of nearly 85,000 titles. All audiobooks on sale are complete and unabridged.

The sale includes a broad selection of titles, including new releases like Cryoburn, Legend of the Guardians, and Naked Heat. Also, if you buy 4 titles you can earn a $10 credit towards your next purchase.

Audible via MobileRead

AudioGo, the BBC audiobook publisher, has announced a half off sale which will run to March 31st. Approximately 740 titles are on sale, with content ranging from current BBC productions (i.e.Torchwood) to children’s audiobooks, classic BBC radio programs, as well as original productions based on classic SF novels. Prices vary from around £3 to upwards of £10.

According to the Help Section, the audiobooks on sale are offered as DRM free MP3s. Note: the selection will vary due to geographic location, but at least some titles are available in the US.

AudioGo